America is in a family crisis.

We have declining marriage rates and lower birth rates than ever before.

This past month, USA Facts updated its marriage rate statistics and noted the following regarding the marriage rate:

“In 2024, 47.1% of households were headed by married couples, the second lowest share since 2022’s all-time low of 46.8%.

The percentage of households with a married couple peaked 75 years ago: in 1949, it was 78.8%. That percentage has been below 50.0% since 2010, when the rate was 49.7%. In other words, less than half of American households have included a married couple for over a decade.”

These statistics should cause conservatives, especially Christian conservatives, great concern.

Marriage is the foundational institution of society.

Strong marriages lead to stable, moral, and well-balanced children. This, in turn, benefits all of society with adults who have a stable, moral background from which they can conduct themselves in the public square.

After all, whether or not children come from a married household is the greatest predictor of future success.

However, not only is America struggling with a decline in marriage rates, but the birth rate is also dangerously low.

Recently, the CDC announced that both birth rates and fertility rates had dropped to historic lows. Again, these rates are cause for great concern. After all, a society cannot continue to flourish without its foundation–people.

Yet, maybe the future is not as bleak as it would first appear.

A recent study conducted by The Times found the downward spiral of declining marriage rates and lower birth rates could indeed be coming to an end for one simple reason:

Generation Z is pro-marriage.

In fact, Generation Z is more pro-marriage and is more opposed to casual sex than Millennials.

“Only 23 per cent of 18 to 27-year-olds said their friends commonly had sex on a one-night stand — a steep fall from the 78 per cent of millennials who said yes to that question 20 years ago.”

Bryan Driscoll, a Generational Expert and HR Consultant posited to Newsweek that Gen Z’s trend toward embracing traditional marriage is due to a need for stability and security:

“The shift toward marriage doesn’t really surprise me, but maybe not for a romantic reason. Gen Z has grown up watching Millennials get screwed—skyrocketing housing costs, stagnant wages, student debt traps, and a work culture that treats burnout and overwork like an admirable personality trait. Millennials didn’t reject marriage and kids because they didn’t want them—they were priced out. Gen Z sees that and, instead of rejecting traditional relationships outright, they’re looking for stability in an economy that offers them none.”

Whether or not the exact reasoning for Gen Z’s shift towards traditional marriage is known, their desire for marriage and family is most definitely an encouraging shift.