One ingredient in our current demographic stew, mixed in with the low birth rates and declining marriage rates, is a positive one: More children live in a two-parent household than at any time in a generation.
In an analysis of America’s 2020 Census data, the Institute for Family Studies found that 70.4% of minor children live in a home with two parents, while 25.5% live with a single parent and 4.1% live with neither parent. This is a slight increase from a 2010 report that found 69.4% of children were living with two parents, but still well below the 72.5% recorded in 1990.
This may seem odd in light of the recent trend of vilifying the nuclear family. Postmodern leftists led people to believe that a two-parent household was not necessary and that it only existed to enforce misogynistic gender roles. But the benefits of a two-parent upbringing are many: Children raised in two-parent families are less likely to live in poverty, and they are more likely to be successful at school, in their future careers, and in their own marriages.
What’s behind this wholesome trend? Most notable is a decline in teenage pregnancies and a decline in single-parent households generally. The divorce rate has fallen, too, which is probably related to people getting married later.
So, here we see the cost at which we have purchased the good outcomes: fewer and later marriages and babies. Our families may be more stable, but they’re rarer. In other words, people who may find marriage or family life challenging aren’t even trying.
Put simply, the family, the institution upon which our society depends, is still in danger. The trend toward two-parent households offers hope that the nuclear family itself is not a lost cause, but until young people start to prioritize and value raising children, families and the communities they make will always be vulnerable.
