A new NBC poll of Gen-Z Americans has the online commentariat class buzzing – and may help explain the widening political gulf among the country’s ascendant generation. But perhaps the most shocking and alarming finding is how low marriage and family life falls on the priority list for young Americans.
The survey of 2,970 adults aged 18-29 asked respondents nearly 50 questions, but by far the one that has generated the most attention was, “Which of the following is important to your personal definition of success?”
Respondents were able to select up to three choices from this list: making your community or family proud; having enough money to do things you want to do; using your talents and resources to help others; having a job or career you find fulfilling; owning your own home; being married; having children; having no debt; financial independence; fame and influence; being able to retire early; having emotional stability; and being spiritually grounded.
Things got really interesting when the results were broken down along party lines and then between men and women. Those crosstabs exposed vast disparities between what Trump voters and Harris voters value, as well as between what young men and young women value. Here are the results:
The mainstream discussion of this poll has centered on the glaring differences in priorities between Trump voters and Harris voters. And indeed, the results show that Trump voters, male and female, are far more likely to value marriage and family life than Harris voters.
In particular, the fact that just nine percent of men who voted for Harris and six percent of women who voted for Harris said that having children is important to their personal definition of success should be setting off alarm bells for Democrats.
But conservatives should also be concerned by these results. While having children was the most popular response for Trump-voting men, only 34 percent identified that as important to their personal definition of success. Among Trump-voting women, having children came in sixth, at 26 percent, while getting married came in even lower, at just 20 percent.
For a society already facing record-low fertility rates, these data points are alarming beyond their political implications.
What they suggest is that decades of left-wing cultural conditioning which tells young girls that marriage and motherhood are a burden and that career ambitions are more fulfilling than family life have had a devastating effect even on girls who view themselves as conservative. An entire generation has now been trained by Hollywood, the media, and the education system to think of family as at best a secondary concern to career goals and at worst a burden on them.
What was once assumed as the foundation of adulthood has been replaced with a vision of life that begins and ends with self-centered desires. Some female college students now compare marriage to a “prison” and being “shackled at home” – despite the fact that many women raise families and lead successful careers.
This hesitancy toward family life is often justified by economic anxieties. 40 percent of Gen-Z respondents in the NBC poll said inflation and the cost of living were their most important economic concerns. We also know from prior polling that many Gen-Zers are delaying having families due to the housing affordability crisis.
Conservatives need a response to this. Bringing down costs and making the American Dream of owning a home affordable again is a good start. But the right should also give young people the courage to embrace having a family even if economic conditions aren’t perfect. Prior generations had big families with far less material wealth than most Americans enjoy today.
Family life isn’t just good for communities – it’s good for individuals as well. All of human history tells us that a life lived in service to others, namely one’s spouse and children, is a life well-lived.
One recent Forbes analysis proved this out. It found that Gen-Z is far more likely than older generations to delay major life events, from marriage and family formation to personal passions and even their own health, because career demands and financial pressures leave little room for anything else. But the study also revealed a cruel irony: employees who delay two or more of these life milestones are four times more likely to report burnout and six times more likely to say their jobs have harmed their mental health.
Clearly, deferring family for “stability” only produces instability. Older generations also faced debt and insecurity, but they built families first and figured out the rest later.
Moreover, statistics bear out that getting married and having children is the surest path to financial abundance. A husband and wife share costs, divide responsibilities, and build stability together in ways no individual can match. Family life is the solution to economic anxieties, not the cause of them.
One optimistic interpretation of the NBC poll is that some conservative young women assume family is inevitable, so they are currently prioritizing career and financial stability first, believing children will naturally follow.
Education could also play a role in these results. Trump-voting men are more likely to be blue-collar and insulated from anti-family rhetoric that saturates universities.
While these poll numbers are concerning, the lives of some conservative women tell another, more hopeful, story. A recent Wall Street Journal profile highlighted leaders like Sen. Katie Britt, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who show that faith, family, and career can coexist.
Conservative women are also pushing back against a different pressure: some voices on the right that shame women for doing anything outside the home. As Emily Zanotti observes, most working wives and moms are not “girlbossing” but deliberately balancing work and family in ways that put children first.
Still, this poll should still be a wake-up call. We must remember that the future does not belong to those who accumulate the most wealth or promotions. It belongs to those who raise the next generation with love, discipline, and faith.
Prosperity begins with family, and a culture that forgets that truth has no future.
Sarah Katherine Sisk is a proud Hillsdale College alumna and a master’s student in economics at George Mason University. You can follow her on X @SKSisk76.
Having raised 5 children on a poverty level income, I know that money is not everything. My children are happy, healthy conservative adults. Also, I know that in cities, many people never own a home, but rent their whole lives and seem to raise families. Pushing home ownership discourages many from having a family when it need not. In my view, liberals might breed themselves out of existence. Is that a bad thing?
Emotional stability is mentioned, but not emotional maturity, which is the the key component missing.
Departure from Christian tradition. The enemies of America have infiltrated our nation and have worked to destroy from within.
GOD created the family, our morals and laws from GOD our GOD given rights !
look what’s happening in Europe! Muslims and leftists have taken over and are dismantling their culture with Islam. In Dearborn MI Christians are told to move they don’t belong there, The camel in the tent!
The left is helping them Marxist ideology is Marxist ideology no matter what. It is deadly and has no place in a free society.
This is what happens, when liberals push ideologies that family are not important in Secondary and Post-Secondary educational systems. With views like this, the future of our nation is bleak at best, and extinction at worst. We need to retake control of our educational systems and remove the liberals, with their destructive views, and replace them with conservative-traditionalist teachers. The fate of our nation and planet is at risk, by the views found in this poll!
A well rounded life is not just enjoying the fruits of your labor. For this nation and the world to be successful, you must continue the life cycle.
It follows the lines of Muslim tactics which I just heard directly from one of them. They want to have far more children so they can take over the West. I believe I saw a statistic where their birth rate is like 5-1 compared with the U.S. When you consider what the Democrats did opening the border, how many Muslims entered the country? We already have them in Congress. We better stop playing ostrich in this country.
I am sorry, but how is 2,970 people representative of the numbers of people in that age group? And what part of the country do these numbers come from? These polls are so convoluted and coming from NBC, i don’t put a lot of stock in these results.
This may be the most important article ever published by AMAC.
I live in a small Maryland city and am starting to feel like a foreigner in my own country. I walk around town and rarely hear native English being spoken.
If they don’t have babies, Muslims and other foreigners will…
They’ll be sorry later when they find out that there are no workers to pay their social security benefits.
Vince Lombardi said
God first
Family second
Job third
It still is correct
Where are your loyalties?
Mine are God, family and country !
I have a Gen Z and he has many issues. He flat out denies the existence of God and is the same age as Crooks and Robinson. I am very patient and do my best to talk and somewhat debate with him and he is receptive and I try to understand him as well. But how did this happen? I have two daughters 7 and 10 years older and they are believers and not perfect but more stable. And he has that Gen Z gate. What is that?!!!!!!
I hope the coming generations want more than themselves. First to want to be married is a sign of selflessness and a desire to share one’s self with another and second then, there’s children, and the desire for them is a reflection of the inner soul. The soul seeks continuation or progression and the need to guide another similar to yourself. We have too many narcissist already.
From my own experience, it is hard to properly balance home and career responsibilities. I always worked part-time so I could spend more time with my children and dud nit pursue a high pressure career. And found great joy and fulfillment from that. Yes, we didn’t have a lot of money at times, but we did have a healthy home environment and that was always more important than mere career success… Both for me and my husband too.
As long as tax dollars are floating the public schools and universities that the left controls. The mind control will continue.
I was born in 1950 and lived in suburbia LINY. We lived in a post WWII development with mostly Veterans. We would be considered poor by todays standards with no luxuries like roller skates, ice skates, baseball gloves were hand me downs from cousins and no new bikes, just the recycled ones my Grandpa picked during trash day in the Bronx. We were Happy with what we had. I learned how to fix things from my Grandpa, still think of him all the time. My Mom went to work when I was 11 (my sister was the babysitter) to get us some luxuries. Dad was a blue collar worker like the majority of our neighbors. We didn’t need keys because nobody locked their doors. My brother and sister went to public school and I went to Catholic school till the eigth grade, wasn’t enough money for all three.
Mom was always there form us and laid the groundwork by her everyday examples of right from wrong (Wait till your Father gets home). Mom always was there for us when Dad couldn’t be. They both lived life as Christens and Church was never an option you will go and behave in the House of the LORD.
My Grandparents would come out from the Bronx every other weekend with a trunk full of food, we use to call it the march of the paper bags :-). Grandpa would fix anything that was broken and I use to “help” I really would learn a lot and when I questioned anything he would say anything worth fixing is worth fixing right.
There wasn’t any fights among the neighbors that I remember and I didn’t know their nationalities, religion or political beliefs. Didn’t have a reason to, people went to church or temple.
I was enrolled in an Engineering School to begin in fall of 67 but went to work instead, it didn’t pay that well so I worked at my Dad’s friend place fixing cars, then later when I got married in 73 still worked but did mechanical repairs, painted, wallpapered and whatever to get ahead with my new job buying a home and starting a family. My friends would come home on breaks from college and tease me tjhat they almost made as much as i did on summer break. Didn’t understand that I was looking down the road at benefits and retirement (which would have to wait).
I was divorced in 2003, my ex had a different belief in marriage. I stayed till all my girls were out of college. Luckily 4yrs later I met my wife and thank God everyday!! The Thanks is because when one of my granddaughters was born addicted no one was able to or wanted to care for her bc of her parents were addicts. Really bad people another story.
Every one of them had a reason some definitely justified some not so much. My wife said definitely we’ll take care of her, till she detoxes. Never happened!!
We’re both retired now and my wife has reinforced what I’ve always believed. Mom’s and Dad’s have rolls in moral compasses. Dad’s are to love and provide, protect & shelter their children but MOM’S are the moral compass! They provide morality every day in the way they conduct themselves, in telling them why things are and who they are and God is always there for them.
MOM’s are the reason why countries are great by the grace of God. We evolved as a species because of choices, Men in the roll described and Women as the moral compass, the incredible love, boundless energy in raising and self sacrifice they showing putting their lives on hold and embrace raising children as a new total goal. I raised my daughters to the best of my abilities but I watched my wife raise three grandchildren while putting all the plans we had on the back burner. She raised the first and I was amazed, then there was two and she never stopped or hesitated in her commitment. The third child was a what the hell moment but never even hesitated we can do it. We’re still at it but God will help us!!! Bumps in the road but we’ll continue.
Watching her with the kids is the reason why this revival of faith, God and Family will drive America to succeed Again!
It’s like being able to see my MOM reincarnated. Mom’s will make America Great again!
So that is why they think they have to import voters. I hope most of their imports turn republican, or get deported. If they keep on promoting no children in the leftist share of our population we will soon out number them in every election.
Home school families usually have several children, are better educated and more moral than public.
Its no joke that is the future and to save America.
Basing one’s personal success on marital status or the presence of children – 2 factors one cannot morally control – is totally heartbreaking & devastating when it doesn’t happen. Being spiritually grounded Is my #1, which makes accepting those facts (a long time ago) much easier, knowing God has me in the palm of his hand no matter my nonmarital status or lack of parenthood. That is a healthy approach to reality. We were raised with the assumption we were going to get married & have children, which is a mighty burden to put on someone when it doesn’t happen. Personal success is based on achievable goals, not unattainable blessings no matter how much one may want them.
That’s part of the problem. No more family values. What can you do for them now. My family brought me great joy and I gave 100 % of myself to my career when on duty so I could support my family.
There are a WHOLE LOT of folks, left and right, that do not need to procreate
Thank You Gloria Stiemen.
Umm.. control issues much?
If people don’t want to get married or have children isn’t thet their chiice to do so? If you want to get married and have kids that’s all well and good for you as yourself. But stop trying to force other people to do what you want them to do.