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Speaker 1: Hi everybody, and welcome to the Kylie Cast. I'm Kylie Griswold,

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Managing editor at The Federalist. Please like and subscribe wherever

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our other great Federalist podcasts, be sure to subscribe to

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the Kylie Cast as well so you never miss an episode.

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Leave us a five star review. It is one of

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the easiest and best ways you can help out the show,

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and even better yet, if you're just listening to the show,

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go check out the full video version on my personal

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YouTube channel or the Federalist channel on Rumble, and then

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of course like and subscribe there too. If you'd like

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to email the show, you can do so at radio

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at the Federalist dot com. I would love to hear

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from you today. I'm so excited to be joined by

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Brad Wilcox. Brad is a sociologist at the University of

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Virginia as well as a senior Fellow at the Institute

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for Family Studies, and today Brad and I dive into

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a brand new report about the state of our unions,

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the Great Dating Recession. Brad and I talk about how

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many young adults actually want to get married, how many

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are doing it successfully, and why they're having so much

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trouble with it, Plus how churches and married couples and

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families and government and everyone can help young adults get

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and stay married. There is so much here to unpack.

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So without further ado, please welcome to the show, Brad Wilcox. Brad,

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thank you so much for joining me on the Kylie

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Cast today.

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Speaker 2: It's great to be here with you today, so.

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Speaker 1: Great to have you. Let's just dive right in. Why

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don't you tell listeners who are not familiar with your

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work what you do and how you got into the

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work you're doing.

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Speaker 2: So.

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Speaker 3: I teach sociology family at the University of Virginia, been

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doing that for more than twenty years now at UVA,

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and I'm also a fellow at these for family Studies,

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and we're kind of both at UVA and IFS really

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dedicated to trying to figure out what's happening to the

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American family. And I'm focusing especially these days on sort

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of marriage and dating and how this is all playing

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out both for young adults and for middle aged adults

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across the country.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty important topics, though, I would say so. On

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that note, let's talk about this new survey that came

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out from the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatly Institute.

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I would love if you could just kind of explain

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what this study entailed, the methodology behind it, but also

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how you came to the conclusion that you did in

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the title that we are in a dating recession.

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Speaker 3: So what we did with this new report is we

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relied on what's called the National Dating Landscape Survey that

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was targeting more than five thousand young adults across the US,

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and in this particular kind of project, this report, we're

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focusing on eligible young adults who are not married and

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you know, could be dating, you know, seriously or casually

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in one wey or another and trying to just try

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of figure out kind of what's happening with dating, you know,

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from the young adults perspective and the ages. We're focusing

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on those who are age twenty two to thirty five

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in this particular report that's just come out.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so we're looking at both gen Z and millennials.

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In that case, there are there seem to be quite

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a few disconnects in the study between what respondents say

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they want and what they're actually doing, what they desire

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and the steps they're taking to get there. So can

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you just kind of walk listeners through what are the

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main reasons that young young adults aren't dating? Because the

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report shows that young people actually don't want hookup culture,

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they want a dating culture that is intentionally forming serious relationships.

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Let's see here, it looks like eighty three percent of

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women and seventy four percent of men want that. So

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that's a pretty overwhelming and that half of them want

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to be in a relationship, and yet only one in

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three thirty percent about report that they are regularly dating.

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So what's the disconnect there? What are the reasons that

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they're saying they're not dating?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 3: So it is kind of striking that again, two thirds

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of this sample of young adults are not seriously dating anyone.

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And I think you know what's going on here in

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part is that they kind of told us that they

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lack confidence in their skills when it comes to relationships.

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Only about one in three of the young men in

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the survey indicat that they were kind of confident about

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approaching someone to kind of express, you know, their romantic interest.

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Only about four intents, that they kind of trust their

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judgment when it comes to choosing a good dating partner.

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As well, it is kind of like a sense of

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do I really know, like how to find a good person.

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Here they had concerns about kind of money, you know,

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not sure they really had kind of enough money to

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go on like a really nice date. This was kind

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of you expressed by about half of the respondents. And

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then there's also kind of a sense too that they had,

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you know, an inability to kind of move past difficult

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previous romantic experiences. So only about a quarter of the

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response that they can sort of stay positive after a

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bad date or after some kind of relationship you know,

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messy breakup or earth situation. And then you know, more

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than half of our samples said that breakups have made

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them reluctant to begin a new romantic relationship. So there's

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just I think, you know, a real both kind of

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social deficit here that we're facing. And then I think

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also there is you know, a lack of confidence and

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there is a lack of resilience, and I think, just

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to be straight up, my concern here is that the

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kinds of sentiments that we're kind of seeing in this

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survey are ones they also kind of see in teaching

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ordinary students now at the University of Revisions. I think

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this is kind of more of a pervasive challenge facing

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young men and women today. They often kind of lack,

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you know, confidence, they lack social skills, and they lack

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a kind of fortitude. Again not necessarily everyone obviously, but

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there's just a kind of a higher fragility, if you will,

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when it comes to social life that I'm seeing kind

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of play out among my students at the University of Virginia.

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So this is kind of dovetailing with what I'm you know,

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seeing both in the survey and then EVA more particularly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean this is beyond the scope of

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the study, but the anecdotes are really helpful. What do

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you think is causing this lack of resilience and this

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lack of confidence? I mean, is this is this mostly

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students who are not seeing healthy relationships play out, so

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they're not confident for that reason. Is it that this

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is a screen generation that was kind of ruined by

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you know, distraction and pseudo relationships.

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Speaker 4: And things like that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, what are what do you think are the

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main contributors to this?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's kind of a multifold story, I would want

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to tell you, obviously, And what I'm sort of seeing

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in the research that we're doing an IFS and other

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scholars are doing is certainly obviously a digital story.

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Speaker 2: Here.

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Speaker 3: We've seen, for instance, kind of in person socializing among

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young adults fall from about twelve hours prior to smartphones

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per week to about five hours today, So just kind

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of kind huge decline in socializing. We've seen dating fall

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by about fifty percent in the same time period for

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high schoolers in America as well at IFS. So part

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of this is about the digital revolution, But I think

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there's also ways too in which kind of parents have

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been kind of either called helicopter parents or snowplow parents,

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where they're kind of like clearing out the difficult things

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from their kids' lives, are kind of preventing their kids

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from like, you know, walking a quarter of a mile

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to a friend's house or spending a few hours in

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the forest's younger children, you know, unsupervised or kind of

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letting a different called you know, a bad grade, you know,

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just sit with them and not kind of call the

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teacher and you know, kind of try to, you know,

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make the grade be changed. This is kind of a

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way which I think parents have been unable and unwilling

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to kind of give their kids enough freedom to kind

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of be in the world, to risk to fail to

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do difficult things physically difficult things as well. So I

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think that's also part of the story here for you know,

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a lot of young adults as well. But I also

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think too, there is kind of there's a way in

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which the Me Too movement, you know, has made a

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lot of guys, you know, worried about approaching young women

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and kind of being called out as you know some

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kind of you know, harasser or you know, evil toxic

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masculine guid I think that's part of the challenge facing

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young men, especially here. And then too, I think we're

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kind of keenly aware of the way which our boys

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have been ill served by school, middle schools, elementary schools,

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high schools, and now by colleges as well, and often

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feeling like, you know, school isn't really kind of conducive

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to them, you know, flourishing kind of developing, you know,

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the skills, the knowledge, you know, the self confidence that

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they would have gotten maybe in a different era from

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attending you know, school and attending college. I think that's

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also part of the challenge to our schools are not

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kind of equipping boys with the kind of experiences and

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knowledge which would increase their confidence in just being young

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men and then also and approaching women in particular.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there is so much to unpack, and what you

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just said it makes me. It makes me think also

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when you talked about them, both the me too and

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then the sort of environment that boys are being raised in. Now,

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it makes me think of that great essay I brought

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it up so many times now but by Helen Andrews

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about the great feminization this past year and just how

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you know, the kind of culture even that grades have

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become for boys where you just kind of have they're

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just run by hr Karens. Everything's kind of dominated by

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this this feminization where masculinity is so suppressed. Yeah, I

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can't imagine growing up in that kind of environment and

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then also trying to have the confidence to approach a

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woman in a masculine way. I mean, that's got to

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be so difficult.

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Speaker 4: Are you seeing.

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Speaker 1: And I mean the five thousand or so people who

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are surveyed for this, you know, that's a great sample size,

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and so anecdotally it might be different. But have you

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noticed very different dating and marriage success rates among students

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who don't have helicopter parents or who maybe are not

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as screen dominated in their social lives.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question. So I think what I

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have this is now I'm seeking more anecdotally based upon

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my UVA experience, is that I have seen, you know,

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from some of the guys who are in my classes

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who've actually attended single sex schools. One school is the

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Heights outside of DC. You know, a school is we

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Berray Forest and Orange, Virginia. And some of the kind

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of more confident, more kind of masculine guys that I've

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run across at UVA are guys who have gone to

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these single sex schools, and you know, I think they've

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often done difficult things physically, they haven't been their parents

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are not in the picture oftentimes in the same way,

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and they are kind of encouraged to sort of you know,

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develop a kind of healthy you know, pro social masculinity

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at both of these schools. So I think that's certainly

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interesting to kind of see, you know, again, young men

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at Uva from both of these schools seem to be

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having more success when it comes to both UVA in

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general and then dating at UVA in particular as well.

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Speaker 1: I also wonder about the political dynamics of this too,

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because I know a lot of the statistics in the

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study are there's not a lot of statistical significance between

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men and women's answers. But at the same time, you know,

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especially as women have so embraced feminism, I imagine even

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if it's not true, even if they do desire marriage,

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that men are picking up kind of what women are

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putting down and you know, not not as inclined to

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pursue women who have made independence their personal brand. I'm

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curious if you're seeing that trend so kind.

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Speaker 3: Of too, I think points that one could make. I mean,

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there's a lot you could say about this, right Ketty,

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But I think one thing that we are seeing a

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suheronically was put out by a Brookings research brief, you know,

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a while back. Just kind of what it found was

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that in general, liberals were less concerned about kind of

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the fortunes of boys and men. Conservatives in general much

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more concerned about the fortunes of boys and men, but

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liberal parents are much more concerned about their own sons,

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and conservative parents were less concerned about their own sons.

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I think this probably ties into a way in which

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we do see some actually some new research from Jonathan Rothwell,

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who's the senior economists to Gallop, and what he is

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finding his work is that teenagers who are being raised

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by more conservative parents tend to be doing better on

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the emotional He didn't separate out by boys and girls,

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but kind of a dovetail with this story from Brookings,

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and his thought is that conservative parents, you know, are

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more likely to have clear rules and expectations for their

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kids and more liberal parents and also kind of demand

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more of them in like things like housework and you know,

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yard work, you know, to kind of make more demands

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upon them, and that that creates a more resilient teenager,

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which is, you know, a good thing. So I do

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think that conservative young men may have some advantages when

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it comes to kind of that masculinity you know sort

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of story in terms of just being more confident and whatnot.

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But ideologically, we've obviously seen since around twenty fourteen what's

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been called the you know, the Great Awokening, that a

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lot of young women have moved pretty far to the

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left and some young men have moved to the right.

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So what that means is that ideologically speaking, they are

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about two liberal women who are single young women for

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every young liberal guy, and they are about two conservative

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young men for every about conservative young women who'd be single.

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This is based upon some work I did with Wmonstone,

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my colleague get Ifs. So there's obviously a gap, you know,

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where conservative men are going to find it difficult to

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some extent to meet conservative women, and vice versa for

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liberal women as well, And so yeah, I think that

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does create some tensions. From my book Forget Married, to

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talk to a young woman for instance, in the Southeast,

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and she'd had three serious relationships and two of those

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ended because the guys were supporters of Donald Trump and

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she was not a fan. So the ideological piece is

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certainly part of the picture here. And so of course

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I think the case too that the algorithms are often

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pushing young women and young men in different directions online

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in ways that kind of accentuate this this partisan in

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this ideological divide.

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Speaker 5: Eighteen hundred companies are in the amazing tariff for refund.

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Race the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski.

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Every day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and

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00:15:21,679 --> 00:15:24,159
the economy and how it affects your wallet. One hundred

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and thirty billion dollars was taken in tariffs. Because those

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tariffs were called off, Companies want their money back. Will

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00:15:30,799 --> 00:15:32,799
they get it? Whether it's happening in DC or down

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on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check

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00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:37,919
out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski

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00:15:37,960 --> 00:15:40,399
on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 1: So interesting because also the research seems to indicate that

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women become more conservative after they are married and have children. Also,

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so it's interesting that they are more or less disqualifying

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themselves from marrying these decent candidate. It's you know, these

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these conservative young men. Yeah, because that two to one

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ratio both directions just just doesn't quite work. And I

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think there was a statistic in this uh in this report,

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the most recent won the State of Our Union's Dating

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Recession Report. But I forget the number now about people

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who didn't feel that they were surrounded by datable partners

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or something like that.

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Speaker 4: Do do you know what I'm referring to.

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Speaker 3: I don't know that particular Okay, that particular finding, but

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certainly I think one thing, you know, and I hear

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this from you know, both liberal and conservative young women,

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both at EVA and other venues as well, But there's

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just kind of this this this sense that a lot

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of the men in there, not obviously not all, not

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even majority, but a large minority of guys, from their perspective,

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kind of don't measure up. That they're you know, they're

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struggling with maybe spoking too much marijuana, or they're not

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really that engaged with you know, school or work, or

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they don't have big the emotional skills to really you know,

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be good boyfriends. That's only one, you know, kind of

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concern that I've heard articulated by women. But at the

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same time, what I hear from the guys at EVA

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who actually are more marriage minded is that a lot

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of their female peers don't see me that interested in

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kind of getting married and having family anytime soon, So

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from their perspective, like why really engage when it comes

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to sort of dating seriously when you know their their

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female prospects are not going to be looking at marriage

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and family in the short term. And of course you

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saw that that survey back in September NBC News kind

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of finding that for young women who voted for Kamala Harris,

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their sort of top priority was career and marriage and

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motherhood were kind of way down the list. And by contrast,

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young men today who are voting Republican are way more

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likely to kind of list fatherhood and marriage kind of

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at the top of their you know, their priorities. So

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we are kind of in this really weird new world

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where you know, historically women are more likely to be

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sort of family minded, family oriented, but we're today seeing

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is that, you know, young men are more career oriented,

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and young memen, especially on the right, are more likely

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to express an interest in marriage and fatherhood.

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Speaker 1: So that kind of gets to another disconnect that I

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that I was seeing in the study, which is, well,

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I'll just quote directly from the report. Nearly two thirds

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sixty four percent reported that marriage was an important life

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goal for them, although less than half forty seven percent

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said marriage was a top priority for them at this time.

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In their life, and that the younger and older respondents

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were not significantly different on this question. But these are

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all people of marriage age who are being pulled on this,

347
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So you know what gives if you're saying that this

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is an important thing, you really value it, but fewer

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than half of the respondents think that, well, that doesn't

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really matter for me right now though.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So there was another study done by Pugh the basic

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who's kind of looking at adults, you know more generally

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find it about seventy percent of kind of adults we're

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sort of prioritizing career, especially, but also you know, money

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and education to some extent, and only about you know,

357
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one fifth really prioritizing you know, marriage, only about one

358
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fifth we're prioritizing parenthood. This particular Pew server that I'm

359
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thinking about, and we've kind of seen this pattern across

360
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a range of different Pew surveys, both looking at teenagers

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and looking at adults, but also looking at parents and

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kind of their own priorities for their own children. And

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so what we've seen kind of emerge in recent years

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is what I call the mightst mindset, Okay, the mightest mindset.

365
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It's kind of idea thinking about the fable myth from

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from you know, from Greece, is this kind of idea

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that what really matters is money, kind of building your

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own brand and now kind of career, doing things that

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are kind of basically high status. That's what kind of

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really matters. And what we're seeing is the kind of

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the public and general has sort of downgraded the importance

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of love and marriage and family. And so I think

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a lot of young adults, Yeah, they would like to

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get married, it's it's a goal. They would like to

375
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have family, it's a goal. But what really kind of

376
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is preoccupying them is, you know, a great career, a

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decent income and a good education and these And then

378
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I think too kind of even having some freedom in

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their twenties, you know too, in Charlie Kirk's words, kind

380
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of travel to Thailand, right, So kind of like the

381
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thought is that, you know, the twenties are a time

382
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when you're really focusing on your when you're basically working hard,

383
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playing hard. This is kind of like the midesst mindset

384
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from you know, from where I set. The problem though,

385
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is they don't realize is that today it's much harder

386
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Kylie to date and I think that if people are

387
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not kind of prioritizing finding a mate, either in college

388
00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:56,240
or in you know, in a church, or in a

389
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work context or with a group of friends, you know,

390
00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:00,880
in their early twenties, are just going to experience a

391
00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:05,599
lot more difficulty than I think their parents and certainly

392
00:21:05,640 --> 00:21:08,200
their grandparents did. So I just think that there's kind

393
00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:10,480
of like this assumption that part of many and adults

394
00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:12,200
and their parents that you kind of can just turn

395
00:21:12,279 --> 00:21:16,799
about twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine, snap your fingers,

396
00:21:17,079 --> 00:21:21,160
and like find the perfect partner and get married around thirty.

397
00:21:21,440 --> 00:21:23,599
This is kind of like, you know, the mindset that

398
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:25,240
I see among a lot of in and outs today,

399
00:21:25,279 --> 00:21:28,400
both the EVA and elsewhere. What they're not really, I

400
00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:33,079
think realizing, is that just because of the newer cultural

401
00:21:33,119 --> 00:21:36,519
occurrence that we're all kind of navigating, it looks like

402
00:21:36,559 --> 00:21:38,359
it's just a lot harder for folks in their late

403
00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:41,920
twenties and thirties to find, you know, a spouse today.

404
00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:46,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is interesting because one aspect of the report

405
00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:49,880
that I found just fascinating was the number of respondents

406
00:21:49,920 --> 00:21:51,640
who said that the ideal age.

407
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Speaker 4: To marry is thirty. It's so interesting.

408
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Speaker 1: To me because you know, women's fertility specifically gradually and

409
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then rapidly declines in their thirties. And I just wonder,

410
00:22:02,599 --> 00:22:06,519
you know, do do young people not know this? Do

411
00:22:06,559 --> 00:22:09,599
they not want children? Are they banking on you know,

412
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artificial reproductive technologies. Are they just kind of like going

413
00:22:12,759 --> 00:22:16,240
to figure it out later? Where does this thirty number

414
00:22:16,279 --> 00:22:17,880
come from? I guess you just kind of said, you know,

415
00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:20,119
people are just expecting that once they hit a certain age,

416
00:22:20,119 --> 00:22:22,279
they'll just be able to boop get married like without

417
00:22:22,720 --> 00:22:24,920
you know, without really thinking about maybe what the dating

418
00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:26,960
pool around them looks like or how many opportunities they'll

419
00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:29,799
have at that time. But are they just not thinking

420
00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:33,200
past step one of dating and getting married or what

421
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:33,680
gives there?

422
00:22:34,759 --> 00:22:37,119
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I wrote a piece called Get Married Young

423
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:39,599
for Compact magazine not too long ago and talk to

424
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a number of young adults for that piece. And one

425
00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:45,279
woman I spoke to is from Texas, Elizabeth, and she

426
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kind of mentioned that, you know, and she's conservative, marriage minded, evangelical,

427
00:22:50,359 --> 00:22:51,720
but you know, she said, you know, she went to

428
00:22:52,079 --> 00:22:54,279
a good college, you know, in the South, and then

429
00:22:54,319 --> 00:22:57,680
she went to law school in the South as well.

430
00:22:57,799 --> 00:22:59,640
She worked in big law in New York for like

431
00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:01,319
a year and a half, I think, and then she

432
00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:04,200
came back to work for Big Law you know, in

433
00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:07,680
Texas as well, and you know, it wasn't like she

434
00:23:07,839 --> 00:23:13,440
was again she wanted to get married, but she didn't

435
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:16,279
kind of prioritize that both in her undergraduate days in

436
00:23:16,319 --> 00:23:18,400
her law school days, and she felt and when she

437
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:20,200
got to New York, she was interested in dating, but

438
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:21,839
it was just hard to find a good person from

439
00:23:21,839 --> 00:23:26,279
her perspective, you know, in Manhattan. So then she had

440
00:23:26,279 --> 00:23:29,200
he early twenties in Texas and now she's thirty four

441
00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:32,799
and she's had one serious relationship and it turned out

442
00:23:32,839 --> 00:23:35,880
her boyfriend in this relationship did not want to have kids,

443
00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:37,680
and this was a kind of you know, this was

444
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:40,680
a big surprise to her, devastating surprise to her. And

445
00:23:40,759 --> 00:23:44,279
she's now working up with him. So but I think again,

446
00:23:44,319 --> 00:23:46,319
the issue that her story and I think kind of

447
00:23:46,319 --> 00:23:48,359
reveals to us is that there are plenty of folks

448
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:53,200
out there who I think our marriage minded broadly, you know,

449
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:59,839
sympathetic to the importance of all these issues. Could be conservative,

450
00:23:59,839 --> 00:24:03,920
good religious, but they're just they're swimming in a culture

451
00:24:04,519 --> 00:24:09,480
that really prioritizes work and that great career. And in

452
00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:11,880
Elizabeth's case, she said to me, you know, I recently

453
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:16,720
visited my sister who's got three little kids, kind of

454
00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:21,640
financially stressed out with you know, with her husband, and

455
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:24,559
she was just sitting on the steps with her sister,

456
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:28,119
you know, playing with her sister's baby. And she got

457
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:30,680
news from her big law firm that she'd gotten a

458
00:24:30,759 --> 00:24:34,039
promotion and you know, a bigger salary. And she said

459
00:24:34,039 --> 00:24:36,000
to me, you know, I would have given every dollar

460
00:24:36,079 --> 00:24:39,839
in my bank account to have my sister's life right now.

461
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:42,559
So here's a kind of perfect example of where Elizabeth

462
00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:47,000
is sort of an example of this minus mindset in practice.

463
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:49,720
And yet she would much more have preferred that she'd

464
00:24:49,759 --> 00:24:53,000
kind of taken a more marriage centered mindset, you know,

465
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:55,119
in college even I mean, she was kind of saying,

466
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:57,720
you know, look, I'm a little bit nerdy, and there

467
00:24:57,720 --> 00:24:59,799
are plenty nerdy guys in my college and if I

468
00:24:59,839 --> 00:25:03,359
just and more thoughtful about, you know, dating intentionally back

469
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:06,319
in college, it might be in a different place today.

470
00:25:06,039 --> 00:25:07,240
Speaker 2: Than that I am currently.

471
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:10,799
Speaker 1: Oh wow, what a poignant anecdote, But it does it

472
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:14,000
matches with the research which shows that married women with

473
00:25:14,079 --> 00:25:17,440
children are what like three times happier, report being three

474
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:20,039
times happier than yeah times.

475
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:22,200
Speaker 3: You know, we've done an ifs, have done a number

476
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:24,519
of different surveys, but yeah, we are finding that depending

477
00:25:24,559 --> 00:25:26,839
upon the survey, married moms are between two and three

478
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:29,319
times more likely to be very happy with their lives

479
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:31,920
compared to their single and childless peers. And that includes

480
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:34,640
younger women in their twenties and early thirties. So I

481
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:39,319
think again there's a lot of there's the commercial wisdom,

482
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:41,359
as you know, Kylie, kind of runs in the entirely

483
00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:44,160
opposite direction. So my colleague Dan Cox at the American

484
00:25:44,279 --> 00:25:47,720
Enterprise Institute has done some survey work indicating that a

485
00:25:47,799 --> 00:25:51,720
majority of young single women today think that marriage and

486
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:54,160
motherhood are a bad deal for women.

487
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:55,400
Speaker 2: Even they're actually a good deal for men.

488
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,400
Speaker 3: So they have the man piece, you know, correct, Kylie,

489
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:01,920
But they just think that the sacrifices that marriage, especially

490
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:05,640
motherhood you know, tends to you know, require of women

491
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:09,240
are such that, you know, married moms are worse off.

492
00:26:09,839 --> 00:26:13,119
They're completely oblivious though to their research indicating what comes

493
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:16,799
to happiness when it comes to reporting a meaningful life

494
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:21,920
when it comes to loneliness. There's just no question that

495
00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:25,039
married women, including married moms, are doing better than their

496
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:27,960
single and childless peers. Now it is true in our

497
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:30,680
work we find this is a gene. Twangia noted psychologists

498
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:34,079
that women are more stressed out when they're married moms.

499
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:37,839
No surprise there, you know, there's more sleepless nights, no doubt. Right,

500
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:40,039
So I want to be clear and honest about that.

501
00:26:41,519 --> 00:26:45,519
But you know, having a baby, you know, raising a baby,

502
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:49,720
slugging with a toddler, you know, watching your kids, you know,

503
00:26:49,839 --> 00:26:52,240
play soccer or the piano, whatever it might be. You know,

504
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:55,599
all these things are just so meaningful and often magical,

505
00:26:56,279 --> 00:26:58,160
and we've just been I think, doing a terrible job

506
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:02,119
of kind of telling the full truth about the power

507
00:27:02,319 --> 00:27:05,680
and the meaning and the beauty of you know, of

508
00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:09,119
marriage and motherhood for the you know, for the ordinary woman.

509
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:11,720
Speaker 1: Today right right Well, and it also, you know, we

510
00:27:11,759 --> 00:27:14,440
need to be honest about the stress levels of of

511
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,599
women who just climb the corporate and career ladder as well,

512
00:27:17,599 --> 00:27:20,079
because I'm sure they would also report high levels of stress.

513
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:22,240
You know, if you're at the top of your career,

514
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:24,279
you're not going to be not stressed, but you're not

515
00:27:24,279 --> 00:27:25,599
going to have a baby to snuggle at the end

516
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:28,119
of the day to give you those stress releasing hormones

517
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:28,799
or whatever it is.

518
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's a good point too.

519
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:32,440
Speaker 3: I mean, I think we kind of minimize how much

520
00:27:32,799 --> 00:27:37,279
work for all of us can be stressful. And and again, yeah,

521
00:27:37,279 --> 00:27:41,279
there's just nothing like, you know, we have a big family,

522
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:43,799
but there's you know, nothing like you know, kind of

523
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:45,440
like when you have when we have little kids, you know,

524
00:27:45,559 --> 00:27:47,480
just sort of like waking up in the morning and

525
00:27:47,519 --> 00:27:50,200
there's some you know, some toddler young child kind of

526
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:52,079
just snuggle between you and your and your spouse.

527
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 2: It's just just kind of a magical experience.

528
00:27:54,319 --> 00:27:56,319
Speaker 1: M Yeah, the stress that comes from work is not

529
00:27:56,359 --> 00:28:00,000
stress that will ever love you back, like i'mike having children,

530
00:28:00,079 --> 00:28:02,880
and yeah, yeah, I had an interesting conversation just anecdotally

531
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:07,119
for me, with a young woman probably mid mid to

532
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:11,240
late twenties who this was in a religious context, but

533
00:28:11,599 --> 00:28:14,359
she was just talking about how, you know, her experience

534
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:16,480
with her boyfriend. They'd been together for a period of time,

535
00:28:16,519 --> 00:28:18,799
but they weren't planning to get married yet, and she

536
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:21,160
just kind of mentioned offhand that, yeah, well, I don't

537
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:23,400
want to have kids until I'm in my thirties, and

538
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:25,559
I just I kind of pushed back a little bit

539
00:28:25,599 --> 00:28:27,759
on that, or at least dug into to ask her,

540
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:32,400
you know, why, why is that? Because it's just, I think,

541
00:28:32,839 --> 00:28:36,240
to your point, the feminist messaging is just kind of

542
00:28:36,279 --> 00:28:38,759
the water that women swim in. It's just so become

543
00:28:38,799 --> 00:28:41,759
a part of the way that we think and the

544
00:28:41,759 --> 00:28:45,359
things that we believe that things are just better if

545
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:47,720
we can accomplish all these things first, that like marriage

546
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:50,759
and motherhood are a secondary priority. And I think just

547
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:53,839
like many young people just assume that once they hit

548
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:57,160
that magical age of thirty, they'll be able to instantly,

549
00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:00,519
you know, find the perfect spouse. There's also thisssumption that

550
00:29:00,559 --> 00:29:04,400
once they're past thirty they will have no trouble conceiving

551
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:07,519
a child, and those are just not realistic expectations for

552
00:29:07,559 --> 00:29:08,079
young people.

553
00:29:09,279 --> 00:29:09,519
Speaker 2: Yeah.

554
00:29:09,559 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 3: So one of the things that my colleague Grant Bailey

555
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:15,440
did was kind of look at this from a more

556
00:29:15,519 --> 00:29:19,160
kind of demographic perspective, and what he found it is

557
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:21,480
looking kind of retrospectively for women who are now, like

558
00:29:21,559 --> 00:29:24,920
you know, in their late forties or fifties, but everyone

559
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,960
who kind of got past thirty without having a child.

560
00:29:29,079 --> 00:29:30,880
You know, they had only about a one and two

561
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:34,559
shot of having a child after thirty. Now, again this

562
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:36,839
is for all women, so that one clomen who want

563
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,680
to be childless and women who you know weren't married obviously,

564
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:44,000
but it just kind of was was a striking finding

565
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:46,119
for us because it kind of dovetail was mean that

566
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:49,200
Charlie Kirk had said, you know before he was killed

567
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:52,839
in terms of making the case for earlier marriage free

568
00:29:52,839 --> 00:29:55,039
am adults. And this point was that you know, if

569
00:29:55,039 --> 00:29:58,000
you wait until around you know, thirty to kind of

570
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:01,319
get serious about finding a and starting a family, your

571
00:30:01,319 --> 00:30:04,799
odds just you know, really begin to come down, for

572
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:09,440
both social and biological reasons. And again to your point,

573
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:11,440
I think we just don't appreciate both the kind of

574
00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:14,279
medical story here for fertility in terms of you know

575
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:17,839
how it does become more challenging, especially as when kind

576
00:30:17,839 --> 00:30:20,680
of move into their late thirties. And then we also

577
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:23,680
don't kind of especially now appreciate the social difficulty that

578
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:26,000
we're seeing now long adults when it comes to finding

579
00:30:26,079 --> 00:30:27,880
a good spouse in their late twenties and thirties. So

580
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:29,559
for all those reasons, we should be I think much

581
00:30:29,599 --> 00:30:32,839
more open to getting married, you know, in our twenties

582
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:38,559
and also having a kid, you know, or starting having

583
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:40,440
children in your twenties as well.

584
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a quote in this piece that I

585
00:30:44,279 --> 00:30:46,640
read this week from the Washington Post, a really interesting

586
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:52,680
opinion piece from Shaddi Hamid about this great this dating

587
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:55,880
recession report, And here's the quote. I think it's really

588
00:30:56,039 --> 00:30:56,839
applicable here.

589
00:30:57,079 --> 00:30:57,359
Speaker 2: Quote.

590
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 1: The dating recession won't be solved by any single app

591
00:31:00,079 --> 00:31:03,079
or matchmaker or cultural sermon, but it might begin to

592
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:05,960
ease when we stop treating marriage as something that happens

593
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:08,960
to you after you've finished becoming yourself and start treating

594
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:10,640
it as one of the ways you become yourself in

595
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:13,640
the first place. And I think that's that's really important,

596
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:15,920
of your marriage as something that you do with someone,

597
00:31:16,079 --> 00:31:19,000
not that you do once you've arrived and become the

598
00:31:19,039 --> 00:31:19,799
perfect partner.

599
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 2: Yeah.

600
00:31:21,359 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 3: Right, there's a kind of there are two sort of

601
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:26,720
models that we see in that social sciences around marriage.

602
00:31:26,759 --> 00:31:30,160
One is the kind of capstone model and the thought

603
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:32,240
there obviously the more common model today is that you

604
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:34,359
get all your ducks in a row. You know, you've

605
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:36,759
got all your education, you've made you know, a real

606
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:42,759
big mark career wise, you're fully kind of comfortable in

607
00:31:42,799 --> 00:31:45,400
your skin supposedly, you know, and it's at that point

608
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:47,759
that you date and get married. That's again the Capstone model,

609
00:31:47,799 --> 00:31:49,440
and it's it is kind of getting married close to

610
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:51,559
the age thirty. And then of course the Cornerstone model

611
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:54,440
is sort of getting married often in your early twenties

612
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:57,559
and sort of seeing you know, marriage and families opportunity

613
00:31:57,559 --> 00:31:59,519
where you can kind of grow together with your spouse,

614
00:31:59,559 --> 00:32:02,640
kind of build family together, and really kind of forge

615
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:06,400
a more we first orientation both to life in general

616
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,839
and to your family in particular. And so I think,

617
00:32:10,079 --> 00:32:13,400
you know, I'm more about kind of the Cornerstone model

618
00:32:13,799 --> 00:32:16,160
because it tends to be a more family first model,

619
00:32:17,119 --> 00:32:20,640
a less individualistic model than what the Capstone often ends

620
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:21,079
up being.

621
00:32:22,039 --> 00:32:26,559
Speaker 1: So true, let's talk about kind of what's happening with marriage,

622
00:32:26,559 --> 00:32:30,400
stability and divorce across the board, because the report gets

623
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:34,039
into this a little bit. It seems like in some ways,

624
00:32:34,079 --> 00:32:35,920
in some ways, there's a lot of reason for hope there,

625
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:38,720
but there's also some troubling takeaways. So can you kind

626
00:32:38,759 --> 00:32:41,440
of explain what's happening with the with the marriage stability

627
00:32:41,519 --> 00:32:42,839
and divorced landscape.

628
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I came up with a book called Get

629
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,759
Married in twenty twenty four on Valentine's Day, And you know,

630
00:32:49,759 --> 00:32:52,359
as I was kind of talking about the book, there

631
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:55,000
is concern not just from the left, where a lot

632
00:32:55,079 --> 00:32:57,640
of like progressive voices have been kind of telling women

633
00:32:57,759 --> 00:33:00,559
that marriage is kind of a bad deal for reasons

634
00:33:00,559 --> 00:33:02,720
we've touched on already, but there, of course you're now

635
00:33:02,799 --> 00:33:06,279
voices on the right who are telling young men, Kylie,

636
00:33:06,359 --> 00:33:09,279
that marriage is a bad deal for guys. And the

637
00:33:09,319 --> 00:33:12,599
probably foremost voice here is Andrew Tait. He said, for instance,

638
00:33:12,599 --> 00:33:16,440
that there is zero statistical advantage when it comes to

639
00:33:17,319 --> 00:33:19,720
marriage for men today, and a big part of his

640
00:33:19,799 --> 00:33:23,759
sort of critique of marriage is his belief that most

641
00:33:23,839 --> 00:33:27,000
marriages today and a divorce, And of course, his own

642
00:33:27,039 --> 00:33:29,279
parents got divorced when he was a child, which I'm

643
00:33:29,319 --> 00:33:31,559
sure shapes kind of his whole perspective.

644
00:33:31,119 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 2: On marriage and the like.

645
00:33:32,599 --> 00:33:36,599
Speaker 3: But what we actually see is that since around nineteen

646
00:33:36,720 --> 00:33:39,160
eighty one, the divorce rate actually has come down by

647
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:42,319
about forty percent. And what that means kind of practically

648
00:33:42,359 --> 00:33:45,359
for most people getting married today is that a majority

649
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:48,880
of couples who are marrying now will go the distance.

650
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:51,039
Kind that's sort of the good news that you know,

651
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:57,240
someone like anditates not aware of. From our estimates that

652
00:33:57,240 --> 00:33:59,799
these sort of family studies about forty forty one percent

653
00:34:00,119 --> 00:34:02,519
marriages will and then divorced. It's still too high, you know,

654
00:34:02,559 --> 00:34:06,160
from my perspective, but it does mean again that most

655
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:09,400
marriages will will go the distance. And then in my

656
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:13,159
research I kind of point to things that are kind

657
00:34:13,199 --> 00:34:15,719
of noteworthy in terms of reducing your risk of divorce.

658
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:18,119
So one of those things, for instance, is going to

659
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:21,840
church regularly, depending upon the study, reduces the risk of

660
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:24,280
divorce by between thirty and fifty percent. And that's based

661
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:26,639
upon just you know, individuals going. We don't know what

662
00:34:26,679 --> 00:34:29,880
the sort of couple effected, so I probably bigger than that.

663
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:33,760
We know too, the guys who are stably employed full

664
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:37,159
time are markedly less likely to get divorced than guys

665
00:34:37,159 --> 00:34:39,639
who are not. What's interesting there, too, is there's no

666
00:34:39,679 --> 00:34:43,519
effect of women's employment on divorce. It's all about, basically,

667
00:34:43,559 --> 00:34:46,000
I think, you know, the husband sort of feeling like

668
00:34:46,039 --> 00:34:48,960
he's a decent provider and being viewed as such also

669
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:52,239
by his wife, and just also obviously kind of reduced

670
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:56,159
into the financial stresses that might you know, follow from

671
00:34:56,199 --> 00:34:59,639
unemployment as well. Regular date nights I'll seem to be like,

672
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:04,480
you know, good divorce prevention as well. Once today that

673
00:35:04,519 --> 00:35:06,639
I did suggested that couples who kind of had date

674
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,480
nights regularly, we're about twenty five percent less likely to

675
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:10,119
get divorced.

676
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:11,639
Speaker 2: So there's just kind of a bunch.

677
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 3: Of things that couples can do to kind of you

678
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,039
know both I think, kind of keep the romantic spark

679
00:35:16,039 --> 00:35:20,760
alive in their marriages as well as be surrounded by communities,

680
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:23,400
you know, religious communities for instance, that kind of reinforce

681
00:35:23,559 --> 00:35:27,519
the importance of the marriage and the family. And then

682
00:35:27,519 --> 00:35:29,920
also financial steps they can take too that kind of

683
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:34,800
keep you know, the income relatively steady and reduce the

684
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:38,719
risks when it comes to financial stress. So I just

685
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:40,840
want to get people some hope here recognizing that a

686
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:43,400
divorce is down, and then be there things you can

687
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:49,280
kind of do as a kind of deliberate couple to

688
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:52,159
keep your marriage headed in the right direction.

689
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:53,079
Speaker 4: Yeah.

690
00:35:53,199 --> 00:35:56,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it does seem that the reason, well some

691
00:35:56,480 --> 00:35:58,559
of the reason that the divorce rate is down though,

692
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:02,920
is because it's people are not getting married as much.

693
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 4: Correct.

694
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:05,719
Speaker 3: So yeah, so I talk about kind of there's sort

695
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:07,679
of good news and bad news to kind of convey

696
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:09,800
about marriage and family in America. And some of the

697
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:12,440
bad news, I would say is that we are seeing

698
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:14,239
what I call kind of like the closing of the

699
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:17,360
American heart in my book, where a record share of

700
00:36:17,559 --> 00:36:21,159
today's young adults will never marry and never have children.

701
00:36:21,199 --> 00:36:23,360
About we're projecting probably at least one or three young

702
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:25,559
adults will never marry and about one and four will

703
00:36:25,599 --> 00:36:28,519
never have kids. And these, you know, if our projections

704
00:36:28,559 --> 00:36:31,320
are true, these will be kind of records that we're

705
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:35,199
setting and not not good ones. And so that's certainly

706
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:37,280
that the bad news is that I think for adults,

707
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:41,320
they're having greater difficulty and kind of finding their way

708
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:45,960
to the altar, both literally and metaphorically right now. The

709
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:48,880
good news, though, is that the couples who are getting

710
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:51,679
married and starting families are doing some ways that tend

711
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:55,039
to be you know, more stable. And this means also

712
00:36:55,039 --> 00:36:57,000
that we've seen nextually a slight uptick in the share

713
00:36:57,039 --> 00:37:00,000
of kids who are being raised in stable, married family.

714
00:37:00,119 --> 00:37:04,280
So both marriage and parenthood have become more we call

715
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:07,920
selective you know, for people who are generally more educated,

716
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:12,039
generally more religious, and generally market service, especially on the

717
00:37:12,079 --> 00:37:18,519
marriage front. And so I think that means basically that

718
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:22,800
family life is stabilizing at least a bit right now.

719
00:37:23,559 --> 00:37:25,840
And that's good for kids. But the worry I have

720
00:37:26,039 --> 00:37:28,480
is that, you know, more American adults, women and men

721
00:37:28,519 --> 00:37:31,039
are not going to have the benefit of being married

722
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:32,719
and having a family of their own.

723
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:37,320
Speaker 1: Do you think that the drop in you know, you

724
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:41,480
said one in three Americans will never get married. Do

725
00:37:41,519 --> 00:37:43,840
you think that part of that can be attributed to

726
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:47,559
even the way that government has kind of stepped in

727
00:37:47,639 --> 00:37:50,320
and become a spouse to many people. I mean, I

728
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,079
think of like the Obama Life of Julia campaign, and

729
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:56,920
there's been plenty more government messaging like that. You kind

730
00:37:56,920 --> 00:37:59,440
of just have you more or less have a built

731
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:02,320
in spouse. Mean, it's an abusive one, to be sure,

732
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:06,000
but from cradle to grave, I mean, somebody to take

733
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:09,079
care of you, socially, financially, all the rest. I mean,

734
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:13,159
do you think that's a significant contributing factor here?

735
00:38:14,079 --> 00:38:15,039
Speaker 2: One hundred percent? Yeah.

736
00:38:15,079 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 3: I mean there's no question that really since nineteen sixties,

737
00:38:19,159 --> 00:38:23,559
particularly for lower income Americans, government has become a kind

738
00:38:23,639 --> 00:38:28,280
of you know, provider, you know, a kind of breadwinner,

739
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:32,440
and it provides real material support, and so it's made

740
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:35,960
you know, husbands more optional in many lower income communities.

741
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:39,039
Obviously since nineteen sixties. We see today there's a kind

742
00:38:39,079 --> 00:38:41,960
of marriage penalty facing working class couples with kids. And

743
00:38:42,039 --> 00:38:44,599
for my book, I talked to a number of working

744
00:38:44,599 --> 00:38:47,800
class couples, you know, and adults who are reporting that

745
00:38:48,159 --> 00:38:51,719
they're kind of deciding between marriage and medicaid, you know.

746
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:54,800
So it's it's a real issue the way in which

747
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:57,000
public pos not that anyone in DC. I don't think

748
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,519
anyone was sort of sitting in dcsay I'm going to create,

749
00:38:59,639 --> 00:39:02,960
you know, these marriage penalties that are going to reduce

750
00:39:03,079 --> 00:39:06,840
marriage among first kind of poor Americans and then later

751
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:08,840
working class Americans. But that's sort of the way it

752
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:12,000
works today, is that, you know, they're just public policies

753
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:16,480
that unintentionally end up penalizing folks for getting married and

754
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:19,639
kind of joining their incomes together. And that's that's a

755
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:23,199
huge problem and one that Congress you know, could address

756
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:24,440
if it chose to do.

757
00:39:24,519 --> 00:39:24,599
Speaker 2: So.

758
00:39:25,159 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the incentives are just all wrong. So let's

759
00:39:29,039 --> 00:39:31,679
talk about one interesting potential solution. I want to go

760
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:34,119
back to that Washington Post opinion piece because I thought

761
00:39:35,039 --> 00:39:38,440
I learned about this app that is kind of fascinating.

762
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,199
Apparently there's an app called date Drop I believe that's

763
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:46,320
used by many, like elite Ivy League type students use

764
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:50,280
at Stanford a lot. Apparently it's the students fill out

765
00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:54,920
a lengthy questionnaire, pretty intensive, and then an algorithm will

766
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:58,280
pick one match for you per week. So it's sort

767
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:02,079
of the antip this is too Tinder or some of

768
00:40:02,119 --> 00:40:08,559
these other like doom Scroll type constantly swiping apps sounds

769
00:40:08,639 --> 00:40:10,639
kind of interesting. I mean, it makes me a little

770
00:40:10,679 --> 00:40:13,440
bit sad because this is just diving further into sort

771
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:19,679
of the the screen focused, non communal ways of meeting people.

772
00:40:20,119 --> 00:40:23,199
But is this good a good pollution to the dating

773
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:25,199
recession and matchmaking app like this?

774
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:29,519
Speaker 3: Yeah, So what I would say is two different things.

775
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:31,320
One thing that I would say is it does look,

776
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:33,599
you know, based upon some work to my mccullague doctor

777
00:40:33,599 --> 00:40:37,800
Wendy Wang, the couples who meet in person in religious

778
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:42,559
communities in college at kind of real parties with friends

779
00:40:43,159 --> 00:40:46,239
in the workplace are more happily marrits. I think It's

780
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:50,960
just something kind of very granular about just meeting someone

781
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:52,679
in person, and often kind of if you're in a

782
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:56,119
social network, you can kind of hear things from friends

783
00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:58,679
about this person, you know, make sure that they're like

784
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:00,599
they have like a decent care or they've got a

785
00:41:00,639 --> 00:41:01,559
good reputation, you know.

786
00:41:01,599 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 2: So that's the best way to meet someone.

787
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:06,320
Speaker 4: It's like built in vetting, which it can be very

788
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:08,199
very so and.

789
00:41:08,159 --> 00:41:11,559
Speaker 3: I would and I would encourage you know, both parents

790
00:41:11,559 --> 00:41:15,239
and professors and you know, priests and pastors, you know,

791
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:16,960
just to do a better job also of kind of

792
00:41:17,039 --> 00:41:20,199
like putting people in touch, you know, both in social

793
00:41:20,199 --> 00:41:22,519
settings but also kind of you know, just setting them

794
00:41:22,599 --> 00:41:26,039
up as well because of that social dynamic. But we

795
00:41:26,119 --> 00:41:28,159
have to also be clear that people are struggling to

796
00:41:28,199 --> 00:41:30,360
find someone to date nowadays, and so I think there

797
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:33,719
are you know, apps that can be used to as

798
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:36,039
a kind of backup option, and so I think this, Yeah,

799
00:41:36,119 --> 00:41:39,400
this particular app that was mentioned in the most Journal

800
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:43,559
article too, is uh is one good, you know way

801
00:41:43,559 --> 00:41:46,079
to do that. There's also another app called Keeper, which

802
00:41:46,119 --> 00:41:48,880
is kind of designed to kind of promote serious, committed relationships,

803
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:51,320
primarily with an eye towards you know, marriage as well.

804
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:53,480
So if you are going to use an app, I

805
00:41:53,519 --> 00:41:55,639
would just kind of encourage you to kind of find

806
00:41:55,679 --> 00:41:59,519
one that's really designed to help you meet someone who's

807
00:41:59,679 --> 00:42:04,039
interest in a committed relationship. And again would I would

808
00:42:04,039 --> 00:42:06,559
look at those kind of as a backup option if

809
00:42:06,599 --> 00:42:09,800
you're you know, heading into your you know, your mintal

810
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:13,440
a twenties or thirties and not you know, finding someone

811
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:16,360
who makes for a good match in person.

812
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:20,400
Speaker 1: So before I let you go, let's get into some

813
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:22,800
more practical things. I want to offer people some hope

814
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:24,719
and some tangible stuff that they can do if they

815
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:27,559
are in this cohort of people who desires to be

816
00:42:27,639 --> 00:42:30,760
married but is not and or feels like they lack

817
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:33,119
the confidence that they are marriageable or that they are

818
00:42:33,119 --> 00:42:36,719
struggling to find somebody who is as well. You already

819
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:39,880
mentioned you know priests, like other people in your social

820
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:42,639
circle who can help sort of match me. But what

821
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:45,599
else can be done? What's the role of married couples

822
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:49,599
generally in this churches, communities, government, like on a policy

823
00:42:49,679 --> 00:42:52,199
level all the way down to like what parents can

824
00:42:52,199 --> 00:42:54,519
do for their own kids, Like how can we help

825
00:42:54,679 --> 00:42:56,639
young people who want to be married but are.

826
00:42:56,519 --> 00:42:59,360
Speaker 3: Not, so I think one thing to do is really

827
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:03,000
kind of like communicating the value of marriage and being

828
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:05,679
more intentional about dating. So, you know, I had an

829
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,280
ra for instance, two years ago at UVA, you know,

830
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:10,960
marriage minded guy, but he was really focusing again in

831
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:13,159
his career and he had a very clear kind of

832
00:43:13,199 --> 00:43:15,280
plan for his career for the next decade. If we're

833
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:17,360
graduating from UVA. I asked him, you know, do you

834
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:20,199
want to get married? Big no, yes, And I said,

835
00:43:20,199 --> 00:43:23,119
what are you doing to get married? Big silence? Right,

836
00:43:23,199 --> 00:43:26,719
And so, as the professor, just encouraging my students to

837
00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:30,280
be much more intentional about dating, getting out there, you know,

838
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:33,360
meeting people and just being open to serious relationships and

839
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:35,119
then you know, in a later marriage as well. I

840
00:43:35,159 --> 00:43:37,400
think that's part of kind of giving them permission to

841
00:43:37,679 --> 00:43:40,480
devote as much attention to dating as they do to

842
00:43:41,079 --> 00:43:43,360
oftentimes their education career. That would be one thing that

843
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:46,119
I think we should and kind do. I think we

844
00:43:46,199 --> 00:43:49,000
do have to kind of think about bringing back matchmakers

845
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:51,039
in some way as well, kind of like people might

846
00:43:51,079 --> 00:43:54,440
have some kind of unique gift for bringing folks together.

847
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:57,679
Would be I think a helpful step as well. I

848
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:03,400
think we have to basically work on. This is for parents,

849
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:06,920
you know of school aged and especially teenage kids, kind

850
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:11,559
of give them more opportunities to do hard things to fail,

851
00:44:11,639 --> 00:44:14,119
whether it's like sending them on an outward pound course

852
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:17,599
or you know, having them do it, you know, make

853
00:44:17,599 --> 00:44:20,400
sure that they're doing like a teenage job, not sort

854
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:24,280
of interfering with their you know, interactions with teachers, letting

855
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:27,119
them kind of navigate schools more on their own and

856
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:30,800
less you know, kind of of that snowplow or helicopter parenting.

857
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:34,679
That is part of like the challenge as well. And

858
00:44:34,679 --> 00:44:37,519
then I think too for young men, just being much

859
00:44:37,519 --> 00:44:39,559
more honest with them about kind of the importance of

860
00:44:39,679 --> 00:44:45,280
being in decent physical shape, dressing nicely, doing well at school,

861
00:44:45,519 --> 00:44:48,400
you know, and and therefore being prepared to do well

862
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:51,519
at work in their in their twenties. I think we

863
00:44:51,559 --> 00:44:53,480
haven't told them kind of like the truth about the

864
00:44:53,480 --> 00:45:00,559
importance of being perceived as decent protectors, providers. And then

865
00:45:00,559 --> 00:45:02,079
also guys who can kind of what I call pay

866
00:45:02,119 --> 00:45:03,880
attention to my book, you know, who can put that

867
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:06,039
phone down and just really engage, you know, eye to

868
00:45:06,079 --> 00:45:08,400
eye with someone across you know, a table right in

869
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:10,920
some kind of social setting as well. So these are

870
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,239
the kinds of things that we need to be doing. Also,

871
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:17,159
would encourage young adults to to be you know, volunteering

872
00:45:18,480 --> 00:45:23,480
through religious and secular you know, organizations in their communities,

873
00:45:23,679 --> 00:45:26,199
and as one other way to kind of to meet

874
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:28,960
you know, people who would be good you know folks

875
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:32,400
to date, made and marry as well. So these are

876
00:45:32,440 --> 00:45:36,159
the kinds of things that we should be doing. But

877
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:38,079
I think a lot of it really comes down to

878
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:43,320
as well, kind of developing a more technological asceticism. You know,

879
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:48,079
where you're you're not as plugged in to the to

880
00:45:48,119 --> 00:45:51,360
the virtual world, and you're much more engaged in real

881
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:55,199
world activities that allow you to have real world relationships

882
00:45:55,559 --> 00:45:58,960
that can lend lead to the dating and marriage as well.

883
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, how about on a policy level, what are maybe

884
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:07,239
some policies that create disincentives or maybe do you have

885
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:10,079
any policy blueprints for something that you think this would

886
00:46:10,079 --> 00:46:11,320
be an easy thing to do.

887
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:14,039
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, so Lamanstone my colleagues done you know,

888
00:46:14,079 --> 00:46:16,039
some work on really the child tax credits. So we're

889
00:46:16,079 --> 00:46:18,800
certainly kind of advocating much more generous credit than what

890
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:22,079
is currently on offer from the federal government that's more

891
00:46:22,159 --> 00:46:24,599
kind of once people are already married. But I think

892
00:46:24,599 --> 00:46:26,159
the other things we can do as well in terms

893
00:46:26,199 --> 00:46:29,280
of the marriage penalty, which is primarily about I would

894
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:32,840
say medicaid, but there are other federal programs that could

895
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:36,679
be basically recalibrate it so you'd have a different threshold

896
00:46:36,679 --> 00:46:40,639
for married folks with kids compared to single parents in

897
00:46:40,639 --> 00:46:42,800
ways that would kind of reduce that that marriage penalty.

898
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:45,480
Is one other idea that we have on the marriage

899
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:48,280
penalty front. But then I think culturally just have to

900
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:52,679
be much more aggressive when it comes to advancing school choice.

901
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:56,360
So we've seen in our research at IFS that young

902
00:46:56,360 --> 00:46:58,880
adults who have gone to private schools tend to be

903
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:02,599
more likely to be succeeding on the marriage and family front.

904
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:04,920
And so it would be great, I think, to have

905
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:08,559
more young adults kind of getting out of a public

906
00:47:08,559 --> 00:47:13,239
school system that often I think is you know, either

907
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:17,039
directly or more likely kind of indirectly discouraging kind of

908
00:47:17,079 --> 00:47:21,000
focusing on marriage and family among kids today. And then

909
00:47:21,159 --> 00:47:24,840
also when it comes to messaging both in schools and

910
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:27,800
then more generally going by what's called the success sequence,

911
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:33,119
which kind of stresses the importance of education, full time work,

912
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:36,280
and marriage as three key pillars to kind of forging

913
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:39,960
both a financially secure life and actually even an emotionally

914
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:42,679
resilient one as well. So I think the government could

915
00:47:42,679 --> 00:47:46,320
do more too, not kind of move in like a

916
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:49,599
China style direction where there's like, you know, a whole

917
00:47:49,639 --> 00:47:52,800
marriage apparatus, you know, being directly run by the government,

918
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:55,079
but at least kind of telling young adults and kids

919
00:47:55,119 --> 00:47:58,199
in schools, many of whom are going through public schools obviously,

920
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:03,039
that marriage is a good thing both for kids and

921
00:48:03,119 --> 00:48:06,199
for women and men, and that you know, it should

922
00:48:06,199 --> 00:48:08,840
be a greater priority given sort of all the different

923
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:14,920
goods that it advances for again, children, men and women today.

924
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:16,599
Speaker 4: Yeah, great good stuff.

925
00:48:17,039 --> 00:48:20,679
Speaker 1: If people want to find more information about this or

926
00:48:21,639 --> 00:48:24,039
other topics, well, let's see, Brad. Can you actually tell

927
00:48:24,119 --> 00:48:26,599
us what books of yours our listeners can read if

928
00:48:26,639 --> 00:48:27,880
they want more information about this.

929
00:48:28,119 --> 00:48:28,280
Speaker 2: Yeah.

930
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:30,639
Speaker 3: I think the main thing is my book Get Married

931
00:48:30,679 --> 00:48:33,079
with Harper Collins. That's really kind of the book that's

932
00:48:33,159 --> 00:48:36,679
most relevant. I've written on religion, family, and previous more

933
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:40,039
academic research or book called Soulmates, for instance, but I

934
00:48:40,079 --> 00:48:42,559
do think Get Married is the book that's most helpful

935
00:48:42,599 --> 00:48:44,320
for these issues we're talking about today.

936
00:48:44,519 --> 00:48:44,760
Speaker 4: Great.

937
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:47,159
Speaker 1: Great, So everybody should go get a copy of Get Married.

938
00:48:47,199 --> 00:48:50,360
And if you want more information about the particular stats

939
00:48:50,599 --> 00:48:53,039
we've talked about today, you can look into the twenty

940
00:48:53,079 --> 00:48:57,480
twenty six State of our Unions Report the Dating Recession

941
00:48:57,639 --> 00:49:01,119
from the Wheatly Institute and the Institute for Family Stife. Brad,

942
00:49:01,159 --> 00:49:02,840
thank you so much for being here today and helping

943
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:05,039
break down this really really important work.

944
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:07,079
Speaker 2: Thanks, Kylie, I appreciate it.

945
00:49:12,039 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode

946
00:49:14,519 --> 00:49:17,159
of The Kylie Cast. If you haven't done so already,

947
00:49:17,159 --> 00:49:20,320
please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Leave

948
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:22,320
us a five star review. It'll only take you a

949
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:24,159
second and it is such a good way for you

950
00:49:24,199 --> 00:49:25,159
to help out the show.

951
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:27,199
Speaker 4: As always, I will be back

952
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:30,599
Speaker 1: Next week with more so until then, just remember the

953
00:49:30,679 --> 00:49:32,360
truth hurts, but it won't kill it.