Maybe because of all the bad reviews I read beforehand, I was honestly not expecting much when I sat down with my husband the other night to finally watch Hillbilly Elegy, now airing on Netflix. Ron...

Childbirth in the United States should be free. Too many couples feel they can’t start or grow their families because of our disordered politics and warped economy. The existing model that erects...

Brad Wilcox of the Institute for Family Studies shares the latest research which finds married Americans are much happier than singles. He explains why it's important for society to encourage young...

It was in nineteenth century Britain that Jane Austen penned the words “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” In those...

Despite women’s strong representation in the U.S. workforce, and despite positive attitudes throughout the populace toward working mothers and dual-earner households, women continue to spend less...

Last week, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy rolled out a new advisory on “our epidemic of loneliness.” The document argues that “Americans appear to be becoming less socially connected over...

We like to think of America as sexually permissive. We’re bombarded with stories of rapid-fire Tinder liaisons and meaningless college hookups. The reality isn’t monastic but is more staid than most...

Toxic masculinity is an awful term. Very few males react well to the idea that there is something toxic inside them that must be exorcized.

It’s well established that Americans are having less sex. In a recent post for IFS, I explored whether this trend has been gathering steam—if the sex recession was turning into a great sex depressi...

It is difficult to read Chris Arnade’s new book, Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America, or look at the striking photographs inside without feeling a bit guilty. How many of us have rushed...

Although the decline in marriage has been cited as a possible contributor to the “despair” afflicting marginalized White communities, these studies have not directly considered mortality by marital...

When thinking about our nation’s most high-profile ambassadors for the goods of marriage, one could be forgiven for not thinking of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Yet, as the recently r...

Marriage is a terrible deal for men. This is the message we’re getting from the Red Pill Right, right-leaning online influencers who cater to men, especially teenagers and men who have had bad luck...

Donald Trump knows that abortion is a political weakness for him this election year, particularly among female voters.

Tyler is white. He grew up in a small, white, working-class town on the edge of Cincinnati’s suburbs, and now lives in a racially-mixed neighborhood. In both places, Tyler says he has felt targeted...

As single-parent and stepparent families have become more common in the U.S., is it the case that children from these families have fewer problems than they used to? Many scholars believed that as...

National Public Radio (NPR) recently published a piece on teen mental health and screens by Anya Kamenetz, who has her own book on kids and technology. I talked to Kamenetz for more than an hour for...

In a recent article published in Town & Country magazine, comedian Ali Wentworth shares what she describes as a “dirty little secret”: she’s been happily married to journalist George Stephanopoulos...

American boys and men are in a state of crisis. The notion that masculinity and traditional gender roles are “toxic” forces of oppression is a common refrain in our cultural commentary and political...

Glenn Youngkin owes his gubernatorial victory, in large part, to parents who want more of a say in their children’s education. During his victory speech, the Virginia Governor-elect mentioned that...

We’re all familiar with the policy debates that surround the family. How does the tax code . . . .

In an article published on this blog, Harry Benson of the Marriage Foundation reflects on the falling divorce rate in the UK over the last 25 years, a consequence of fewer women petitioning for...

Most previous research appears to back up the common assumption that marriage generally declines in quality over time. However, a fascinating new study led by sociologist Paul Amato challenges the...

Community life is no panacea—if we think of family as the people who have the power to wound us most deeply, so, too, with brothers and sisters in community life. Several of the stories in Another...

The research literature is becoming increasingly clear about the substantial importance of fathers in the lives of their children. Unfortunately, far too many children in the United States and...

John Stuart Mill, the 19th century liberal philosopher (I’m his biographer), had a beautiful description of how you should think about a debate when you’re disagreeing with somebody. He said, you...

What is the role of religion in supporting stable households and even, dare I say, enforcing commitment? Clara Piano and I chip away at this question in our working paper “Three to Get Married? The...

For today’s progressives, marriage doesn’t matter when it comes to fighting poverty in America. Melissa Boteach and Anusha Ravi of the Center for American Progress, for instance, dismissed a recent...

In my final college semester, I had the privilege of being a full-time student teacher at a Catholic middle school, teaching 7th and 8th grade history and theology. It was the highlight of my life....

Americans are struggling to understand why mass shootings like the one in Uvalde, Texas, happen — and what can be done to prevent them

At the risk of appearing immediately ungrateful to the organizers of this wonderful and much-needed event, I want to begin by suggesting that “social capital” is perhaps the wrong frame for what it...

In the Saturday Night Live skit, “A Thanksgiving Miracle,” multiple generations of a family sit down for a traditional holiday dinner, only to quickly devolve into rancorous fighting about politics....

In March 2021, a new report by the UK Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities made waves in UK media because it dismissed “racism” as a catch-all explanation for social disadvantage. According to...

The nuclear family is disintegrating—or so Americans might conclude from what they watch and read. The quintessential nuclear family consists of a married couple raising their children. But from...

The science could not be clearer: On average, the children of married parents are more likely to experience happier, healthier and more successful lives. Brookings Institution scholar Melissa Kearney...

When I’m around young adults I like to ask them how they are thinking about the big commitments in their lives: what career to go into, where to live, whom to marry. Most of them have thought a lot...

Given the changing character and contours of American family life,1 one might think that we have moved into a new era where fathers are no longer important. However, while children can and do thrive...

The pandemic gave many families a window into the benefits of being home with their young children, causing many parents to question whether day care is the right choice. Why are we financially...

Last week’s CDC report, which found that nearly one out of three teen girls seriously considered suicide in 2021, is the last straw. It’s the last straw for researchers like me who have been sounding...

It is a fact that children who grow up with married parents do better than any other family structure. However, nearly half of U.S. children will not be raised by their own married parents. So how do...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has secured an important victory over a host of pornography companies, including Pornhub, that sought to prevent a state law known as HB 1181 from taking effect.

We gave Richard and Linda Eyre a tough assignment—to summarize in 1200 words what they have learned about the challenges that parents are facing today and the best practices they have found for...

Demographer Lyman Stone projects that, on the current course, as many as one in three young adults in the United States might never marry and as many as one in four will never have kids. That’s a lot...

Today, whether you consider marriage to be a cultural construct, an expression of romantic love, or a union divinely ordained, it’s still the case that most men and women in America wish to marry—and...

“Upper middle-class families have become greenhouses for the cultivation of human capital,

In September 2020, my oldest son started kindergarten at our local public school. Due to COVID, there were a lot of new rules. The desks were moved apart, and all the kids wore masks inside. There...

“I want to give people hope, people living with mental illness as well as family members of people living with mental illness, that not only can they survive their illness, but they can also reach...

It’s now marriage proposal season—the time between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day when nearly 40% of couples decide to get engaged. The holidays tend to put people in mind of marriage. So what’s...

A new study from Harvard researchers shows that marriage, while on a massive decline in the US, shows an increased connection to happiness and overall well-being in women.

For many young adults, single life in American culture has become synonymous with sexual experimentation in both committed romantic dating relationships and casual sexual hook-ups.1 However, new...

In 2014, Rolling Stone interviewed pop icon, Katy Perry. When asked if she was interested in having children of her own, Perry naively declared: