This year marks the tenth fielding of the American Family Survey, a collaborative effort between the Wheatley Institute and Center for the Study of Elections and Democrat at Brigham Young University and the Deseret News.
Each year for the past decade, we have asked samples of 3,000 Americans about their own relationship and family experiences as well as their impressions of the health of American marriages and families more generally.
In this year’s report, produced as a series of discrete fact sheets highlighting key survey results on such matters as the coalitions for pro-family policies, patterns of family life, and more, we step back to consider what we have learned over the past decade, reflect on new insights from the 2024 AFS, and consider the possibilities and challenges for creating a broad-based political coalition to support American families.
Our aim in this report is to provide constructive in-depth analysis of the social and political state of the American family, with additional fact sheet releases scheduled for the coming months.
What has changed over the past decade? For one, the AFS has marked a significant increase in economic concerns and a corresponding decline in worries about cultural concerns that might affect families.
- In 2024, 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. One out of two Americans say the cost of raising a family is one of the top three challenges for families today.
- By contrast, in 2024, 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.
- Concern about structural issues, such as single-parent homes or a lack of parental discipline, have also declined somewhat. The 2024 AFS marked the first time that more Americans chose economic concerns than structural concerns as the most important issue facing American families.