Overview
- Using University of Michigan survey data, Pew reports that 61% of twelfth-grade girls say they want to marry, down from 83% in 1993, compared with 74% of boys today.
- The analysis also finds only about 48% of high school seniors now say they want children, a decline from roughly 64% in 1993.
- The reported attitudes are presented against decades of falling U.S. marriage rates and fertility, with total fertility around 1.6 children per woman.
- An NBC News poll cited in the coverage shows Gen Z places having children below priorities such as jobs, money, financial independence, helping others, and homeownership.
- The piece offering these interpretations is opinion, and its causal claims about cultural drivers are not established by the survey data, which measure stated preferences rather than future behavior.