What Unites and Divides Urban, Suburban and Rural Communities
Despite widening gaps in politics and demographics, Americans across community types have a lot in common in key facets of their lives.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Despite widening gaps in politics and demographics, Americans across community types have a lot in common in key facets of their lives.
An overwhelming share of America’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults (92%) say society has become more accepting of them in the past decade and an equal number expect it to grow even more accepting in the decade ahead. They attribute the changes to a variety of factors, from people knowing and interacting with someone […]
This posting explores statistics about marriage rates, median age at first marriage and attitudes about marriage. Although the marriage rate is at a record low, most never-married Americans say they would like to marry. “Love” is cited more than other factors as a reason to get married, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
A report from the center’s Social & Demographic Trends project, “The Decline of Marriage and Rise of New Families,” finds that nearly four-in-ten Americans (39%) say that marriage is becoming obsolete.
The American public is sharply divided in its judgments about the sweeping changes in the structure of the American family that have unfolded over the past half century. About a third generally accepts the changes; a third is tolerant but skeptical; and a third considers them bad for society.
This dramatic increase has been driven in part by the weakening of longstanding cultural taboos against intermarriage and in part by a large, multi-decade wave of immigrants from Latin America and Asia.
Americans believe that births to unwed women are a big problem for society, and they take a mixed view at best of cohabitation without marriage.
That degree of familiarity with — and proximity to — interracial marriage is the latest milestone in what has been a sweeping change in behaviors and attitudes concerning interracial relationships over the past several decades.
These edicts represent the collective judgment of the American public when asked to assess the moral dimensions of different kinds of behaviors.
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ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
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