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EXCLUSIVE – The United States faces a cultural turning point when it comes to values regarding marriage, maternity, divorce, coexistence and abortion, according to a recent report by the Heritage Foundation. Despite the fact that research shows children raised by their married and biological parents have better results, that has not been the trend in American life in recent decades.
Heritage Scholars Delano Squires and Rachel Sheffield made a deep immersion In the state of the American family in its new report entitled “Crossroads: American family life at the intersection of tradition and modernity.” In the study, they argue through their investigation, that the nation is at a crossroads, with a path marked by the decrease in marriage, Low birth ratesHigh and single female, casual divorce and the rejection of biological sex, while the other way promotes marriage, motherhood and understanding that children do better when their married biological parents are raised.
The report cited data that found that Americans will marry less and later, Less children are bornBut more are born outside of marriage, more couples are living together, marriage and family are no longer priorities and that American single ones face a “connection enigma.”
“A nation that rejects the importance of stable marriages and strong families for their well -being weakens their ability to transmit the blessings of prosperity to future generations,” says the report. “This is the reality faced by Americans today, and the direction they take now will determine the health and survival of the Republic.”
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Homes by type, 1950-2023 (Heritage Foundation/US Census Office.)
Sheffield told him Fox News Digital That, despite technological advances, the United States is more disconnected as a nation due to the decrease in family formation and marriage stability.
Marriage rates in the US continue to decrease, with married couples that represent only 47% of households today compared to 78% in 1950, which was regardless of race, religion or the socioeconomic state. Now, 40% of children are born outside of marriage and The general birth rate is in a low record.
“Forty percent of children are born from single mothers today, and almost two thirds of births to those single mothers are for women who are living with a romantic couple (whether the father of the child or another romantic couple) at the time of the child’s birth,” he quotes the study. “Therefore, approximately a quarter of us, children live in a home of parents who cohabit at some point in their lives.”
In addition, more adults between 18 and 44 have lived, 59%, who have married 50%. Most cohabitation relationships end in a break and, although they can anticipate marriage in the future, this often does not happen, according to the report.
“Approximately half of the parents who cohabit have a child together to break when their son turns three years old, compared to only 13 percent of married parents,” the study continues. “At age 12, two thirds of the parents who live together have broken, compared to a quarter of married parents.”
The participation of adults who cohabit as a part of all adults living with a couple, 1967-2023 (Heritage Foundation/US Census Office.)
For those who marry, the Middle Ages for a first marriage has increased approximately eight years for women and approximately seven years for men.
“More Americans today have lived, so they lived together outside marriage with a romantic couple, who have married,” said Sheffield. “As we continue to see the age rates of the first marriage and decrease marriage, we will only have fewer married people.”
Together, the total fertility rate has decreased from 3.65 in 1960 to 1.62 in 2023, with many couples simply Choose not children.
More than 40% of respondents between 18 and 49 said that they are unlikely to have children, according A survey from the PEW Research Center of 2021. Some people said they simply did not want to have children, while other reasons included medical problems, finance, no couple and age, as well as “the state of the world” and climate change.
Sheffield said that leaders in the lives of children and young adults should equip them with the skills they need to have healthy marriages.
“Most people still want to marry, but without knowing how to get there,” he said. “Particularly for those in the main income and the working class of the United States, where we are seeing the most familiar breakdown, having models of that, having the vision and knowing how to do it has also decreased.”
Squires agreed, arguing that a large part of fixing the decrease in the value granted to the nuclear family is creating awareness, including that public officials see this as something worthy of their time and attention, even if it does not mean that a new law will be approved.
“The thug pulpit is extremely powerful and very effective in regards to declare public virtue and public values,” said Squiers. “I think that messengers in this area must promote the belief that marriage is valuable, desirable, accessible and indispensable with the purpose of starting a family of both this generation and for future generations.”
The decrease in marriage is also attributable to what Sheffield and Squires call the “connection enigma.”
“One of the best factors associated with happiness is having a healthy marriage, and we talk about this epidemic of solitude in society and really much of that is related to the decrease in marriage,” he said.
The participation of adults, 18 years or older and is currently married, 1962-2023 (Heritage Foundation/US Census Office.)
Given the ubiquity of smartphones and social networks, in theory it should be much easier for people to connect, but the shields said that single people find it even more difficult to meet people now than in last decades.
“While there is the illusion that people are more connected, than the online connection is not translating into a real -life connection,” he said. “Somehow, I would say that technology makes it even more difficult to find a spouse because applications are not oriented to marriage, are oriented to short -term relationships, if even that.”
“There is the notion that we have reached the pinnacle of progress, but there is nothing holding any of the things we currently see how this progress, in terms of family training, keeping them instead at perpetuity,” he added.
If the United States continues in its current trajectory, Squires said that family life will be more complicated and complex as families fracture, less children will grow with a father and singles will be increasingly difficult to meet.
“What you are going to see are family trees that are confused to put it well and, eventually, you will have a situation in which people will not even know who their parents are and if you are in a large city or a small city, you will have children who end up dating their brothers, half sister eventually,” he said. “I don’t think this is a beautiful image and not a kind of pessimism, but it is taking an honest evaluation of what the data tell us at this time.”
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Squires emphasized the fact that despite the fact that conversations about marriage and family are often framed in partisan terms, he and Sheffield see this as a bipartisan problem.
“These are changes that are social changes and not only exclusive to a particular party or a particular political ideology,” he said.
