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A shocking statistic revealed by the latest U.S. Census Bureau data shows the nuclear family has sunk to a lower depth than anyone imagined…Has the death of the family arrived? What impact will it hold for the future?
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
– Genesis 2:24
According to the latest statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Daily Wire reported that among America’s 130 million households, only 17.8% consist of married parents with children.
This latest figure shows a decline of more than 20% from the level in the U.S. in 1970, when over 40% of U.S. households with children were comprised of two, married parents.
“There are currently just 23.1 million American homes with those ‘nuclear families,’ which is the fewest since 1959,” the Daily Mail reported.
The statistics found that the percentage of adults living with a spouse was only 50%, the statistics found, while the percentage living with an unmarried partner climbed to 8 percent.
In 2020, the U.S. Congress’s Joint Economic Committee published a report entitled ‘The Demise of the Happy Two-Parent Home.’ The report stressed how vital the two-parent family was for the development, nurturing, teaching, and socializing children need and how crucial this stable, traditional upbringing is for broader society
Analysts and a variety of commentators have speculated numerous causes for the deterioration of the traditional family. Among them: The decline of religion, the permutation of LGBTQ ideology, an increase in Americans living alone, people waiting until their very late 20s or early 30’s to marry, the pandemic delaying marriage, higher living expenses, a declining birthrate, and even climate alarmism with some people believing there is no future and, therefore, not wanting to bring children into the world.
Pastor Jimmy Evans, renowned for his sermons and books on marriage and family, points out a few pertinent statistics from 2020 he attributes to the decline:
Today, 35% of women ages 30 to 34 have never married at all. In 1962, only 7%.
In the 1960s, only 1% of couples living together were unmarried.
By late adolescence, 45% of today’s American children will spend significant periods of time during which a biological parent is absent. In the 1950s, only 20-25% of children.
Despite constant chatter of overpopulation, a 2019 report by the United Nations found the opposite – the global birth rate is declining. The conclusion was that the global fertility rate is expected to fall below replacement levels of 2.1 percent births per woman by 2070.
The birthrate in the United States fell for its sixth consecutive year in 2020, declining 4% to its lowest point ever according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for health statistics, the BBC reported.
This indicates many significant problems in the future. For example, too few young people of working age will perform vital jobs. At the same time, a large population of older, non-working age people who need care and a shortage of caretakers.
This week, billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk commented on where things are heading.
“I think one of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birthrate and the rapidly declining birthrate,” Musk said. “And yet, so many people, including smart people, think that there are too many people in the world and think that the population is growing out of control.”
“It’s completely the opposite,” Musk added. “Please look at the numbers — if people don’t have more children, civilization is going to crumble, mark my words.”
“What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
– Mark 10:9
In the biblical view, marriage is a holy covenant in which a man and a woman are joined by God, not separated, not divorced. God wanted human beings to raise families and populate the earth and have dominion over everything on the earth.
“And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'”
– Genesis 1:28
