Brad Wilcox
speaker
567 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 5 Jun
Brad Wilcox’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
He just kind of is looking at sort of the patterns and is trying to project based upon current trends in both marriage and fertility.
what we're gonna sort of see for folks who are in their 20s.
What you can see basically is that the share of folks in their 20s who are married is way below where it was in a place 10 years ago and a place even more so 30 years ago and not to mention obviously 60 years ago.
So we're just kind of seeing the share of young adults who are moving into marriage in their 20s and then even in their 30s and then having kids come down
compared to previous generations.
And that decline in marriage across 20-somethings and 30-somethings is leading us to project unprecedented low levels of marriage in America, as well as unprecedented low levels of childbearing in America.
And we can talk about why that matters for the economy.
We can talk about why that matters for Social Security and Medicare, for the deficit.
But the point I wanna make for you and for your audience is that again, what we're seeing today in America is that no group of Americans are reporting their lives are more meaningful
and happier than married fathers and married mothers.
I'm really motivated to speak on these issues because I don't want my students at UVA, my children, my friends, I don't want friends to sort of go through life without having the benefit of a spouse and family if that's what they'd hoped to do, that's what they were called to do.
So there are two points to make here.
My colleague, Dr. Wendy Wang, has found in her research that couples who met first in church or in college or in the workplace or socializing with friends are the happiest couples that she's seeing in her work.
on marital quality.
And by contrast, couples who are meeting through an online platform are less likely to be very happy in their marriages.
So there's just kind of something about these in-person opportunities that give you more information, often it's tacit information, sort of sub cues you're just picking up on at some level, but also you're often embedded too in friendship networks.
And we know that couples who are marrying people who are kind of in their larger friendship network, who share their values, who are also going to be held accountable by their common friends, tend to do better.
So I think the ideal for folks, especially in their 20s, is to try to find someone through an in-person context.
But again, given the challenges people are facing when it comes to dating, I would sort of look at the dating apps as a necessary backup.
And then I think it's important to kind of pick the kinds of apps that are more conducive to a serious relationship in marriage.
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