More 12th-grade boys than girls see themselves marrying, according to a nationwide study that finds the fairer sex souring on wedlock for the first time in half a century.
The Institute for Family Studies reported this week that 73.3% of boys and 65.4% of girls responding to a University of Michigan survey in 2023 and 2024 planned to tie the knot. The remaining high school seniors said they did not expect to marry or had “no idea.”
That’s a sharp change from 83% of senior girls who said they anticipated marriage in the annual survey between 1976 and 2010. By comparison, the conservative think tank’s analysis found that 76% of senior boys expected to marry during the same period.
The institute noted that girls became “more pessimistic” about marriage in the survey after 2010, fueling a sharp change after the pandemic: 67% of girls surveyed after 2020 anticipated nuptials compared with 72% of boys.
“These declines in marriage and family expectations among 12th graders are concentrated among those who identify as liberal, moderate, or ‘no political ideology,’” said Grant Bailey, an institute research fellow who analyzed the data. “Conservative boys and girls see only slight declines.”
Mr. Bailey added in an email that “social media and the smartphone revolution play a central role” in the shift, among other factors.
The Virginia think tank analyzed publicly available data from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, which has conducted its Monitoring the Future Study annually at the 95% confidence level since 1975.
This week’s analysis combined the latest responses from 2023 and 2024 because the university asked fewer high school seniors about marriage during those years.
From 2015 to 2023-24, the Institute for Family Studies noted that the share of 12th-grade girls who said they had “no idea” about getting married jumped by 7.5 percentage points. The share of girls expecting not to marry surged by 7.3 percentage points over the same period.
“This turn is unfortunate,” Mr. Bailey said. “As research shows, married adults are happier, healthier, and more satisfied with their lives.”
Reached for comment, some analysts not involved in the research said the numbers confirm broader U.S. changes.
They pointed to Census Bureau estimates that 29% of U.S. households were single occupancy in 2025, reflecting a record-high number of Americans living alone. They also highlighted research showing that more women have delayed childbirth as living costs rise and social values shift.
“This trend is deeply concerning insofar as young women have traditionally been more marriage-minded than young men,” Brad Wilcox, a University of Virginia sociology professor and senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, said in a phone call. “The move away from embracing marriage is a recipe for misery.”
Mr. Wilcox said that two things have made women more pessimistic about coupling over the past 15 years: anti-marriage messaging among young women on social media and the “male malaise” of young men struggling to launch careers.
“It has an impact on the economy,” he added. “But we are also social animals who flourish when we live for and with others.”
Identity crisis
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. birth rate hit a record low of 1.6 births per woman in 2024. That’s well below the replacement rate of 2.1 births needed to maintain the nation’s population without higher immigration numbers.
Rachael Culpepper, executive director of American Heritage Girls, said her Christian scouting organization has tracked a parallel rise in girls struggling with their identities.
“When girls lose confidence in marriage, it often points to broader questions of identity and purpose,” Ms. Culpepper said. “Years of cultural change have sown doubt.”
Some conservative Christian advocates also blamed popular culture for the findings in this week’s study.
“The short answer is because the leftist elite have been bashing marriage for years,” said Richard Harris, executive director of Truth & Liberty, an evangelical Christian advocacy group, commenting on this week’s study.
“Taken together, it appears that women are not simply delaying marriage, but that marriage itself has been culturally downgraded to a ‘capstone’ for a woman’s life rather than a cornerstone,” said Emma Waters, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
She chalked that up to a steady diet of “girl-boss feminism” steering more young women to prioritize career over family.
Tim Goeglein, a vice president at Focus on the Family, said the decades-long message that young women can “have it all” without a spouse has threatened to make married couples an endangered species among emerging adults.
“We must work to restore institutions such as marriage, and restore healthy male-female relationships,” said Mr. Goeglein.
