Young Americans aren’t just struggling to buy homes — they’re struggling to go on dates. A new report from the Institute for Family Studies and The Wheatley Institute finds that only 31% of young unmarried adults who expect to marry are currently dating, while three-quarters of women (74%) and nearly two-thirds of men (64%) reported they had not dated, or dated only a few times, in the last year.
The report is based on a nationally representative sample of 5,275 unmarried young adults ages 22 to 35, but the authors excluded from the results 736 respondents who said they did not expect to ever marry. Of the remaining 4,359 respondents, about half said they were single but interested in starting a relationship, while another 30% were dating either casually or exclusively. The gender gap among those who were not in a relationship but wanted to start one was wide, however, with 60% of men not in a relationship wanting to start one, compared to just 43% of women.
The top reasons why those seeking to date wanted to date were surprisingly uniform across the sexes. For both men (76%) and women (83%), “creating emotional connection” was the top reason agreed to as a reason for dating, followed by “forming serious relationships” and “exploring potential partners.” However, while just 55% of men admitted that “engaging in physical intimacy” was a motivation for dating, it was the reason with the highest gender gap, with just 35% of women choosing that purpose.
Turning to the reasons why young men and women date so infrequently, respondents were given 14 options, including “lack of confidence,” “bad experience in the past,” “not emotionally ready,” “don’t want to lose personal freedom,” and others. But of all these, the top choice among all respondents was “not enough money for dating activities.” And there was a pronounced gender gap here, with 58% of men citing this reason compared to just 47% of women. Lack of money was by far the top reason cited by men, while women chose “lack of confidence” and “bad experience in the past” as more accurately describing their reasoning.
“Contemporary dating is often focused on commercial activities,” the authors note, “and young adults often feel they can’t afford to date in this way.”
President Donald Trump may have dismissed the matter of “affordability” as a hoax, but voters consistently name the cost of living as the top issue likely to affect their votes. Inflation may have slowed since Trump took office, especially in housing, but prices are still high on a number of key essentials, especially for young people, like transportation and education. Even something as simple as entertainment has seen significant cost increases, especially for in-person experiences, as corporations have chosen to maximize revenues at the expense of a shared national culture.
Giving parents a tax credit to help defray the cost of children may encourage existing couples to have more children at the margin, but unless we find better ways to lower costs for young single adults looking for love, we are going to get a lot fewer marriages and a lot smaller families as a result.