Cultural shifts drive decline in U.S. marriage rates, Heritage report says

Declining wages among working-class men are not the main driver of marriage decline in America, the report said.

Cultural shifts regarding sex and unwed childbearing as well as heightened material expectations for marriage are the driving forces behind America’s falling marriage rates, according to a Heritage Foundation report.

While declining wages among working-class men is sometimes cited as reason for declining marriage rates, especially among moderate- to low-income brackets, Rachel Sheffield, a Heritage Foundation research fellow, said “the data tell a different story.”

Over the past 50 years, the report said, marriage rates have declined from more than 90% of Americans having married by ages 30-35 in 1962 to 55% as of 2025.

“While inflation-adjusted earnings did decline among working-class and lower-income men during the 1970s and 1980s, earnings rose thereafter and have fluctuated since then — even as marriage rates have steadily dropped,” the report said. “Although economic factors may explain why marriage declined during some periods across the past several decades, cultural shifts instead have been the main drivers.”

“The economic argument doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny,” Sheffield told EWTN News. Sheffield said census data about the median earnings of men in their 20s and 30s has been “mostly flat” or fluctuated but not gone down consistently overall. Though “at certain times there were downturns,” she said, wages have “reached some of the highest levels they have had in the last 50 years.”

“I think the bigger point is that in the past,” she said, “owning a home or having a particular size of home was less of a prerequisite to entering marriage than it is today.”

Sheffield said one of the factors driving higher material expectations is that “people go into marriage today with more of an expectation that this might not last because of shifts over time in divorce rates.”

According to Pew Research Center data, 1 in 3 Americans who have ever been married have also experienced a divorce. However, Pew Research Center notes that divorce rates have been down since the 1980s, partly due to the married population shifting to adults with higher levels of education and people with lower levels of education becoming less likely to marry at all.

While Sheffield said cultural norms about sex and childbearing have shifted across income levels, the shift has been most impactful on the working class, which she said is more likely to have children out of wedlock.

“People at all education and income levels have embraced the cultural push to disconnect marriage and sex, but among the college-educated, roughly 90% of children are born within marriage,” the report said. “While the college-educated are most likely to promote the cultural messages that marriage is unnecessary, outdated, and even oppressive, they do not practice what they preach.”

Furthermore, she said, “having a child [outside of marriage] is going to make it less likely for you to get married down the road because it is just a greater family complexity.”

On a policy level, Sheffield called for funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to be used for “strengthening marriages,” including through high school marriage education programs.

She highlighted Utah’s “Healthy Marriage Initiative” as a strong example of a state providing marriage-preparation resources, including a discount on marriage licenses for couples who complete premarital education programs.

In addition to front-loading marriage education at the high school level, Sheffield called for a reorientation of cultural messages in the media, TV shows, and advertisements that “have information on why marriage is important and that can lead people to educational resources on how to strengthen marriage.”