Marriage and Parenting Are Now Partisan Issues, With Liberals Falling Behind

Few things are more natural than marriage and starting a family. In the very first chapter of his sweeping three-volume study on the history of marriage, ground-breaking anthropologist Edward Westermarck explains, “As for the origin of the institution of marriage, I consider it probable that it has developed out of a primeval habit.”

Our current political debate on how the institutions of marriage and family lift children, women, men and their communities to a better life did not start with conservative Republicans. It started in 1965 with Democrats in the Johnson Administration, sparked by an important government research document known as The Moynihan Report.

But the prevalence of marriage, childbearing and parenting has increasingly become divided among Red/Blue lines in America, with liberals lagging far behind conservatives. This is happening by dramatic margins according to scholars at the Institute for Family Studies (IFS). They contend that “Since the 1980s, marriage rates have declined for both conservatives and liberals. But the declines have been greater among liberals, for both men and women.” Regarding fertility and parenthood, “In the last decade, a chasm has opened up between conservative and liberal young men and women in the share who have had children.”

They explain we’re now “witnessing the real-world consequences of an ideological divide where the Right prioritizes marriage and childbearing and the Left discounts them in fertility and population shifts across America.”

Gallup research noted the same trend in 2024.

University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox demonstrates this in an illuminating X thread:

Professor Wilcox explains, “The Left has a family problem,” adding, “Progressive messaging that devalues, denies and deconstructs the value of family life and celebrates solo living in recent years is leaving its mark on the hearts, minds, and lives of young liberals, especially young women on the Left.”

While marriage is declining among all sociodemographic groups, it is steeper among liberal men and women compared to their more conservative peers.

Childbearing and parenthood are notably higher among conservative men and women, and the gap, in contrast to liberals, is clearly widening.

IFS’ scholars explain, “Indeed, in the 2020s, a majority of conservative young adults ages 25-35 have married and become parents, whereas only a minority of liberal young adults have done likewise.” Philosophy professor Anastasia Berg, a self-described liberal, wrote last fall in The New York Times, “This situation is exacerbated by a political climate in which having children becomes increasingly coded as conservative and reactionary. So people are finding themselves paralyzed by indecision. That, for me, is the problem.” She adds, “In all these aspects of their lives, young liberal progressives especially seek fulfillment, satisfaction and success before they feel ready to start thinking about children.”

This fact has had real-world implications with Red voting states having dramatically higher fertility rates than Blue voting states. That divide has become dramatic:

Remarkably, young women have been trending more liberal in their convictions over the last few decades. The Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute explains, “Young women stand out for their support for changing social norms in American society, including more women serving in the military, more children having gay or lesbian parents, and more men staying home with children.”

IFS’ scholars explain,

We attribute this divide in large part to how mainstream institutions in education, media, and pop culture have advanced a Midas Mindset that prioritizes an individualistic ethos focused on personal development, hedonism, and, especially, career. This mindset has led many young adults on the Left to postpone or forego family life.

Ideas and the things we believe have very big consequences, as Richard Weaver famously put it. Our convictions translate into actions that either make the world a better or worse place. And research is very clear, more marriage and children make the world a much better place.

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