Tenth Annual American Family Survey Shows Significant Increase in Economic Concerns for Families over the Last Decade

Families also report far less concern over cultural issues than 10 years ago

PROVO, Utah, Feb. 6, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- In the ten years since the American Family Survey — an annual collaboration by the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University, the Deseret News and BYU's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy — first surveyed thousands of Americans about their relationships and family experiences, a few things have remained unchanged: people worry about families generally, but they are happy with their own family; people want the government to help families; and people are concerned about how their kids are doing. But one prominent change the American Family Survey has found over the last decade is a significant increase in economic concerns and a corresponding decline in worries about cultural concerns that might affect families.

For example, according to the 2024 survey, released today, 71% of respondents identified economic challenges as one of the most important issues affecting American families, an increase of approximately 20 percentage points since 2015. By contrast, fewer than half of Americans cited cultural issues, such as a decline in religious faith or an increase in sexual permissiveness, as a concern, down from 70% in 2015.

"The economy has always caused worry for many Americans, but in the ten years since we first began the American Family Survey, it has become an even more pressing issue for families — far surpassing their cultural concerns," said Christopher Karpowitz, Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy and Professor of Political Science at Brigham Young University. "This was particularly evident after the end of pandemic-era government aid programs that benefitted many families, and after the last few years' rise in inflation, which close to 60% of Americans cite as a major concern."

As it does every year, the survey compared the responses from participants across the political spectrum. While there are few partisan differences in Americans' reports of their day-to-day family life, there are much larger partisan gaps in attitudes about the importance of marriage and family and on social issues.

For example, nearly 8 in 10 Republicans believe that marriage is needed to create strong families, compared with just 4 in 10 Democrats. While precious few Americans are actively hostile to marriage, Republicans strongly support marriage as a cornerstone of strong families, while Democrats tend to prioritize personal commitment over legal status. Republicans are also more likely to report being currently married than are Democrats, regardless of age. One area of common ground is that majorities of both Democrats and Republicans believe that marriage helps children and families financially.

Opportunities and Challenges for Bipartisan Action

In light of the partisan similarities and differences in the experience of family life and attitudes about marriage, the report explores the possibilities for a bipartisan political coalition to support American families. The findings from the survey shows that while there are possibilities for common ground, ideological disagreements mean that Democrats and Republicans each have significant potential blind spots that complicate the creation of such a coalition.

For example, Republicans are far less supportive than Democrats of government programs designed to help families, even in the face of clear evidence that many Americans feel their families would benefit from them. Republicans are also hesitant to support policies aimed at unmarried parents, despite the fact that Republicans tend to worry more about the lack of committed married families.

Democrats, on the other hand, tend to simply be reluctant to privilege marriage as an institution — only 34% (vs. 67% of Republicans) favor policies that encourage marriage — even though the research on how married-parent families help ameliorate inequality and make the poorest among us better off is quite compelling. Democrats also seem to worry about being judgmental or restrictive of diverse family forms, despite evidence that marriage helps families financially and shields children from economic hardship.

Where Democrats and Republicans converge on this issue is with the more moderate members of the parties, as well as those who attend religious services. 52% of moderate Republicans, for example, and 50% who attend religious services support spending more on government and community programs to help families vs. 39% of conservative Republicans and 38% of those who don't attend services. For Democrats, 48% of moderates and 66% of those who attend religious services favor policies that encourage two-parent homes for children vs. 33% of liberals and 25% of those who don't attend services. Notably, neither party wants the government encouraging people to have children. Just a quarter of the public favors that type of encouragement.

"American families will continue to face financial issues in the future as the government increases cuts to healthcare, social security and other programs," said Jeremy Pope, Professor of Political Science and a Wheatley Institution Fellow for Constitutional Government at BYU. "We believe, however, that effective policies are possible if a broad-based coalition of moderate Democrats and Republicans come together—rejecting the partisan blindspots—to pass legislation that would benefit many Americans."

Additional key highlights from this year's survey divided by topic include:

Most Important Concerns for Families

• When presented with a list of most important issues facing families, respondents' top three answers were lack of government programs to support families (ranked in the top three by 50%), parents not teaching or disciplining their children sufficiently (40%) and the costs associated with raising a family (30%)
• When asked about what challenges faced their own families vs. families in general, there were some wide discrepancies. For example, 4% said their own family had trouble with parents' lack of commitment vs. 20% who said it was a challenge for other families. Interestingly, more people (32%) said mental or physical health struggles affected their family than those who said it affected other families (23%). They also cited tensions and disagreements as more an issue in their family (18%) vs. other families (10%).
• There are very few partisan differences among respondents asked to reflect on their own families' challenges. Democrats report more concern than Republicans about their family's mental or physical health struggles and about a lack of good jobs or wages for their family members. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to emphasize a lack of religious faith or church attendance in their family and are slightly more worried than Democrats about crime and other threats to personal safety.

Family Life in Red and Blue

• Both Democrats and Republicans with young children say family life brings them a great deal of satisfaction. For example, in the 2024 American Family Survey, among parents with children under 18, 86% of Democrats and 89% of Republicans agree that "raising children is one of life's greatest joys." (Among married respondents, even higher percentages of both groups agree.)
• Among married respondents who have children under 18, 87% of Democrats and 85% of Republicans say they are "somewhat" or "completely" satisfied with their relationships. When asked to rate the strength of their relationships, about half of both married Republicans (45%) and married Democrats (50%) say their marriage is stronger (as opposed to the same or weaker) than two years ago. This result is consistent with previous years. In none of the past 10 years of the American Family Survey has there been a large divide in partisans' evaluations of the strength of their own marriages.
• Large majorities of Americans of all political groups say they eat dinner together, spend time at home watching TV or a movie or playing games, and doing household chores at least weekly with their family. The biggest partisan difference has to do with frequency of worship, with about 3 in 10 Democrats saying they worship as a family on a weekly basis, and nearly half saying they never worship together. Among Republicans, about 4 in 10 worship at least weekly, and only 3 in 10 say they never worship together.

Attitudes and Evaluations of Marriage

• 8 in 10 Republicans believe that marriage is needed to create strong families and 4 in 10 Democrats believe the same. 66% of Republicans also agree with the statement that "marriages make society better off" vs. 34% of Democrats. 23% of Democrats also think that marriage is "old-fashioned and out of date" vs. 10% of Republicans.
• Americans are generally positive about their marriages, and when asked whether respondents think their marriage has been "in trouble" at any point in the last two years, three-quarters of married respondents said no.
• Those who reported their marriage had been in trouble said the biggest stressors in their marriage were communication (58%), money (53%) and sex (41%). Raising children (21%), other (21%), in-laws or other family (16%), and work (16%) were chosen less frequently.
• Outright pessimism about marriage trajectory is rare, though it is highest among married respondents between the ages of 45 and 54.

Economic Worries, Biases and Crises

• Inflation is a universal concern, with 55% of people saying they are very worried about it.
• Race, church attendance, gender, family status and other variables tend not to affect the percentage worrying about inflation — though there are two exceptions to this general pattern. First, it is worth knowing that though all income categories are concerned about inflation, the relatively well-off (incomes over $100,000 per year) are the least worried. The second exception is based on partisanship: A strong majority (68%) of Republicans are very worried, while only 41% of Democrats fit this description.
• The percentage of Americans experiencing an economic crisis has returned to pre-pandemic levels after dropping dramatically in 2020 and 2021, with 4 in 10 people saying they have experienced an economic crisis in the last 12 months.
• Americans making less than $40,000 per year appear to be dramatically more likely to experience a crisis than those whose annual household incomes exceed $80,000. In 2024, for example, 56% of low-income respondents reported experiencing at least one crisis, compared to only one-quarter of the high-income group — a difference of more than 30 percentage points.
• Around 1 in 5 respondents in the survey said they had to borrow money to pay bills or did not pay the full amount of a bill they had received. A little over 1 in 10 Americans said they were hungry but could not afford food or were unable to see a doctor because of the cost.

Government Programs for Families

• Most Americans think government programs would be more helpful for families generally than for their family in particular, but they rate housing, food, and healthcare programs consistently higher than others.
• Democrats are far more likely to say government policies that help families are "very helpful" for family well-being. For example, 63% of Democrats say an increase in the minimum wage would be very helpful for families vs. 24% of Republicans, and 49% of Democrats rank student loan forgiveness as very helpful vs. 14% of Republicans.
• When reporting the percentage for "helpful" however (vs. "very helpful"), the percentage for Republicans increases. For instance, affordable housing is "very helpful" in the eyes of 32% of Republicans, but it is "helpful" in the eyes of 71% of Republicans. Other questions make similar jumps.

Abortion Policy 

• When asked up until which week in pregnancy should a woman be able to obtain an abortion, just under a quarter of the sample takes one of the two extreme positions: 13% want abortion effectively outlawed, while 10% want to see it available through the entire pregnancy (36-40 weeks, the highest category possible).
• 23% say abortion should be legal in all cases and 7% say it should be illegal in all cases.
• Just over a third of Americans (36%) indicated that anyone should be able to travel out of state to obtain abortion services, including 49% of Democrats and 20% of Republicans. However, just 32% of the sample was willing to let anyone travel and also opposed banning the mailing of pills.
• Abortion clearly influences but does not control people's voting. Among those who responded that abortion should not be available during any weeks of a pregnancy (13% of the public), 1 in 10 voted for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, and another 13% didn't vote at all. If we look at the people who responded that abortions should be limited to the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy, 25% voted for Harris. Similar figures were obtained for those on the left of this issue, with 1 in 10 of those who favored abortion throughout a pregnancy voting for Donald Trump.

Social Media Policy

• 46% of Americans support a ban on social media for people under the age of 16 and 31% oppose it. A relatively high percentage of 23% do not know whether it should be banned
• There are small partisan differences in support of a social media ban: 41% of Democrats favor a ban as do 53% of Republicans.
• Religious attendance is also correlated with increased concern about social media. Of those who attend frequently (once a week or more often), 54% support a ban. Occasional attenders (a few times a month to a few times a year) also favor it at 50%. Those who rarely or never attend only support it at a rate of 41%.

Hormone Therapy for Minors

• Overall, 40% support a ban to delay hormone therapy that delays puberty for minors, but 36% oppose. One-quarter of respondents say they don't know. For parents with children under the age of 18, the percentage rises to 46% in support of the ban.
• Young people between the ages of 18-30 express the lowest levels of support for laws banning hormone therapy for minors (36%), but that is not much different from the level of support among those 51-64 (37%) or those over 65 (39%). The age group with the highest support level turns out to be people between 31 and 50, of whom 44% express support for hormone therapy bans. This group is also the set of respondents who are the most likely to be parents of children under the age of 18.
• Nearly 6 in 10 Republicans support a ban, compared to 23% of Democrats.
• Whites are considerably more supportive of bans than Black or Hispanic respondents, and half of white parents of minor children support such policies.

Methodology
Between August 22-29, 2024, YouGov interviewed 3,245 respondents who were then matched down to a sample of 3,000 to produce the final dataset. The respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race, and education. The matched cases were weighted to the sampling frame using propensity scores. The matched cases and the frame were combined, and a logistic regression was estimated for inclusion in the frame. The weights were then post-stratified on 2020 presidential vote choice as well as a four-way stratification of gender, age (4 categories), race (4 categories), and education (4 categories), to produce the final weight. The overall margin of error is +/- 2%.

To review the full 2024 American Family Survey, visit https://wheatley.byu.edu/american-family-survey. Additional targeted reports will be scheduled for the coming months.

About the Wheatley Institute
The Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University engages students, scholars, thought leaders, and the public in research supported work that fortifies the core institutions of the family, religion, and constitutional government.

About the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy
The Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (CSED) at Brigham Young University is a nonpartisan academic research center seeking to increase knowledge about the practice of American democracy. CSED is committed to the production and dissemination of research that meets high academic standards, is useful to policy makers, and informs citizens.

About the Deseret News
The Deseret News is Utah's oldest newspaper and the Beehive state's longest continuously operating business. Its primary focus is digital and its reach is national and global with over half of online readers living outside of Utah.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tenth-annual-american-family-survey-shows-significant-increase-in-economic-concerns-for-families-over-the-last-decade-302369686.html

SOURCE Wheatley Institute