The peril of declining marriage and childbirth rates

OPINION:

We have passed through the annual celebrations of mothers and fathers — what some call “Hallmark Holidays” — but if current marriage and childbirth rates continue their downward trajectory, the greeting card giant may need to find other days to boost its sales.

Unfortunately, Hallmark will not be the only one to suffer from the decline in mothers and fathers; our society will too. This is a shame because marriage and families provide significant benefits to our nation and to personal well-being.

As Kristen Ullman wrote recently in the Washington Examiner, studies have shown that marriage is associated with “better physical health, greater emotional well-being, increased financial stability, and deeper happiness.”

Even The Washington Post agrees, as Danielle Zickl recently reported that getting married can be good for your health.

Several studies have found that married people live longer lives than singles, particularly single men, who are susceptible to early mortality.

A Harvard study found that socially isolated men had a 90% higher risk of dying from heart disease than men who have strong interpersonal relationships, including marriage.

This brings me to my second point: America’s declining birth rates are pushing our society toward a dark demographic disaster.

One of the key contributors to this decline is that men are increasingly choosing not to get married or are delaying marriage. As a result, they are “opting out” of fatherhood.

Although those who choose to be fathers are more involved in their children’s lives, which is a good thing, there are fewer fathers overall, which is not so good.

As Grant Bailey and Brad Wilcox write in a recent piece for the Institute for Family Studies, “a big reason that today’s dads look so good is that fatherhood has become much more selective, increasingly concentrated among men with the financial resources, social capital, or cultural commitments that make family formation a possibility and a priority.”

The share of men ages 25 to 45 who are fathers has fallen from two-thirds in 1980 to 53% in 2024, and the number of men in that age range who are childless has risen from 10 million in 1980 to 23 million in 2024, they write. “The ranks of the childless, meanwhile, are surging among younger, less-educated, liberal, and secular men.”

I could continue to rattle off statistics that show how this trend will have long-term negative effects on men and women, but the bottom line is this: When men opt out of marriage and family formation, they become increasingly isolated and more likely to experience health problems such as heart disease. This places a greater burden on our healthcare system.

In addition, as either unmarried or childless men age, they confront lives with no love or support from the children they would have raised, thus facing a long and despairing path toward death.

As I write in my new book, “What Really Matters: Restoring a Legacy of Faith, Freedom, and Family,” studies have shown that a lack of social connections also greatly increases the likelihood of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Meanwhile, as studies have shown, married men with children, in the words of Messrs. Bailey and Wilcox, are “the happiest men in America today.”

Thus, the negative impacts of declining birth rates go beyond mere economics, such as the ever-decreasing ratio of young people paying into entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare. Meanwhile, the number of people depending on those programs continues to increase.

This affects long-term personal health and enjoyment, end-of-life care and the social connections needed to keep people engaged and healthy.

We ignore the consequences of declining marriage, childbirth and fatherhood rates at our peril. If we want a healthier, happier society, we must return to one that places greater value on marriage and family formation rather than pursuing “personal fulfillment,” which, in the long term, is anything but fulfilling.

It is my hope that, as publications such as The Washington Post acknowledge that marriage is good for health and others show that having children is good for men, this trend can be reversed, resulting in greater personal and societal happiness and health.

Perhaps Hallmark will be able to breathe a sigh of relief as well.

• Timothy S. Goeglein is the vice president of government and external relations at Focus on the Family and the co-author of a new book, “What Really Matters: Restoring a Legacy of Faith, Freedom, and Family” (Fidelis, 2026).