High School Girls Are Way Less Interested in Marriage

Today's high school seniors appear to be less marriage-minded than their parents were at their age—particularly the girls. Highlights from newly released survey results from the Pew Research Center on the subject:

• In 2023, 67% of 12th graders said they'd likely get married, down from 80% in 1993. Another 24% didn't know, up from 16%, and 9% said they would not marry, up from 5%.
• Today's 12th-grade boys are more likely to say they want to marry than girls, 74% to 61%. That's a flip from 1993, when girls were at 83% and boys at 76%. Perhaps most striking about the stat is that while the boys' percentage hasn't changed much, the girls' percentage dropped 22 points.

• Fewer high school seniors predict they would stay married for life—51%, vs. 59% in 1993.
• Fewer also want to have kids: 48%, vs. 64% in 1993.
• Why the dip in the desire to marry among girls? A post at Cosmopolitan notes that one common explanation is that women continue to gain independence. "But many online also pose a more timely theory: The reason girls aren't dreaming of marriage is because they're socializing with young men who constantly consume digital content engineered to make them resent women."
• Whatever the reason, some conservatives aren't happy. "Something has gone terribly wrong," tweeted Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet.