Why Are Young People Leaving Religion

Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.   

Daniel Cox, at The Survey Center on American Life:

The question remains: what is the reason so many young people are leaving religion? There’s no single answer, but the most compelling explanation is that changes in American family life precipitated this national decline. American families have changed dramatically over the past few decades and many churches have been slow to respond. Americans raised in blended families, interfaith families or single-parent families are far less likely to have participated in religion growing up. And these types of family arrangements have become far more common today than they once were. The family explanation is compelling for a few reasons: 

1. Young people today are leaving much earlier than those of previous generations. Seventy percent of young adults who have disaffiliated shed their formative religious identities during their teen years.
2. The Americans most likely to “leave” religion are those with the weakest formative attachments. Compared to previous generations, Generation Z reports having a less robust religious experience during their childhood.
3. Most Americans who disaffiliate say they “drifted away” from religion rather than experiencing a singular negative or traumatic event that pushed them out. To put it another way, they quiet quit.
4. A wealth of research has shown that religious socialization in the family is a key component of the transmission of religious values, identity, and beliefs across generations.

Ethnicity and Married Birth Parents

 Data Tools 6. The Geography of Traditional Families in America Charles Murray American Enterprise Institute April 2023

The ethnic differences in the prevalence of traditional marriage are huge. Among the nearly five million children in the ACS from 2014 to 2021, these were the percentages of children living with married birth parents broken down by the child’s ethnicity: 

Child’s Ethnicity Married Birth Parents 

Asian ............................82% 

White ............................62%

 Other or Mixed ,,,,,,,,,,,,50% 

Latino ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,43%

 Black ............................23% 

Asian children and black children effectively live in different familial worlds. The difference in living situations between white and black children is less dramatic but still extremely large.

Marriage Rates

Many posts have discussed marriage and family.

Erica Pandey at Axios:

Americans are increasingly forgoing or delaying marriage — a dramatic shift from societal norms a generation ago.

By the numbers: Over the last 50 years, the marriage rate in the U.S. has dropped by nearly 60%.

What's happening: Taxes and some other legal structures still give an advantage to married couples, but the formal benefits of marriage are diminishing, said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins. And the societal pressure to marry has eroded dramatically. "Life is still a bit easier if you're married," he said. But many of the life events we link to marriage, such as cohabitating or having kids, are increasingly occurring outside of marriage.

Reality check: Even as the marriage rate is falling, the institution still holds value in the U.S., said Susan Brown, co-director of the National Center for Family & Marriage Research.Case in point: High school seniors' attitudes toward marriage have remained relatively stable over the past several decades.

In 1976, 74% of seniors said they expected to get married, and in 2020, 71% said so, according to an ongoing University of Michigan study.

Unmarried Voters

 Karlyn Bowman, Ruy Teixeira, and Nate Moore at AEI:

Understanding the unmarried share of the electorate will be increasingly important in coming years. Married voters are still a significantly larger share of the electorate than unmarried ones. But young people are marrying later, if at all. In 2021, according to General Social Survey data, only 15 percent of 18–29-year-old women were married, half of what it was in 2000. The young today are more ethnically diverse, less conventionally religious, and more Democratic or independent than previous generations.

Two trends confirm the liberalism of young women today. An Astin study of entering college freshmen found that in 2016, before the Me Too movement exploded, 41 percent of the women self-identified as liberal or far left, but only 28.9 percent of the young men did. Between 1966, when this survey began, and 1980, men were more liberal. The gap shrank during the Reagan administration, and since the late 1980s, women have been more liberal/left than men in their first year of college. Our AEI colleague Dan Cox showed a similar pattern using Gallup data from 1998 through 2021, with 44 percent of young women describing themselves as liberal in 2021 compared to 25 percent of young men. Additionally, as the August American Perspectives Survey shows, the Dobbs decision appears to be a significant generational moment for young women, who saw the decision as more ominous than their male counterparts. If young women carry these attitudes with them as they age, Democrats will reap the rewards.

Religion and Class

Daniel Cox:

It has long been presumed, and in some cases feared, that higher education—and the widespread availability of information and knowledge via the Internet—would undermine religious commitments. Actual evidence for this is lacking. While religious doubting has grown in recent years, the most educated Americans show up to services most often. Even as they report less certainty in their religious beliefs, they participate more regularly in worship services. Higher education appears to reinforce regular religious participation.

...

The simplest explanation is that college-educated Americans are more likely to prioritize religious participation and to pass these experiences on to their children. ... The growing class gap in religious attendance is partially attributable to plummeting marriage rates in non-college households. Three decades earlier there was only a modest gap in marriage rates between Americans with a college degree and those without. The gap has since tripled in size and continues to grow. For a number of reasons, married people tend to be more religiously active, whether it’s due to having greater personal and financial resources, more social stability, or firmer desire to raise children in a religious community.
...

One thing that seems clear is that the decline of churches will likely make inequality worse. College-educated Americans are more active and involved in every sphere of American social and civic life, from book clubs and PTA meetings, to sports leagues and town halls. On average, they have more friends, broader social networks, and more extensive ties to the places where they live. If you want a fuller accounting of the abundant ways college graduates reap these social capital benefits, check out this recent report: “The College Connection: The Education Divide in American Social and Community Life.” Churches offer one way to bridge the gap, but fewer Americans are turning to them.

Alone

 Dana Goldstein and Robert Gebeloff at NYT:

In 1960, just 13 percent of American households had a single occupant. But that figure has risen steadily, and today it is approaching 30 percent. For households headed by someone 50 or older, that figure is 36 percent.

Nearly 26 million Americans 50 or older now live alone, up from 15 million in 2000. Older people have always been more likely than others to live by themselves, and now that age group — baby boomers and Gen Xers — makes up a bigger share of the population than at any time in the nation’s history.

The trend has also been driven by deep changes in attitudes surrounding gender and marriage. People 50-plus today are more likely than earlier generations to be divorced, separated or never married.
...
But while many people in their 50s and 60s thrive living solo, research is unequivocal that people aging alone experience worse physical and mental health outcomes and shorter life spans.
...
Compounding the challenge of living solo, a growing share of older adults — about 1 in 6 Americans 55 and older — do not have children, raising questions about how elder care will be managed in the coming decades.

Bryce Ward at WP:

According to the Census Bureau’s American Time Use Survey, the amount of time the average American spent with friends was stable, at 6½ hours per week, between 2010 and 2013. Then, in 2014, time spent with friends began to decline.

By 2019, the average American was spending only four hours per week with friends (a sharp, 37 percent decline from five years before). Social media, political polarization and new technologies all played a role in the drop. (It is notable that market penetration for smartphones crossed 50 percent in 2014.)

Covid then deepened this trend. During the pandemic, time with friends fell further — in 2021, the average American spent only two hours and 45 minutes a week with close friends (a 58 percent decline relative to 2010-2013).

Similar declines can be seen even when the definition of “friends” is expanded to include neighbors, co-workers and clients. The average American spent 15 hours per week with this broader group of friends a decade ago, 12 hours per week in 2019 and only 10 hours a week in 2021.

 

Fathers

At AEI, W. Bradford Wilcox and colleagues write:

The decline of marriage and the rise of fatherlessness in America remain at the center of some of the biggest problems facing the nation: crime and violence, school failure, deaths of despair, and children in poverty.

The predicament of the American male is of particular importance here. The percentage of boys living apart from their biological father has almost doubled since 1960—from about 17% to 32% today; now, an estimated 12 million boys are growing up in families without their biological father.1 Specifically, approximately 62.5% of boys under 18 are living in an intact-biological family, 1.7% are living in a step-family with their biological father and step- or adoptive mother, 4.2% are living with their single, biological father, and 31.5% are living in a home without their biological father.2

Lacking the day-to-day involvement, guidance, and positive example of their father in the home, and the financial advantages associated with having him in the household, these boys are more likely to act up, lash out, flounder in school, and fail at work as they move into adolescence and adulthood. Even though not all fathers play a positive role in their children’s lives, on average, boys benefit from having a present and involved father.

 1. Numbers are calculated based on the 2019 American Community Survey, and Lydia R. Anderson, Paul F. Hemez, and Rose M. Kreider, “Living Arrangements of Children: 2019,” Current Population Reports, P70-174, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC, 2021.

2. Ibid.

Gen Z and the Future of Faith

At the Survey Center on American Life, Daniel A. Cox has a report titled  "Generation Z and the future of faith in America,"

Key Points

Compared with previous generations, Gen Zers report being much less involved in regular religious activities during their childhood. Formative religious experiences that were once common, such as saying grace or attending Sunday school, have become more of the exception than the norm.

In a change from the past, most Americans raised without religion do not find it later in life. Today, nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of Americans who report having no childhood religious affiliation say they still are unaffiliated as adults, rivaling that of established religious traditions.

Religious disaffiliation can strain family relationships and may lead to feelings of loneliness and distrust, especially for those who have left more conservative religious traditions, such as evangelical Protestantism.

Read the PDF.

The story of religious change in America, especially religious disaffiliation, is often cast as the result of independent decisions made by a rising generation living by a different set of values.But new evidence paints a much more complicated picture than the traditional narrative of generationally driven disaffiliation. Young adults today have had entirely different religious and social experiences than previous generations did. The parents of millennials and Generation Z did less to encourage regular participation in formal worship services and model religious behaviors in their children than had previous generations. Many childhood religious activities that were once common, such as saying grace, have become more of the exception than the norm.

We have long known the importance of formative religious experiences in setting the trajectory of faith commitments throughout life. For as long as we have been able to measure religious commitments, childhood religious experiences have strongly predicted adult religiosity. They still do. If someone had robust religious experiences growing up, they are likely to maintain those beliefs and practices into adulthood. Without robust religious experiences to draw on, Americans feel less connected to the traditions and beliefs of their parents’ faith.

There is little evidence to suggest that Americans who have disaffiliated will ever return. First, the age at which Americans choose to give up their families’ religion—most well before they turn 18—suggests that they have not established a deeply rooted commitment to a set of religious beliefs and practices. Disaffiliated Americans express significant skepticism about the societal benefits of religion, even more than those who have never identified with a religious tradition. They also strongly disagree with the majority of religious Americans, who believe in the importance of raising children in a religious faith. Moreover, having children does not appear to affect religious involvement. Unaffiliated parents are not any more likely to be religiously active than those without children, and most are unconvinced that religion serves as an important source of moral instruction.

Religious participation has typically been tightly connected to the timeline of important life events, such as getting married and having children. These events and experiences can serve as crucial opportunities for those who have left their childhood faith to reconnect to a religious community. But declining confidence in organized religion and a growing trend of secular relationships and marriages may make these seminal moments less likely to encourage Americans to return.

These changes have considerable personal and societal consequences. Individually, Americans who report leaving their formative religion report more significant personal hardship than those who were raised—and remain—religious. This is particularly true for Americans who disaffiliate from more conservative religious traditions; 39 percent of Americans raised evangelical Protestant but who no longer identify with the religion say they feel lonely or isolated from the people around them most or all the time. In contrast, only 23 percent of former Catholics say the same.

The decline of religion has implications for American civic and social life as well. Religious Americans are generally more socially and civically active. However, the frequency of religious participation—not one’s religious identity—appears to be the most important factor in determining the level of engagement in other social and civic activities. Americans who regularly attend services are far more engaged in community life than are those who seldom or never attend religious services.

And although higher education has been shown to be strongly associated with an increased propensity toward joining social groups and civic associations, religion still appears to play a significant function. There is evidence that education level and religious involvement both augment participation in community life. College-educated Americans who are religious tend to exhibit the highest levels of civic engagement.

Attitudes Toward Marriage and Society

Daniel A. Cox at the Survey Center on American Life:

Although most Americans have a positive view about marriage, there is considerable skepticism about the societal benefits that marriage and parenthood confer. Overall, roughly six in 10 (62 percent) Americans believe society is just as well off if people have priorities other than getting married and having children. Thirty-seven percent say society benefits when people make marriage and child-rearing priorities.

Younger Americans are least likely to see the societal value in marriage and parenthood. Forty-four percent of seniors (age 65 or older) say a society that prioritizes marriage and child-rearing is better off, while only one-quarter (25 percent) of young adults (age 18 to 29) say the same. Roughly three-quarters (74 percent) of young adults believe society is just as well off if people have other goals.

The generation gap is even larger among men. Senior men are about twice as likely as young men to say that society is better off when marriage and child-rearing are priorities (51 percent vs. 26 percent).

Liberals and conservatives are sharply at odds over the societal importance of family formation. A majority (57 percent) of conservatives believe society is better off when marriage and child-rearing are priorities, a view shared by only 19 percent of liberals.

The generational shift in attitudes cuts across ideology but is far larger among conservatives. Older liberals are somewhat more likely than young liberals to embrace the notion that society benefits when getting married and having children are priorities (23 percent vs. 15 percent). Large majorities of both age groups reject this idea. In contrast, older conservatives are far more likely than young conservatives to believe in the societal benefit of people prioritizing marriage and children (64 percent vs. 37 percent).

Politically Mixed Marriages

Daniel A. Cox at the Survey Center on American Life:

While interfaith marriages in the United States are on the rise, politically mixed marriages remain uncommon. One in five (20 percent) Americans have a spouse whose political affiliation differs from their own.[11] The vast majority (80 percent) of Americans are married to people who share their same basic political orientation.

The degree of political diversity in marriages is nearly identical among Democrats and Republicans. Only 17 percent of Democrats and 16 percent of Republicans report having a spouse who has a political identity different from their own. In contrast, about four in 10 (39 percent) political independents say their spouse has a political identity different from theirs.

Americans who identify as politically moderate are also more likely to have marriages that cross the political aisle. Moderates (28 percent) are twice as likely as both liberals (14 percent) and conservatives (14 percent) to report their spouse’s political identity is distinct.

Unlike interfaith marriages, which have become more common in recent years, the prevalence of politically mixed marriages is more stable. Thirteen percent of couples married before 1972 have dissimilar political affiliations, compared to 21 percent of those married in the past decade.

Having a spouse who does not share the same political orientation may lead to somewhat reduced feelings of relationship satisfaction. Republicans in mixed marriages are less likely to be very or completely satisfied in their relationship than are those married to people aligned with their politics (86 percent vs. 75 percent). There is a more pronounced gap in feeling completely satisfied. Republicans married to politically similar spouses are much more likely than those in politically mixed marriages to say they feel completely satisfied with their relationship (49 percent vs. 34 percent). Democrats married to someone who shares their politics also report greater relationship satisfaction; 74 percent of Democrats whose spouse has similar political views say they are very or completely satisfied, compared to 67 percent in politically mixed marriages.

Being in a politically mixed marriage is associated with having less extreme political views and partisan hostility. Two-thirds (66 percent) of Democrats with a Democratic spouse say they have a very unfavorable view of the Republican Party, compared to 34 percent of Democrats in mixed marriages. Similarly, three-quarters (73 percent) of Republicans in politically homogenous marriages say they have a very unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, while less than half (46 percent) of those who have a spouse who does not share the same politics have a very negative view of the Democratic Party.

Politically mixed marriages may also soften Republicans’ views of opposing party leadership. Republicans married to other Republicans express a much more negative opinion of Joe Biden than those whose spouses have somewhat different political views (82 percent vs. 54 percent, respectively). Notably, for Democrats, negative views of Donald Trump appear to transcend marital influence. Democrats in mixed marriages are not much less likely than those in politically aligned marriages to say they have a very unfavorable view of Trump (73 percent vs. 87 percent).

Living Arrangements

From the Census Bureau:

The percentage of adults living with a spouse decreased from 52% to 50% over the past decade, according to newly released estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual America’s Families and Living Arrangements table package.

At the same time, living alone became slightly more common: 37 million (15%) adults age 18 and over lived alone in early 2021, up from 33 million (14%) in 2011. The percentage of adults living with an unmarried partner also inched up over the past decade, from 7% to 8%.

These statistics come from the 2021 Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC), which collects labor force data as well as data on a variety of characteristics of households, living arrangements, married/unmarried couples and children. The ASEC has been conducted for more than 60 years and so allows for an examination of trends in families and living arrangements.

Other Highlights

Households and Families

• There were 37 million one-person households in 2021, or 28% of all U.S. households. In 1960, single-person households represented only 13% of all households.
• The number of families with their own children under age 18 in the household declined over the last two decades. In 2021, 40% of all U.S. families lived with their own children, compared to 44% in 2011 and 48% in 2001.

Marriage

• In 2021, 34% of adults age 15 and over had never been married, up from 23% in 1950.
• The estimated median age to marry for the first time was 30.4 for men and 28.6 for women in early 2021, up from ages 23.7 and 20.5, respectively, in 1947.
• In 2021, less than one-quarter (24%) of children under age 15 living in married-couple families had a stay-at-home mother, compared to 1% with a stay-at-home father.

Living Arrangements

• Some living arrangements differed by sex and age group in 2021. The percentage of men and women ages 18 to 24 that lived alone, about 5% each, did not significantly differ. More women than men in this age group lived with a spouse, 7% and 4%, respectively. The percentage of men ages 18 to 24 living alone was not significantly different from the percentage of men who lived with a spouse. A greater share of women (12%) than men (7%) this age also lived with an unmarried partner.
• Men and women ages 25 to 34 were more likely than their younger peers to live with a spouse or unmarried partner: one-third (33%) of men and 42% of women lived with a spouse in early 2021. But about the same share (17%) of both men and women of these ages lived with an unmarried partner. These patterns were likely related to the lower median age of women (28.6) than men (30.4) at first marriage.
• In 2021, more than one-half (58%) of adults ages 18 to 24 lived in their parental home, compared to 17% of adults ages 25 to 34.

For more data on families and living arrangements, visit Families and Living Arrangements at <www.census.gov>.

American Family Survey

Karlyn Bowman at Forbes:

The American Family Survey* is now in its seventh year. The poll is sponsored by the Deseret News and the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University. YouGov fielded the online survey to 3,000 American adults. The researchers have asked many identical questions over the seven-year time span and added new ones each year to understand particular experiences of the modern family. In 2020, the polling team looked at family life during the first year of the pandemic. In the new 2021 survey, they took a deeper dive into how Americans are coping with the pandemic, their views of the government’s response to it, and Americans’ interactions across racial lines. They also looked at how Americans feel about the teaching of subjects such as racism and racial progress in schools.

We see substantial continuity across the yearly AFS surveys. People continue to say their own marriages and families are doing well. Yet, the survey hints at a slight softening in positive views about the institution. The percentage believing that marriage is needed to create strong families has dropped 10 points in seven years — from 62% in 2015 to 52% today. The number saying that marriage is old-fashioned and out of date has risen from 12% to 19%. Given these responses, it will be important to watch what people say in the future. Just as in each of the earlier surveys, this one shows people are less confident about marriage and families in general, but are more optimistic about their own.

The researchers note that racial and economic disadvantage predate the pandemic, but they still pointed to the significant hardship COVID created for some groups. More Hispanics, for example, reported a death in their immediate or extended family (21%) than did African Americans (16%) or Whites (9%). Forty percent of low-income families compared to 12% of high-income ones reported experiencing an economic crisis in the past year. Majorities of all income categories said their financial circumstances had not changed since March 2020, but 28% of low-income families compared to 14% of high-income families said their situations had gotten worse. Single-parent households have been hit especially hard with 27% reporting their finances have gotten worse during the pandemic.

Polarized Attitudes on Family Formation

W Bradford Wilcox and colleagues at AEI have a report titled "The divided state of our unions

Family formation in (post)COVID-19 America."  From the executive summary:

Where is the American family headed as COVID-19 finally seems o be abating? Focusing on family formation in the United States, this report considers three possibilities: (a) the “decadence-deepens scenario,” where marriage and fertility fall further in the wake of the pandemic; (b) the “renaissance scenario,” where men and women turn towards family formation in response to the existential questions and loneliness raised by the last year-and-a-half; and (c) the “family polarization scenario,” where economic, religious, and partisan divides in family formation deepen in post-COVID America.

Based on two new YouGov surveys by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) and the Wheatley Institution, this report finds the most consistent evidence for the “family polarization scenario.” The “desire to marry” since the onset of COVID-19 ticked slightly upwards, by 2 percentage points overall, whereas the desire “to have a child” among all Americans ages 18-55 moved downwards, with just 10% reporting an increased desire for children, compared to 17% indicating a decreased desire. However, beyond these global shifts in family formation attitudes, which do not tell a consistent story in favor of either of the first two scenarios, there is marked polarization in desires related to marriage and childbearing by income, religious attendance, and partisanship as COVID-19 abates.

That’s because in a pandemic-haunted world where both marriage and fertility seem especially daunting or optional, three ingredients have emerged as signally important for family formation in the United States: money, hope, and a deep dedication to family. And the rich, the religious, and Republicans are generally more likely to possess one or more of these ingredients, compared to their lower-income, secular, and Democrat/Independent-affiliated fellow citizens. The family polarization documented here is especially striking because it augments fissures in American family life that have been growing over the last half century.

Unpartnered America

 Richard Fry and Kim Parker at Pew:

As relationships, living arrangements and family life continue to evolve for American adults, a rising share are not living with a romantic partner. A new Pew Research Center analysis of census data finds that in 2019, roughly four-in-ten adults ages 25 to 54 (38%) were unpartnered – that is, neither married nor living with a partner.1 This share is up sharply from 29% in 1990.2 Men are now more likely than women to be unpartnered, which wasn’t the case 30 years ago.

The growth in the single population is driven mainly by the decline in marriage among adults who are at prime working age. At the same time, there has been a rise in the share who are cohabiting, but it hasn’t been enough to offset the drop in marriage – hence the overall decline in partnership. While the unpartnered population includes some adults who were previously married (those who are separated, divorced or widowed), all of the growth in the unpartnered population since 1990 has come from a rise in the number who have never been married

Father's Day: Data on Families

Many posts have discussed data on marriage, family, education, and inequality.

 Tayelor Valerio at the Census:

The average age of U.S. women who gave birth for the first time was 26.9 in 2018, but many became parents much earlier: There were 1.8 million biological parents ages 15-22 and roughly half were living with a spouse or unmarried partner, according to the Census Bureau’s 2018 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). 

From the National Center for Education Statistics:

In 2019, some 9 percent of children under the age of 18 lived in households in which no parent had completed high school, 26 percent lived in mother-only households, 8 percent lived in father-only households, and 16 percent were in families living in poverty.

 

Support for Same-Sex Marriage

 Justin McCarthy at Gallup:

U.S. support for legal same-sex marriage continues to trend upward, now at 70% -- a new high in Gallup's trend since 1996. This latest figure marks an increase of 10 percentage points since 2015, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all states must recognize same-sex marriages.

These data are from Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 3-18.

Today's 70% support for same-sex marriage marks a new milestone in a trend that has pointed upward for a quarter of a century. A small minority of Americans (27%) supported legal recognition of gay and lesbian marriages in 1996, when Gallup first asked the question. But support rose steadily over time, eventually reaching the majority level for the first time in 2011.

Vice President Harris and Demographic Trends

 Kim Parker and Amanda Barroso at Pew note that Vice President Kamala Harris embodies several demographic trends:

Harris has a multiracial background. Her mother was South Asian and her father is Black. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans who identify as two or more races are one of the fastest growing racial or ethnic groups in the country, along with Asians. Roughly 6.3 million American adults – 2.5% of the adult population – identified as being more than one race in 2019. The number has grown significantly since the census first allowed people to choose more than one racial category to describe themselves in 2000. Among adults who identify as more than one race, relatively few (2.1%) are Black and Asian.
...

Harris is the daughter of two immigrants, one from India and one from Jamaica. The share of immigrants from Asia living in the U.S. has been on the rise in recent decades, following the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. In 2018, Asians made up 28% of the U.S. foreign-born population, up from 4% in 1960. And starting as early as 2010, Asian immigrants outnumbered Hispanic immigrants among new arrivals.

...

Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is White, which makes them – as a couple – part of a growing group of intermarried couples. In 2019, 11% of all married U.S. adults had a spouse who was a different race or ethnicity from them, up from 3% in 1967. Among newlyweds in 2019, roughly one-in-five (19%) were intermarried.
...

When she married Emhoff – who is divorced and has two children from his previous marriage – Harris became part of a blended family. The American family has evolved considerably in recent decades, and today there is no typical “family.” In 1980, most children younger than 18 lived in a household with two married parents who were in their first marriage. By 2014, fewer than half of U.S. children lived in that type of household. Some 15% lived with parents in a remarriage, 7% lived with cohabiting parents and 26% lived with an unpartnered parent.
...

Harris does not have any biological children of her own. A look at U.S. women at the end of their childbearing years reveals that 15% were childless in 2014, while the majority (85%) had given birth to at least one child. The childlessness rate was down from 20% in 2005 but still higher than the rate prior to the 1990s.
...

Harris married when she was 49 years old, and while this is older than the median age at first marriage, it reflects a trend toward women and men waiting longer to get married. In 2020, the U.S. had its highest median age at first marriage on record – 28.1 for women and 30.5 for men. These numbers have crept up steadily over time. In 2000, the median age at first marriage was 25.1 for women and 26.8 for men. In 1980, the median ages were 22.0 for women and 24.7 for men.
...

Harris and Emhoff are among a growing share of married adults whose spouse does not share their religion. Harris is Christian and attends a Baptist church, and Emhoff is Jewish. While most married adults in the U.S. have a spouse who is the same religion as them, that has become less common in recent decades. Among adults who were married before 1960 (and are still married), only 19% have a spouse who does not share their religion. For those married in the 1980s and ’90s, 30% are in an interfaith marriage. The share has continued to rise: 39% of adults who were married between 2010 and 2014 have a spouse who identifies with a different religious group than their own.

...

Before becoming the first female vice president, Harris served as a U.S. senator. Elected in 2016, Harris joined 20 other women in the U.S. Senate in 2017. This marked a historic high for women; the number rose to 25 in 2019. Now, the Senate has 24 female members, including one Latina woman and two who are Asian-Pacific Islander. There are no Black women currently serving in the Senate. In the House of Representatives, women make up 27.3% of current members. This represents a historic high for that chamber.

Attitudes on Marriage

 Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup:

Fewer U.S. adults now than in past years believe it is "very important" for couples who have children together to be married. Currently, 29% say it is very important that such a couple legally marry, down from 38% who held this view in 2013 and 49% in 2006.

...

A separate question in the survey finds Americans are more likely to believe it is very important for couples to marry if they plan to spend the rest of their lives together (38%) than if they have a child together. Twenty-six percent think it is somewhat important for couples who plan to spend their lives together to get married, while 15% say it is not too important and 21% say it is not important at all.

...

The lesser importance Americans place today on being married is borne out to some degree in the trends in marriage rates. The poll finds that most Americans (69%) have been married at some point in their lives -- encompassing those currently married, divorced or widowed. While this rate is similar to the 72% found in 2013 when the question was last asked, it is down from 80% in 2006.

In terms of those currently married, 49% report this today, also down from 55% in 2006.

Living Arrangements

From the Census:

Newly released estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual America’s Families and Living Arrangements release show that the number of parents with children under age 18 and living at home declined by about 3 million over the past decade, dropping from about 66.1 million parents in 2010 to 63.1 million in 2020.

The living arrangements of parents changed less over the past 10 years. In 2020, 78% of parents living with children were married, compared to 77% in 2010. Adults living with an unmarried, cohabiting partner made up 7% of parents with coresident children under 18 in both 2010 and 2020. Finally, parents living without a partner accounted for 16% of parents in 2010 and 15% of parents in 2020.

Living arrangements differ between fathers and mothers. In 2020, 70% of mothers and 87% of fathers living with children under 18 were married. It was more common for mothers, however, to live without a partner — 23% of mothers and only 6% of fathers were living without a partner.

Other highlights:

Households

• There are 36.2 million one-person households, which is 28% of all households. In 1960, single-person households represented only 13% of all households.

Family

• The number of families with their own children under 18 in the household declined from 2000 to 2020. In 2020, 40% of all families lived with their own children under 18, compared to 44% in 2010 and 48% in 2000.

Marriage

• In 2020, 33% of adults ages 15 and over had never been married, up from 23% in 1950.
• The estimated median age to marry for the first time is 30.5 for men and 28.1 for women, up from ages 23.7 and 20.5, respectively, in 1947.
• One-quarter (25%) of children under age 15 living in married-couple families had a stay-at-home mother, compared to only 1% with a stay-at-home father.

Living Arrangements

More than half (58%) of adults ages 18 to 24 lived in their parental home, up from 55% in 2019. The increase was seen for both men (56% in 2019 to 60% in 2020) and women (53% in 2019 and 56% in 2020). Estimates for men have not been that high since 2016, and for women, this is the highest percentage living in their parents’ home since these data were first collected in 1960. It is important to note that the COVID-19 pandemic may have impacted this year’s estimate. Colleges and universities sent students home in the spring of 2020 when Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) data were collected. However, college students who live in on-campus student housing are counted as living in their parents’ home in CPS, regardless of the year.

These statistics come from the 2020 CPS ASEC, which has collected statistics on families for more than 60 years. The data show characteristics of households, living arrangements, married/unmarried couples, and children.

For more data on families and living arrangements, visit Families and Living Arrangements at census.gov.

Wealth Inequality

Briana Sullivan and Donald Hays at the US Census:

Wealth inequality between homeowners and renters continued to be remarkably pronounced in 2017: Homeowners’ median wealth was nearly 89 times larger than the median wealth of renters and not entirely because of home equity.

The 2017 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data shows continued disparities in wealth – the value of assets owned minus the liabilities (debts) owed – revealed in last year’s report on household wealth in 2015.

Biggest contributors. Just two assets — home equity and retirement accounts — accounted for 61.7% of households’ wealth in 2017.

The median value of home owners’ wealth in their homes was $118,000, and the median household retirement account balance was $65,000.

While many households owned these assets, others did not: 38.2% of households did not own a home and 42.7% of households did not have a retirement account. This gap of ownership in two key assets contributes to wealth inequality.

• Bank accounts. Some commonly held assets made up a small portion of household wealth. In 2017, 93.7% of households had bank or credit union accounts. However, the accounts made up only 8.9% of total household wealth.
• Home Ownership. Home equity did not fully account for the difference in median wealth between homeowners and renters. Households that owned their home had a median wealth of $269,100, substantially more than that of those who rented their homes ($3,036).  Even when home equity was excluded from total wealth, the median wealth of homeowners was $109,000, a staggering 35.9 times more than the median wealth of renters.
• Health insurance. Households with people who did not have health insurance all or part of the year had dramatically lower median wealth ($18,750) than households in which all members had coverage for the full year ($140,500). Those without insurance also had 50% less in their checking accounts and 74% less in their retirement accounts.
• Marital status, age and gender. Unmarried female householders (those who own or rent the home) of any age had a median wealth of $28,290. That represented 75.9% of their unmarried male counterparts’ median wealth of $37,290 and only 12.1% of their married counterparts’ median wealth of $233,100.Such disparities between genders and marital status persisted over most age groups.
• Race and Hispanic origin. Relative to Black and Hispanic householders, non-Hispanic White and Asian householders had higher median household wealth.Non-Hispanic White householders had a median household wealth of $171,700, compared with $9,567 for Black householders and $25,000 for Hispanic householders. Asian householders had a median household wealth of $157,400, which was not statistically different from the estimate for non-Hispanic White householders.
• Education. Higher education was linked to higher median household wealth. Households in which the most educated member held a bachelor’s degree had a median wealth of $198,000, compared with $34,460 for households in which the most educated member only had a high school diploma. Those with graduate or professional degrees had just over twice the median wealth ($396,900) of bachelor degree holders.
• Employment. Households in which at least one member was unemployed or worked part-time during the year had less wealth. Households in which at least one person had a full-time job for the entire year had a median wealth of $114,200, compared with $81,150 for households in which one or more members had a part-time job during the year, and $19,490 for households in which one or more people were unemployed.