Key Takeaways

• A new paper by Rachel Sheffield at the Heritage Foundation, covered by the Institute for Family Studies, challenges the dominant explanation for America’s marriage decline: it is not primarily driven by men’s declining earnings.

• Young men’s median earnings in 2025 are at a roughly 50-year high, yet marriage rates have continued to fall throughout. The economic explanation simply does not fit the data.

• The real drivers are cultural: rising material expectations for marriage, the normalization of cohabitation and nonmarital sex, government policies that weaken work and marriage incentives, and a broader cultural devaluation of commitment.

• Men at age 30 in 1970 were about as likely to be homeowners as married men today at age 30 — but their homes had fewer rooms, more occupants, and far fewer amenities. People used to enter marriage with much less. Now they feel they need much more before they can begin.

• The solution is not primarily economic. It is cultural and relational — and the local church is the most capable institution in any community to address it.

The Research: A Popular Argument That Doesn’t Hold Up

The story told most often about America’s marriage decline runs something like this: men aren’t earning enough. The economy has made working-class men less “marriageable.” A single income can no longer support a family. And so young people, especially working-class young people, are delaying or forgoing marriage altogether because they simply can’t afford it.

It is a compelling narrative. It has the ring of economic truth. And according to a new paper by Rachel Sheffield, a Research Fellow in Welfare and Family Policy at the Heritage Foundation, it is largely wrong.

The Institute for Family Studies covered Sheffield’s paper on June 25, 2026, highlighting findings that challenge this economic framing directly. The data, drawn from decades of earnings statistics, housing records, and the General Social Survey, tells a different and more complicated story — one with significant implications for how churches, pastors, and family advocates think about the marriage crisis.

The Core Finding: Earnings Rose. Marriage Fell Anyway.

The most arresting finding in Sheffield’s paper is straightforward: in 2025, young men’s median earnings were at a roughly 50-year high. Yet marriage rates kept sinking.

That single data point undermines the primary economic argument for the marriage decline. If the problem were wages, we would expect marriage rates to track earnings — rising when men earned more, falling when they earned less. The data shows no such relationship. Marriage rates have declined steadily across economic cycles, regardless of whether men’s incomes were rising or falling.

Sheffield goes further. Scott Winship at the American Enterprise Institute compared the incomes of young men today with the incomes of married, single-earner fathers from the 1960s and 1970s, when marriage rates were much higher. He found that today’s young men generally earn more than those earlier married fathers did. If anything, the economic argument runs backward.

What about job quality? Here too, the data holds. According to the General Social Survey, men’s perceived job stability and work hours have largely remained steady or improved since the 1970s. Job satisfaction is somewhat lower, but the factors most relevant to family formation — stability and hours — have not deteriorated significantly enough to explain the scale of the marriage decline.

The marriage divide is real and significant: in 1962, more than 90% of Americans ages 30 to 35 had ever married. Today, only 55% have. But the explanation for that gap is not found in the paycheck.

The Counterintuitive Angle: People Used to Get Married With Far Less. The Problem Is We Expect Far More.

Here is the finding that reframes the entire conversation — and that the housing data in Sheffield’s paper makes concrete.

Men at age 30 in 1970 were about as likely to be homeowners as married men at age 30 today. But their homes had an average of four rooms, compared to six rooms today. They had more occupants per room, fewer amenities, and none of the technologies now considered basic. In 1970, even men several years into marriage had lower material living conditions than 30-year-old married men today.

In other words, people in 1970 were getting married in conditions that young adults today would consider inadequate for beginning a life together. They didn’t wait for the bigger house, the newer car, the fully furnished home, the perfect financial footing. They started with less and built together.

Something has shifted. Material expectations for marriage have risen dramatically — and those rising expectations are making marriage feel unachievable, particularly for young adults with moderate incomes who compare themselves not to their parents’ starting point but to an idealized standard they see on social media and in the culture around them.

Sheffield identifies several cultural factors compounding this: the normalization of cohabitation, which provides the relational benefits of partnership without requiring formal commitment; unwed childbearing, which creates family complexity that makes later marriage harder; and government welfare policies that have reduced the economic necessity of marriage by making it easier for women to manage without a partner’s income. Each of these shifts has had a greater proportional impact on working-class Americans than on those with higher education and income — which is why the marriage divide runs so clearly along class lines.

The problem, as Sheffield concludes, is not the economy. It is the culture — and government policies that have reinforced the wrong cultural signals.

What This Means for Your Church

At Communio, Sheffield’s findings confirm what we see in communities and congregations across the country: the marriage crisis is not primarily a financial problem, and it will not be solved by financial solutions. It is a cultural and relational problem — rooted in rising expectations, diminished commitment norms, and a generation that has been formed by a culture that systematically delays, devalues, and destabilizes marriage.

That is precisely the kind of problem the local church is built to address. Not by lowering expectations for marriage, but by reshaping them — helping young adults understand that marriage has never required a perfect financial starting point, that the couple who begins with less and builds together is practicing exactly the kind of covenantal commitment that marriage was designed to require, and that the community surrounding them matters as much as their bank account.

Think about the young adults in your congregation who are waiting. Waiting for the right job, the right apartment, the right financial stability before they seriously pursue marriage. Many of them have absorbed, without realizing it, a set of cultural expectations that are making marriage feel like a capstone achievement rather than a cornerstone commitment. They do not need a bigger paycheck. They need a different framework — and a community that holds it out to them clearly.

That is the work Communio helps churches do. Not just preaching a theology of marriage, but building the kind of relational culture where marriage is attainable, celebrated, and supported at every stage of the journey toward it. The marriage divide is cultural. The answer is too.

Take the Next Step

Communio partners with churches to build marriage and relationship ministry that helps young adults, engaged couples, and married families build the relational foundation that lasting commitment requires.

► Read the full IFS article by Rachel Sheffield → ifstudies.org

► Explore Communio’s resources for churches → communio.org

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are men’s earnings not the primary cause of the marriage decline? According to Rachel Sheffield’s Heritage Foundation paper, young men’s median earnings in 2025 are at a roughly 50-year high — yet marriage rates have continued to fall throughout. Research by Scott Winship at AEI also shows that today’s young men generally earn more than the married, single-earner fathers of the 1960s and 1970s, when marriage rates were much higher. The economic narrative simply does not fit the data.

If economics isn’t the problem, what is driving the marriage decline? Sheffield identifies several cultural drivers: rising material expectations for marriage that make it feel unachievable to many young adults; the normalization of cohabitation and nonmarital sex; unwed childbearing that creates family complexity making later marriage harder; and government welfare policies that have reduced the economic necessity of marriage. These cultural shifts, not declining wages, explain the long-term trend.

How have material expectations for marriage changed over time? In 1970, married men at the median age of first marriage lived in homes with an average of four rooms and more occupants per room than today. Men who get married today at age 30 have significantly better living conditions than married 30-year-olds in 1970. People used to enter marriage with far fewer material resources. Rising expectations — shaped in part by social media and cultural comparison — have made young adults feel they need much more before they can begin.

Why has the marriage decline hit working-class Americans harder? Cultural shifts like cohabitation, nonmarital sex, and unwed childbearing have had a greater proportional impact on working-class Americans than on those with higher education and incomes. Unwed births carry lower opportunity costs for working-class women, increasing their likelihood. Government welfare policies have also made it easier to manage without a partner’s income, reducing the economic incentive to marry — again disproportionately affecting lower-income households.

What can the local church do to address the cultural roots of the marriage decline? The local church is uniquely positioned to reshape the cultural expectations around marriage — helping young adults understand that marriage has never required a perfect financial starting point and that covenant commitment is the foundation, not the reward, of a good life together. Communio helps churches build the relational culture where marriage is attainable, celebrated, and supported at every stage of the journey, equipping young adults and couples with the formation they need rather than waiting for the culture to change on its own.

Credit: This post draws on Rachel Sheffield’s paper “The Working-Class Marriage Decline: How Higher Expectations and Shifting Culture Explain It,” covered by the Institute for Family Studies on June 25, 2026. Read the full IFS article here.