Married couples less common in US cities than suburbs, study finds

The traditional two-parent nuclear family is far less common in parts of major American cities than in suburban communities, with fewer than a quarter of households with children headed by married couples in some neighborhoods in Cleveland, Washington, D.C., Milwaukee and Detroit, according to a new report.

The study from the Institute for Family Studies showed that the share of households with children headed by married couples varies by roughly 70 percentage points across the areas studied, highlighting a divide between urban “married-family deserts” and suburban “married-family gardens.”

The findings revealed differences in family structure across the country, raising questions about how the neighborhoods where children grow up may influence their opportunities for upward mobility.

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“Marriage and raising kids are both parts of your life that really force you to kind of die to yourself and live for others,” Ken Burchfiel, a research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, told Fox News Digital.

“When you have lots of parents, lots of husbands and wives in a region, I imagine just overall the cultural focus is less on ‘how can I get ahead in life’ and more on ‘what can I do for my family?’”

The study analyzed 2020 Census data to identify where married and married-parent households are most and least common. It found that suburban neighborhoods tend to have higher marriage rates, while major urban centers often have lower rates.

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A map from the Institute for Family Studies shows the prevalence of households with children headed by married couples across the United States, highlighting differences between urban “married-family deserts” and suburban “married-family gardens.” (Screenshot/Institute for Family Studies)

Suburban Dallas-Fort Worth stands as the nation’s largest grouped “marriage garden,” while Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn form the largest grouped “marriage desert,” covering nearly 686,000 householders, more than two-thirds of whom are unmarried.

“This does not appear to describe small variations around shared national norms, but rather two distinct family-formation regimes, so stark it could even be described as family structure polarization,” the IFS report stated.

Burchfiel said high incomes do not necessarily translate into higher marriage rates either. In high-income Manhattan neighborhoods, including the Financial District and Greenwich Village, fewer than 28% of householders ages 15 to 64 are married.

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“It’s clear that the decision to get married is not just due to financial concerns; it’s also a matter of culture and, admittedly, perhaps a matter of affordability,” Burchfiel said.

“I recognize, having lived in New York for a few years, that having a high salary does not mean that it’s easy to buy a house, raise a family. It can still be extremely difficult and probably many of the people in those areas who do get married find themselves moving out to the suburbs,” he added.

The IFS researchers said they examined the issue because of a large body of research showing that “family structure is closely associated with economic mobility and broader measures of social capital.”

They pointed to research by Harvard economist Raj Chetty that found the share of homes with two parents present was the strongest predictor of upward mobility in a community.

“This represents a significant discrepancy in lived experience for children growing up in these distinct environments. Those in married-family gardens grow up with married parents, in neighborhoods, schools, and after-school activities where most peers experience the same. These children will be observing marriage as a stable, ordinary feature of adult life,” the study explained.

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A new Institute for Family Studies report found that marriage rates tend to be higher in suburban communities than in major urban centers. (Igor Suka/iStock; Vladimir Vladimirov/iStock)

“By contrast, for children in married-family deserts, there is likely to be much greater churn in adult relationship stability, and greater inconsistency in supervision, where marriage and stable relationship bonds are atypical or distant from everyday norms — both for these children and their peers.”

Areas with some of the lowest shares of married-parent households nationwide included eastern Cleveland and nearby Bratenahl Village, Ohio, with only 18% of households with children headed by a married couple, followed closely by eastern Washington, D.C., at 20% and central Milwaukee at 22%.

In suburban “married-family gardens” like Fremont City, California, Lakewood, New Jersey, and parts of Utah County, Utah, up to 89% of households with children are headed by married couples.

Burchfiel advised newlyweds and young couples evaluating where to settle down to look closely at these family maps alongside local job markets, but to also take into account their own personal circumstances, such as staying close to extended family.

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“Living near other married couples can be really useful when you’re settling down and raising a family,” Burchfiel said.

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“It’s worth seeing where those married couples are and where maybe they’re avoiding, because again, if there’s an area where 70-plus percent of individuals are married, that’s probably a good place to settle down as a married couple,” he added.