<\/p>\n
About three-quarters of America\u2019s youngest adults believe they can lead fulfilling lives without children \u2014\u00a0the highest share of any generation on record.<\/p>\n
That staggering statistic comes from Barna\u2019s newly minted study on adults in Generation Z, those born between 1999 and 2015. The survey, \u201cThe State of Today\u2019s Family,\u201d reveals they are delaying marriages because of economic concerns and emotional stressors.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung adults today report high levels of anxiety, uncertainty, and emotional complexity in their daily lives \u2014 factors that may shape how they approach long-term decisions like marriage,\u201d researchers noted. \u201cRising costs of housing, education, and daily life likely add to that calculus, making the timing of marriage feel consequential in a way it may not have for earlier generations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group questioned more than 3,500 adults in August 2024 and found that 74% of Gen Z respondents said they can have fulfilling lives without kids and just 67% said marriage is critical for raising children in a stable environment, marking the lowest percentage among any surveyed generation.<\/p>\n
According to the just-released data, many young adults in the U.S. are rethinking the philosophy of previous generations, which seemed to value entering into marriages at young ages. Instead, Gen Z adults are placing greater priority on emotional readiness, financial stability, and certainty of long-term relational viability before stepping into marriage.<\/p>\n
While Pastor Mike Novotny, author of the new book, \u201cNewlywed: A Christian Guide for Loving Year One,\u201d made clear marriage isn\u2019t a requirement for a thriving spiritual life \u2014\u00a0noting Jesus Himself wasn\u2019t married \u2014\u00a0he does challenge the thinking of young adults delaying marriage.<\/p>\n
Listen to the latest\u00a0episode\u00a0of \u201cQuick Start\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI worship a guy who was single for all of His life, so I want to be really careful not to paint a picture you have to get married and you have to get married young,\u201d he told CBN News. \u201cJesus didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Novotny also referenced the Apostle Paul, who called his own singleness a gift allowing him to focus more intently on the work of spreading the Gospel.<\/p>\n The pastor then said, though, that delaying marriage to establish oneself is not inherently better than the alternative of \u201cthe opportunity to grow together.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI got married when I was 22,\u201d he said. \u201c[My wife] Kim had just turned 22. And the fact that we could be young together, get our first home together, learn how to do chores together, learn how to make a budget together \u2014\u00a0I think it would be harder to like have our own independent lives and then try to have to compromise on a thousand things, because we both have the way that we do [those things].\u201d<\/p>\n Novotny went on to say, \u201cMarriage is one of God\u2019s best earthly gifts. It shows up on the first pages of the Bible, even in the Garden of Eden. So don\u2019t let the culture tell you that it\u2019s some lesser thing and that a thriving career or making money or having a bigger \u2014 like that stuff is good, but, in my experience, marriage is great and it deserves to be a priority on our list.\u201d<\/p>\n As the number of voices facing big-tech censorship continues to grow, please sign up for\u00a0Faithwire\u2019s daily newsletter\u00a0and download the\u00a0CBN News app\u00a0to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" About three-quarters of America\u2019s youngest adults believe they can lead fulfilling lives without children \u2014\u00a0the highest share of any generation on record. That staggering statistic comes from Barna\u2019s newly minted study on adults in Generation Z, those born between 1999 and 2015. The survey, \u201cThe State of Today\u2019s Family,\u201d reveals they are delaying marriages because<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[3778,298,709,588,1146,1934,7419],"class_list":{"0":"post-28441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jesus","8":"tag-data","9":"tag-gen","10":"tag-light","11":"tag-marriage","12":"tag-sheds","13":"tag-shift","14":"tag-staggering"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}