America’s marriage rate has fallen from more than 90% of Americans married by ages 30-35 in 1962 to just 55% as of 2025 — and a new Heritage Foundation report argues the cause is cultural, not economic.
Heritage Foundation research fellow Rachel Sheffield told EWTN News that while declining wages among working-class men are frequently cited as the cause, “the data tell a different story.” Inflation-adjusted earnings among men in their 20s and 30s have been “mostly flat” or fluctuating over 50 years — not consistently declining — and have in recent years “reached some of the highest levels they have had in the last 50 years.”
Sheffield identified two primary cultural drivers. First, the normalization of sex outside marriage and childbearing outside wedlock has decoupled marriage from family formation across all income levels. Second, rising material expectations for marriage — home ownership, income stability — have raised the bar for entry while weakening the expectation that marriage will last. “People go into marriage today with more of an expectation that this might not last because of shifts over time in divorce rates,” she said.
The impact has fallen hardest on the working class. Among college-educated Americans, roughly 90% of children are still born within marriage — yet this same group is “most likely to promote the cultural messages that marriage is unnecessary, outdated, and even oppressive.” They preach against marriage while quietly practicing it.
Sheffield called for funds to be directed toward marriage strengthening programs, highlighted Utah’s Healthy Marriage Initiative as a model, and called for a broader cultural reorientation in media and advertising to communicate why marriage matters.
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