As the U.S. birth rate continues to plummet to record lows, data shows that a significant percentage of liberals are deprioritizing the importance of marriage and having children, especially among teens. Among conservatives, however, the phenomenon does not appear to be occurring.

In an article published Friday by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS), sociologists Brad Wilcox and Grant Bailey highlight how the aspirations that many liberals claim to have about marrying and having children are not lining up with their real-world behavior, which appears to be heavily influenced by negative media narratives. They note that mainstream media outlets like Bloomberg, The New York Times, and The Washington Post have been publishing a steady stream of articles for decades that “devalue, deny, and discount the institution of marriage.”

Wilcox and Bailey further noted that current data on marriage has made it clear that the anti-marriage messaging is having an effect on the actual marriage rates of left-leaning, college-educated Americans. “No group of Americans is less likely to say marriage matters than liberals, especially the college educated,” they observe. Among the cohort, only 30% agree that “children are better off with married parents,” according to the 2022 American Family Survey. Interestingly, less educated liberals were more supportive of the principle at 36%.

Conservatives hold strikingly different views on the question (which has been proven to be true time and again by social science data). The survey found that over nine in 10 college-educated conservatives (91%) say that children are better off with married parents, with 73% of less educated conservatives agreeing.

The proof of the importance of worldview regarding marriage is borne out in the actual data of who is married. As Wilcox and Bailey point out, “a majority of conservative men and women are married, and a majority of liberals are not,” with college-educated conservatives aged 22-40 being 50% more likely to be married than their liberal peers.

The bleak marriage picture for liberals becomes worse when considering the data on progressive teens’ views on the institution. A Monitoring the Future study found that since 2010, the percentage of liberal 12th graders who say they expect to get married has plummeted, with boys dropping 22 percentage points to 53% and girls dropping 12 points to 63%. The outlook among conservative teens is far more positive, holding largely steady at around 83% for boys and 90% for girls over the last decade and a half.

“Despite many on the Left suggesting declines in marriage are largely a class issue, we found that political views were a stronger predictor of being married than college education,” IFS Research Fellow Grant Bailey told The Washington Stand. “Marriage rates are significantly lower among liberal adults, and left-leaning teens are increasingly disinterested in marriage.”

The grim marital outlook and the decreasing number of marriages among liberals, who encompass roughly 48% of the U.S. population, are likely a significant factor in the dwindling American birth rate. This is because the birth rate among married women (81.6 per 1,000) is considerably higher than it is for unmarried women (36.4 per 1,000).

Studies show that what liberals (and conservatives) are missing out on by eschewing marriage and children is happiness and fulfilment. Data collected in 2024 shows that just 66% of unmarried liberals aged 22-40 say they are “pretty” or “very” happy, compared to 86% of liberals who are married. A considerable (although not as sharp) difference also exists among conservatives, with 90% of those who are married saying they are happy compared to 73% of those who are not.

Policy analysts like Leah Libresco Sargeant argue that those who are married are called to witness how married life brings meaning and purpose to a world hungering for both. “As a married woman, I think marriage is great,” she recently observed. “It shouldn’t be this ‘hard sell.’ We should approach marriage with a real sense of optimism in that we’re trying to invite people into this phase of life that is both challenging and beautiful.”