dating

Research Shows Young Men Want Marriage Yet Lack Confidence in Dating

An important new survey from the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) on the marital and fatherhood interests of young men in America tell us that only 6% of those age 18 through 23 are married and just 25% of those between 24 and 29-years of age have a wedding ring on their finger. And less than one-third of unmarried men are currently in a romantic relationship. For those young men who do marry, most of them marry after age 30 as the average age of first marriage for men is 30.2.

As IFS notes, “Young men, in sum, are having a hard time in matters of love.”

So, are young men even interested in marriage and fatherhood? That is an extremely important question for the family formation prospects in the United States, and the news might be better than most imagine.

This new IFS data indicates that young men still have a high interest in marrying with 68% saying a definite “yes” while only 21% are “not sure” for various reasons and only 11% express no desire to marry at all. Conservatives are notably more likely than moderates or liberals to indicate an interest in marriage, as well as those currently in a relationship.

Religious young men are notably more likely to show an interest in marriage over their secular or nominally religious peers. The differentials are 88%, 60% and 71% respectively.

Those who have earned or are pursuing a college education are more likely to be interested in marrying. Not surprisingly, those who are not currently working are much more likely to be unsure or not interested in marrying. This is significant as the number of young men classified as NEET – not employed, pursuing any education or training – has increased, doubling since 1990.

For the minority of men who are not sure or not planning to marry, the leading reasons given were “hard to find the right person” (44%), “other life priorities” (40%), “unnecessary” (38%), and “not ready to make a commitment” at 36%. Only 32% listed finances as a leading hinderance.

Desire to be Dads

A strong majority of young American men (62%) say they would like to have children one day. Only 19% said they definitely would not, while 20% said they were not sure. Married men were more likely to say they wanted children (76% vs 61% for unmarried), once again showing that marriage is one of the greatest promoters of national fertility.

Conservative-leaning men are the most likely to say they want children at 76%, while only 48% of liberal men said they definitely want children. Just 10% of conservative men said they were sure they did not want children, while 30% of liberal and 15% of moderate-leaning men said they did not.

Like marriage, religion is a very positive factor driving greater interest in fatherhood. Eighty-three percent of religious men said they wanted to become fathers with only 6% of them saying they had no interest. In fact, religion was the most powerful differential followed by conservatism. Only 51% of secular men desire to be fathers, while a quarter said they did not desire this and 24% were “not sure.” Nominal believers fell right in the middle between these two.

The Dating Hurdle

Of course, young men cannot get married and become married fathers if they never meet the girl who will become their wives. There is a very real dating drought in America. 

Yet this new IFS data tells us that young single men are very interested (74%) in dating and religious (82%) and conservative men (80%) are far more likely to be interested in dating than their secular (71%) and liberal (71%) peers. Full-time employed and college students were highly likely to be interested in dating as well, at 77% and 79%.

So, what is keeping these men from getting out there and meeting their romantic interest? IFS explains, “About half indicate that it has been difficult to find someone who will go out with them, and nearly 6 in 10 report that that the fear of being turned down makes them reluctant to ask.” This matches with a recent IFS report that said 29% of men reported feeling “confident when approaching someone I’m interested in.” Only 39% of young men believe, “I am attractive to potential dating partners.”

A mere third of men confessed they were good at picking up on social cues on a date, while 42% said they were “good at managing my emotions when on a date.” And just 39% of men said, “I trust my judgement when it comes to choosing a romantic partner.” Sadly, only 31% of men were able to stay positive after a bad date or a relationship setback. These are very sad findings.

So, the real problems facing men meeting their future wife and mother of their children is not one of desire or interest. It is a lack of confidence in one’s potential as a desirable partner and ability to be an interesting, poised date.

This is hopeful news because the desire for dating, marriage and fatherhood is clearly present in young men. We just need to help them build the confidence and skills needed to meet, propose to, and marry the woman who will be their future wife. Family formation in America rests on us doing a better job at helping these young men develop these basic adult skills. We must get busy coming up with sure ways to build this confidence in young men. This polling data reveals they are asking for that help!

Related Articles and Resources: 

The American Dating Drought and Hope for Fixing It

New Study: Online Dating Produces Fewer Healthy Relationships

Young Person Explains Why Young People Aren’t Getting Married

Who Falls in Love Faster, Men or Women?

Make Dating for Marriage Great Again

Don’t Believe the Modern Myth. Marriage Remains Good for Men

Important New Research on How Married Parents Improve Child Well-Being

How Marriage Fights Against Deaths of Despair

New Research: Marriage Still Provides Major Happiness Premium

Harvard Evolutionary Biologist Brilliantly Explains Necessity of Monogamous Marriage

The American Dating Drought and Hope for Fixing It

America, and every other nation in the world, must robustly regain the long and devastating declines in marriage, fertility and married parenting for its own national growth and vitality. Growth cannot happen without each of these.

And none of this happens unless boy meets girl. There is no alternative hack. So, we must ask, “What is the state of dating today?”

By nearly all diverse indices, it’s a mess. It’s just not happening. The good news though, is that the very real dating crisis is not from lack of desire. 

This fact is evidenced in a new phenomenon overtaking elite universities like Stanford, Princeton, MIT and Columbia. It’s called Date Drop, invented by a Stanford grad student to match students for dating opportunities. Date Drop allows friends to match friends who they think would be great together, the algorithm tests their compatibility, and users excitedly wait for new matches to “drop” every Tuesday evening.  

Stanford has 7,500 undergraduates and more than 5,000 of them have used the matchmaking algorithm, leading The Wall Street Journal to explain it “has consumed the school — and highlighted the challenges of finding love.” Yet, they note, today’s young adults are “intimidated by real-life courtship and overwhelmed by the endless scroll of dating apps.”

This dating interest/anxiety conclusion jibes closely with new data from a national survey conducted jointly by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheately Institute entitled “The Dating Recession: How Bad is It and What Can We Do?”

Their nationally representative sample of 5,275 unmarried adults (aged 22-35) found that about two-thirds who are interested in dating have never or seldom dated in the last year. The reason they are not dating is not from disinterest. 

This survey found that 60% of men and 47% of women expressed interest in starting a relationship with someone. Yet, this notes a concerning shift happening with emerging men and women. Pew Research Center reported late last year that while girls have traditionally been more likely to say they want to get married one day, boys are now more likely by a sizable margin of 74 to 61%. The share of young men saying this has remained unchanged for the last 30 years. The share of girls desiring marriage has dropped 22 percent.

The majority of both still want to marry though. 

Only 14% of the IFS/Wheatley nationally representative sample said they do not expect to marry, while 61% said they definitely expect to marry and 25% said they were unsure if it would happen. Similarly, only 16% of men and 17% of women have no interest in starting a romantic relationship.

And dating intentions are more positive than most might assume. 

Casual dating and opportunistic hook-ups are not what most men and women are looking for. These scholars explained, “We found that young adults — both men and women, younger and older — strongly endorse a dating culture focused on forming serious relationships and creating emotional connections.” In fact, these were consistently the top reasons listed for wanting to date. 

So then, why the drastic dating drought among young men and women? One large issue is self-doubt. The good news is these stated reasons can easily be overcome.

Sadly, only 25% of young adults — 29% of men and 21% of women — reported feeling “confident when approaching someone I’m interested in.” Just 38% of respondents believe “I am attractive to potential dating partners,” which was 39% of men and 37% of women.

And merely 37% said “I trust my judgement when it comes to choosing a romantic partner.” Men were only slightly more likely to say this than women. And only 28% — 31% of men and 25% of women — were able to stay positive after a bad date or a relationship setback.

When it comes to basic human behavior on a date, the responses were equally discouraging.

Only 34% said they were comfortable discussing their feelings with a potential dating partner; 35% of men and 32% of women confessed this. Remarkably, only 42% felt “good at managing my emotions on a date” and just 36% admitted being “good at picking up on social cues when dating.” Men and women were similar on the “managing emotions” response, but only 33% of guys felt keen on discerning social cues, while 39% of women said they were.

More than a third of this sample agreed they are likely to end a relationship too quickly in order to avoid heartbreak. Self-doubt is what’s prohibiting successful dating.

But the largest barrier to dating was feeling one did not have “enough money for dating activities.” Fifty-eight percent of men expressed this, while curiously, 47% of women did.

The great news is that these are all very fixable problems because they issue from perspective and perception. Men need to realize women are more interested in a creatively thoughtful date than an expensive one. Basic dating education is the solution, as the dating crisis is one of creativity and confidence. Clearly, our nations’ young adults — and likely young adults in most other parts of the world — need older adults and peers to come alongside and talk them through their fears about being a good dating partner.

Sadly, Gallup tells us a small minority of parents (19%) talk with their teen and young adult children about romantic relationships with any regularity. This needs to change as young adults welcome this advice and encouragement from parents.

Will we step up and help fix our current dating problem? We must, as civilization’s tomorrow rests upon boy approaching and meeting girl today! That is the natural human process and a blessing that God has given us.

Related Articles and Resources:

New Study: Online Dating Produces Fewer Healthy Relationships

Young Person Explains Why Young People Aren’t Getting Married

Who Falls in Love Faster, Men or Women?

Make Dating for Marriage Great Again

Don’t Believe the Modern Myth. Marriage Remains Good for Men

Important New Research on How Married Parents Improve Child Well-Being

How Marriage Fights Against Deaths of Despair

New Research: Marriage Still Provides Major Happiness Premium

Harvard Evolutionary Biologist Brilliantly Explains Necessity of Monogamous Marriage

New Study: Online Dating Produces Fewer Healthy Relationships

It’s basic law of nature: Young men meet young women, get married and begin building a meaningful life together. It’s how a family starts.

But how couples meet today really matters. By strong margins, most couples now meet online. Unfortunately, very few meet through family or church.

In fact, in 1960, most U.S. couples (24%) met through friends; 19% met through family, while only 6% met through church.

In 2000, friend introductions held strong at 28%, while co-worker introductions and meeting at a bar took second and third place (15% and 13%, respectively). Family introductions took fourth place at 11%.

Only 5% met at church, rivaled by online dating (also 5%).

By 2024, a whopping 61% of couples met online, followed by meeting through friends (14% ) and coworkers (9%). Family was a paltry 4% and church was 2%.

You can see the changing trends in this creative video.


With most couples meeting online, it’s inevitable that relational strength and success will be impacted.

Early research indicated that meeting online had a slight positive effect on marital satisfaction and protecting against separation or divorce.

But later research conducted by the Institute for Family Studies demonstrated that meeting online was the least beneficial source for happy marriages, trailed only by bars. Church-facilitated meetings resulted in the highest levels of being “very happy” in marriage.

A new study by a team of psychologists from Poland’s University of Wroclaw examined this question anew with nationally representative data from 50 internationally diverse countries.

The first line of their study correctly notes, “The Internet has fundamentally reshaped how people meet and form romantic relationships.”

They concluded meeting online is not the best way to build the strongest, happy relationships and marriages.

They report, “On average, participants who met their partners online reported lower relationship satisfaction and lower intensity of experienced love compared to those who met offline, with effect sizes ranging from small to medium.”

Those who met in person tended to have healthier and more satisfactory interactions in intimacy, passion and commitment. The research team reported “these differences were generally small” but “importantly, these differences remained significant even after controlling for a broad set of demographic covariates, including gender, age, relationship length, socioeconomic status, [and] education.”

Why the Difference?

Why do online-introduced couples generally have less fulfilling relationships? Scholars offer three possible reasons:

  1. People who meet through their families, friends, church or work communities tend to have similar values and interests because how they meet selects for these similarities. Sociologists call this homogamy, or similarities in people’s sociological, educational and values background. People have fewer similarities when meeting online.

  2. Although related, having an overabundance of choices is uniquely a problem of online dating. Meeting a potential spouse through family, friends, school, work or one’s own neighborhood are all very powerful sifting mechanisms. One is likely to find like-minded individuals through similar interests and activities or through family and friends who know you well. Online dating, however, opens the door to many more possibilities. People are more likely to compromise in important areas because of the many options out there.

  3. In online dating, people commonly misrepresent themselves and it is difficult to distinguish between reality and fiction. The research team explains, “These inaccuracies are harder to conceal in face-to-face meetings, especially when shared social circles enable easier verification of personal details.”

As online dating becomes the main way people meet a potential spouse today, it is important to realize some ways of meeting a spouse produce healthier relationships and marriages over others.

These scholars conclude the study with this warning, “While online venues offer unprecedented opportunities for connection – especially across geographic and social boundaries – our findings suggest that relationships initiated offline are, on average, characterized by higher satisfaction and more intense feelings of love.”

Just another reason to favor and invest in IRL (in real life) communities of meaning.

Related Articles and Resources

If you or someone you know is struggling with marriage issues, Focus on the Family offers a one-time complimentary consultation with our ministry’s professionally trained counseling staff. The consultation is free due to generous donor support.

To reach Focus on the Family’s counseling service by phone, call 1-855-771-HELP (4357) weekdays 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (Mountain Time). Please be prepared to leave your contact information for a counselor to return a call to you as soon as possible. Alternatively, you can fill out our Counseling Consultation Request Form.

Don’t Believe the Modern Myth. Marriage Remains Good for Men

New Focus on the Family Report: Marriage Health in America

Important New Research on How Married Parents Improve Child Well-Being

How Marriage Fights Against Deaths of Despair

Yes, Married Mothers Really Are Happier Than Unmarried and Childless Women

New Research: Marriage Still Provides Major Happiness Premium

Focus on the Family Marriage Report: Few Troubled Marriages Seek Needed Help

Harvard Evolutionary Biologist Brilliantly Explains Necessity of Monogamous Marriage

Important New Book Explains Why Marriage Still Matters

Image credit: Data is Beautiful / YouTube

Young Person Explains Why Young People Aren’t Getting Married

Fair warning: If you are looking for an examination of marriage’s benefits or why it’s declining, this piece is not for you. Please read one of the articles linked at the bottom of the page.

If, however, you’re looking for an uncomfortably honest, completely anecdotal explanation of why the nice young men and women in your life aren’t getting hitched — I’m glad you’re here.

My name is Emily. I’m a twenty-something Christian with a college degree, a personality and the ability to make eye contact in conversation. For a long time, I assumed this would be enough to interest potential life partners. I entered the dating pool without artifice, looking for solid friendships and conversation that could eventually turn into something more.

That’s not how modern dating works. If you want to find a partner, you have to play the game — and the game is shaped by social media, dating apps and casual sex.

I am ill-equipped to play this game, a lesson I began learning in college when a fellow student asked for my Snapchat.

“I don’t have a Snapchat, but you can have my number!” I replied, much to his confusion.

Unbeknownst to me, I’d skipped several steps in a modern courtship ritual. When two people want to get to know each other better, they exchange social media accounts to communicate. Only when a relationship becomes more serious are phone numbers exchanged.

By prematurely offering my digits, I’d communicated an inappropriate amount of interest and completely freaked out my classmate. Safe to say he didn’t text me.

After this incident, I briefly obtained a Snapchat. Bad call. The app famous for its “disappearing” pictures is a favorite for sending nude pictures.

At first, I thought this was unique to one or two sleazy men. But I came to realize couples communicating over social media frequently exchanged explicit images, either as a precursor to a hook-up or a step toward making a relationship more serious.

I also learned that young people — particularly women — are expected to know that communicating on social media will result in some kind of proposition or unwanted image. People who send unsolicited images generally express surprise or confusion, rather than sheepishness, when their advances are (strenuously) rebuffed.

I think I deleted Snapchat within a month of downloading it. But it doesn’t change the impact social media, dating apps and casual sex had, and continues to have, on singles around me.

Most modern romantic interactions begin with the assumption that some sexual exchange will occur. Unless someone explicitly corrects this assumption, both parties interpret every word, look or gesture through this lens. If I had a nickel for every time I thought I’d made a genuine connection only to be aggressively propositioned and realize they didn’t remember my name — I’d have a lot of nickels.

The expectation of physicality comes, in part, from people’s expectation that romantic relationships form out of nothing. No longer do romantic relationships commonly spring from friendships. Single people turn to bars, dating apps and mixers to meet other people interested in a relationship. Outside these specific situations, romantic prospects are evaluated instantaneously (thank you, dating apps).

If none seem likely, the proverbial “dating glasses” come off. Singles in churches, offices and social groups stop looking for romantic relationships because they think they’ve already ruled them out.

This is the soup young people are swimming through. Many, including myself, frequently abstain from dating rather than mining for a genuine interaction in the muck.

There’s no quick solution to this problem; it’s the complex product of cultural attitudes toward sex and technology. But you can stop it from getting worse. Take time to understand the issue and show compassion to the twenty-somethings in your life. It’s wacky out here, and not all of us are lazy, spoiled or incompetent.

Additional Articles and Resources

Mapping Declining US Marriage Rates

Myths Persist: Pop Culture Wrongly Steers Women Away From Marriage

Family Scholars Explain the Current Marriage Paradox in America

Reclaiming the Truth About Marriage

Marriage Rates are Declining, But Christian Men and Women Still Very Likely to Get Married

No, Young Adults, Marriage Has Not ‘Outlived Its Usefulness’

Meta Takes Steps to Prevent Kids from Sexting