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Today, more young people are trading white picket fences for corporate ladders. They are letting political opinions get the best of their relationships.

In the United States in particular – but Australia is following the trend – the divide between men and women is widening in a proudly “progressive” society. As a result, marriage and fertility rates are in severe decline.

Polarising attitudes have been driving a wedge between men and women, particularly in a society where language and association are split between “liberal” and “conservative”.

According to polling data analysed by The Economist, in much of the developed world in 2002, men and women aged 18 to 29 reported similar results on a scale of 0-10 from “very liberal” to “very conservative”, with a difference of less than 0.1 points. In 2020, this gap reached 0.75, with more women identifying as liberal and more men identifying as conservative.

In 2022, the gap in Australia was 0.25, while the gap in the United States was a striking 1.4.

Brad Wilcox and Lyman Stone, both fellows at the Institute for Family Studies in the U.S., noted in a June 11, 2023, article for The Atlantic that fewer Americans are willing to date or marry people with different political views. They explain that statistically, around half of young singles in America will struggle to find a partner who holds similar views.

A 2023 Newsweek survey that polled people worldwide – including Australians – found that 76 per cent preferred not to date across the political aisle when it comes to serious relationships.

Polarised

While it is no surprise that men and women think differently, the liberal and conservative camps have created a chasm between them that is bigger than ever. Social media is the main culprit in fuelling the polarisation as it shines a spotlight on a variety of issues, builds ideological echo chambers, and consequently influences young people’s political beliefs.

Attitudes among young women especially are shifting. According to the World Bank, more young women in OECD countries are graduating from university than men – with a difference of 10 percentage points – and university goers are more likely to adopt a liberal worldview.

This is a major cause of the gender gap in the support of specific social and political issues. A 2022 study by Pew Research Centre found that 63 per cent of women in the U.S. view the legalisation of same-sex marriage to be good for society, while 58 per cent of men agreed.

The gap is similar in Australia, where 53 per cent of women support equal rights for same-sex couples while the figure for men is 47 per cent, according to the 2015 HILDA Survey.

Results from a 2019 poll conducted by the United States Studies Centre and YouGov also found that 62 per cent and 46 per cent of women in Australia and the U.S., respectively, believe that a woman should always be able to get an abortion if they so choose, while 54 and 39 per cent of men, respectively, agreed.

Impractical

So, how is the gender divide affecting marriage and fertility rates? The growing gulf between men and women in terms of education, experiences, expectations and worldviews ultimately shapes their preferences and expectations on dating, marrying, and starting a family.

It certainly does not help that many women today believe the lies of modern feminism, that love without responsibility is liberating and that a career is more valuable than motherhood.

If women today are more likely to go to university, find a corporate job in a big city and live an independent lifestyle, men will struggle to find women who desire to get married and start a family sooner rather than later.

Marrying later means smaller families. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show a sharp upward trend in the median marrying age, from about 21 and 23 years of age for women and men in 1975, respectively, to 29 and 31 years of age in 2020.

That is, if young people get married at all. ABS data also found that the cohabitation rate has increased, and while the Australian population has doubled since the 1970s, the number of registered marriages per year has not increased and continues to fluctuate over time.

The left’s “long march through the institutions” aims to put the culture under its spell. By controlling the narrative and promoting a broken moral philosophy, it has deepened the division between men and women and locked in a chokehold the two building blocks of civilisation – marriage and the family.

Perhaps increasing the number of marriages and families starts with the media and government making it attractive again to young people, such as through positive social-media discourse and family-friendly policies. Future generations, if there are to be any, depend on it.

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Republished with thanks to News Weekly. Image courtesy of Shutterstock.