This week, a shocking Pew Research graphic has been making the rounds on social media. It’s a chart showing how dramatically young women’s interest in marriage has fallen away over the past three decades.

In 1993, 83% of Year 12 girls said they wanted to get married. By 2023, that figure had dropped to just 61%. Perhaps the most shocking revelation was that, over the same period, young men’s desire for marriage stayed almost entirely stable.

As the father of a little girl, this trend concerns me. In particular, I’m interested in what’s causing young women to suppress their natural instincts for marriage, family and stability. And, more importantly, I want to cast a more hopeful vision for their future.

Real Challenges

First, let’s consider some of the causes.

There’s no doubt that economic pressures are causing young women to feel pessimistic about marriage. As house prices skyrocket and the costs of raising a family continue to mount, milestones like marriage and children can seem almost impossible.

There are other economic changes that have made marriage seem less necessary than in the past. Expanded welfare systems have helped the poor, but they’ve also encouraged many single women to become dependent on the state in place of a husband. Likewise, many workplaces now give women a leg up in hiring, which has made it easier for young women to build solid careers on their own — but made marriage feel less urgent.

Contraception also deserves a mention here, which has made it easy to delay starting a family and has fed into a casual dating scene that removes sex from its God-intended purpose.

More broadly, the dating scene has come to be dominated by apps, swiping, and “gamified” interactions that make relationships feel less stable and people more disposable. The predictable result is more cynicism about relationships, less trust, and postponed commitment.

Most of all, perhaps, is the cultural narrative that elevates autonomy over family. For decades, young women have been told that career, ambition, success and self-actualisation are what will really fulfil them, while marriage and motherhood are likely to hold them back. This is a complete reversal from the past, when, for thousands of years, a “successful” life was measured by the strength of one’s family and relationships.

The tragedy is that many young women accept this cultural script even when it runs counter to what they truly want out of life.

Lifelong Joy

Fortunately, there’s a better way.

Far from holding women back, getting married and starting a family is a wellspring of incredible freedom and joy. As I’ve previously reported here at The Daily Dad, “among female demographics, married mothers enjoy the highest levels of happiness, connection, and purpose”. It’s the female empowerment almost no one is talking about!

Far from trapping women, marriage and family offer them mutual support, shared goals, emotional security and satisfaction that no career could ever replicate. Careers come and go, but the bonds of marriage and the legacy of children are for life.

I don’t envy young people forced to navigate today’s dating scene or economic headwinds. But I am certain that while trends change, what should guide your biggest decisions in life are long-term goals that grow out of your core values.

So, in short, don’t let fears or cultural pressures dictate your future. Trends will change, apps will come and go, but the bonds of marriage and family are timeless. Marriage and family won’t limit you — they are the path to joy, purpose, deep character formation, and love that endures.

Choosing commitment over career or cultural chaos will give you a life far richer than any promise of “independence” ever could — so choose wisely!

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Image courtesy of Adobe.