As Catholics prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ, America faces record-low marriage and birth rates that expose the anti-family biases embedded in secular culture.
Bowling Green State University’s National Center for Family & Marriage Research reports that the U.S. marriage rate in 2022 fell to its lowest level on record, 54 percent below the rate in 1900. In 1960, the average age at first marriage was 22.8 for men and 20.3 for women; by 2024, it had risen to about 30.2 and 28.6, respectively. The total fertility rate now hovers around 1.6 births per woman, far below the 2.1 replacement rate.
Catholics, once exemplars of large, vibrant families, now mirror these dismal trends. Data from Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) show that while the Catholic population in the United States has grown by nearly 20 million since the late 1960s, sacramental marriages have fallen by roughly 70 percent. Large Catholic families are vanishing: By the mid-2010s, only 1 percent had five children, and less than 1 percent had six or more; most in prime child-rearing years average just two. CARA once reported a median Catholic marriage age around 24; newer data show the average Catholic bride and groom at about 30 and 32 by 2022.
These crises aren’t merely about affordability; they’re systemic. We have built an economy and culture that prioritize individual comfort and desire over St. John Paul II’s “gift of self,” the self-giving love essential to families.
As noted by macroeconomic strategist Nicholas Pardini, the gap between coasting as a single and thriving as a family has widened dramatically. For young, childless adults, achieving a basic standard of living is easier than ever. Even low-income Americans have access to global luxuries like climate-controlled homes, clean water, microwaves, smartphones, streaming services, and cheap, calorie-dense food. Low-wage workers have seen relatively strong wage growth in recent years. Living with parents or roommates into one’s twenties and thirties carries little social stigma; in 2023, about 18 percent of adults aged 25 to 34 lived in a parent’s home. Rents for basic apartments have cooled somewhat since their 2022 peak. Unencumbered young adults can pursue opportunities, work long hours, and fill their leisure time with low-cost distractions such as streaming, social media, and video games.
At the same time, vices that undermine family life are cheaper and more accessible than ever. Pornography is effectively free online. Legal marijuana has become cheaper as markets expand. Sports betting can be done on a phone in bed. After the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, many women pay little or nothing out of pocket for contraception.
Whether used for liberty or for license, the market makes it relatively cheap and pleasant to avoid commitment, avoid children, and live for oneself. For now, that is the path of least financial resistance.
By contrast, embracing the Church’s pro-life, pro-family teaching often feels like a punitive wall. Home prices have grown much faster than incomes, driving a massive wealth gap between owners and renters. Family health insurance now costs tens of thousands of dollars a year. College tuition has roughly doubled in two decades. Weddings routinely run into the tens of thousands of dollars, and even an uncomplicated pregnancy can mean thousands in out-of-pocket costs without good coverage. For young Catholics seeking early marriage and generous openness to life, obedience demands sacrifice amid policies that favor individualism.
These perverse economic incentives are a symptom of society’s spiritual malaise. Many nowadays simply “don’t want” kids. A 2023 Pew report found only 26 percent of U.S. adults view children as “extremely or very important” for fulfillment, prioritizing careers or travel instead. These choices reflect a vision of the human person as an isolated individual, made to live for himself.
Marriage and parenthood were once society’s keystone; now, they’re dismissed as a mere capstone. Yet they are not mere lifestyle options, but the ordinary path to holiness for most Catholics. As St. John Paul II teaches in Theology of the Body and Familiaris Consortio, marriage is a sacrament of mutual self-gift, where spouses transcend self by offering their time, bodies, plans, and sacrifices to God and one another. In his Letter to Families, he affirms the family as the primary school of this sincere self-gift, foundational to a true “civilization of love.”
Society’s shift from self-gift to self-centeredness has helped create an economic order that punishes young, growing Catholic families. Catholics must honor, support, and pursue these marriages and families as vital witnesses to our faith, refusing to dismiss them as impractical or outdated in a culture often hostile to religious values.
As Christmas approaches, we should look to the Holy Family: Mary, the young Virgin who said “yes” to God despite the risk of social shame; Joseph, a working man charged with protecting and providing in poverty and danger; and Christ’s humble birth in a manger.
Christmas is not about our comfort, consumption, or control. It is about God, who gives himself entirely in the form of a Child. In a culture where starter homes feel like luxury goods and children are seen as limitations, Catholics must remember that man only finds himself through a sincere gift of himself. An economy and culture worthy of the human person must be built around that truth.
