Reports

Today’s 18 to 29 year olds – members of the so-called Millennial Generation – see parenthood and marriage differently than today’s thirty-somethings (members of Generation X) did back when they were in their late teens and twenties, according to a new analysis of Pew Research Center survey findings. Unlike their older counterparts, Millennials value parenthood much more than marriage.

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.

Today, more than four-in-ten American adults have at least one step relative in their family – either a stepparent, a step or half sibling or a stepchild.

As the leading edge of the giant Baby Boomer generation turns 65 on January 1, 2011, a Pew Research roundup of new and recent surveys finds that this age group is more downbeat than others about the trajectory of their lives and the direction of the nation as a whole. This report explores Boomers’ political and social values; their economic hopes and fears and their overall satisfaction with life.

Graduates who received a bachelor’s degree in 2008 borrowed 50% more than their counterparts who graduated in 1996, while graduates who earned an associate’s degree or undergraduate certificate in 2008 borrowed more than twice what their counterparts in 1996 had borrowed.

The pre-eminent family unit of the mid-20th century—mom, dad and the kids—no longer has the stage to itself. A variety of new arrangements have emerged, giving rise to a broader and evolving definition of what constitutes a family.

In a reversal of long-standing marital patterns, college-educated young adults are more likely than young adults lacking a bachelor’s degree to have married by the age of 30.

More than a third (36%) of Americans say the practice of "walking away" from a home mortgage is acceptable, at least under certain circumstances.

One child in 10 in the United States lives with a grandparent, a share that increased slowly and steadily over the past decade before rising sharply from 2007 to 2008, the first year of the Great Recession.