The left has a marriage problem. Women may be why. | Opinion

Isabel Brown, 28, caused quite a stir at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March. Her “outrageous” position?

The Daily Wire podcast host delivered an unapologetic defense of marriage and family at the country’s premier gathering of conservative activists. Brown is married and has a young daughter. 

“If you’re not encouraging your children to grow up and have the courage to get married and have kids, more kids than they can afford before they think they're ready, it is high time to start,” Brown told the crowd during a panel discussion.

“It is these choices, like deleting our dating apps and quitting birth control pills and saying ‘I do’ at the altar, that ultimately trickle down into the political policies that we will see save our country.”

The fact that this Gen Zer had the audacity to say such a thing quickly caught the attention of the ladies over at ABC’s “The View.”

“The fact we keep putting this on women, that their only worth in society, politics, policy is if they produce a baby or have a husband is the stupidest, most old-fashioned thing,” cohost Sara Haines exclaimed. “We have come too far. The world has over 8 billion people. We no longer need to force people to procreate and pump out babies. We have arrived here. Women now and girls now have a choice.”

All women do have a choice to get married and have a family, just as men do. But this anecdote is emblematic of the growing divide between liberal and conservative Americans ‒ not just politically, but also in how they are choosing to live their lives.

And that divide carries serious implications for the country’s future.

Liberal Americans are saying 'no' to marriage

“The Left has a marriage problem,” Brad Wilcox, sociology professor at the University of Virginia and senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, recently posted on X.

Wilcox and his IFS colleague Grant Bailey coauthored a new report examining how liberals view marriage and how those attitudes differ sharply from conservatives.

While class divisions among those who marry are well documented, the cultural divide is often overlooked.

Both college-educated and less-educated Americans are significantly more likely to be married if they are conservative. College-educated conservatives ages 22 to 40 are 50% more likely to be married than their liberal counterparts. A similar gap exists among those with less education.

“Today, a majority of conservative men and women are married, and a majority of liberals are not,” the IFS report states.

Given this divide, it’s no surprise that liberals are the least likely to say marriage matters. Only 30% of college-educated liberals ages 18 to 55 believe children are better off with married parents. In contrast, more than 70% of conservatives say the same.

“The most privileged liberals have become the most publicly dismissive of marriage’s cultural value,” the authors observe.

Young women are much more likely to be liberal than men

A few months ago, I spoke with Wilcox about another study he conducted on the gap between liberals and conservatives who have children.

He told me that while political ideology plays a major role, gender does, too. Young women are becoming more liberal, and at a faster rate than young men, which is no doubt influencing both marriage and family trends.

A 2024 Gallup poll tracking the “leftward expansion” of women ages 18 to 29 found that from 2017 to 2024, 40% identified as liberal, 15 points higher than young men.

Compare that with the period from 2001 to 2007, when 28% of young women identified as liberal, just 3 points higher than young men.

The institution of marriage and strong families has been an integral part of American culture for decades. The fact that it’s becoming increasingly optional for such a large swath of the country is concerning. Beyond its importance to societal stability, married couples are also more likely to report that they are happy and thriving.

While liberal institutions and media elites like those on “The View” may mock young women like The Daily Wire’s Brown for rejecting the prevailing norms of her generation, she deserves support.

As Brown told Fox News after the kerfuffle, “It’s always about choice for these people until that choice is the beauty and the joy and the purpose of marriage and motherhood, which, of course, we should be encouraging people to strive for.”

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected] or on X: @Ingrid_Jacques