The Study
Family 2040
How we're building it. What we're finding.
Family 2040 is a multi-year public research observatory studying how Gen Z will reshape American family formation. This page documents the methodology, field approach, and the full expanded stat stack — updated as the study progresses.
Methodology
How Family 2040 is built.
Family 2040 combines quantitative signal-tracking with qualitative depth interviews. The study draws on published research from leading institutions, original survey work, and direct interviews with Americans ages 18–44 across a range of family formation stages and intentions.
Phase 1
Signal Mapping
Jan 2025 – Jun 2025
Systematic review of published research on Gen Z attitudes toward marriage, parenthood, fertility, adoption, and alternative family paths. Identification of the core signals that define the study's five inquiry areas.
Phase 2
Qualitative Depth
Jul 2025 – Dec 2025
100 in-depth interviews with Americans ages 18–44. Structured around the five inquiry areas. Interviews conducted remotely; participants recruited across geography, income, education, and family formation status.
Phase 3
Quantitative Validation
Jan 2026 – Mar 2026
Survey of 1,000+ Americans ages 18–44. Designed to validate and quantify the qualitative signals from Phase 2. Nationally representative sample weighted for age, gender, geography, and education.
Phase 4
Analysis & Publication
Mar 2026 – Jun 2027
Full analysis, synthesis, and publication of findings. The Family 2040 report publishes June 2027. Field Guides for specific professional audiences (adoption, fertility, policy) publish alongside the main report.
Five Areas of Inquiry
What Family 2040 is studying.
The study is organized around five areas where Gen Z's choices are diverging most sharply from prior generations.
Gen Z wants to marry at higher rates than any prior generation — but is marrying later, and with different expectations about what marriage means and requires. The study examines the gap between aspiration and action, and what's driving it.
Gen Z is the first generation in which a majority say life can be fulfilling without children. The study examines how this shift in baseline assumption is reshaping the decision to become a parent — and what it means for the generations that follow.
Assisted reproduction is losing ground among Gen Z, even as it becomes more accessible. The study examines Gen Z's relationship with fertility technology — what they know, what they fear, and what they're willing to consider.
In 100 interviews with young adults about their family futures, adoption was not mentioned once — not rejected, not considered. The study examines what this signal means for the future of adoption in the United States.
Fostering, co-parenting, chosen family, solo parenthood, and other non-traditional paths are gaining visibility among Gen Z. The study examines which paths are gaining real traction and which remain aspirational.
The Expanded Stat Stack
The signals, sourced.
The following statistics represent the core signals driving Family 2040. Each is drawn from published research; sources are cited. The stack is updated as new research is published.
Last updated: September 2026
Marriage & Commitment
of Gen Z want to get married — the highest of any generation currently surveyed.
Match Group, Singles in America 2026is the median age at first marriage for Gen Z women, up from 20 in 1960.
U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey 2025of Gen Z singles say they are not currently looking for a relationship — the highest share ever recorded.
Pew Research Center, 2024Parenthood & Children
of Gen Z say a person can live a fulfilling life without having children — the highest of any generation.
Barna, State of Today's Family 2026of Gen Z women say they are unlikely or very unlikely to have children.
Pew Research Center, 2024— the U.S. total fertility rate in 2023, the lowest ever recorded.
CDC National Center for Health Statistics, 2024Fertility & Assisted Reproduction
of singles say they would consider IVF to have a child — down from 44% in 2017.
Match Group / Kinsey Institute, 2026of Gen Z say they have never discussed fertility with a doctor.
RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, 2025Gen Z is twice as likely as Millennials to say the cost of fertility treatment is a barrier to family formation.
Family 2040 Phase 3 Survey, 2026Adoption
young adults interviewed in Phase 2 mentioned adoption when asked about their own family futures. Not rejected. Not considered.
Silver Stork Research, Nobody Told Us, 2025children were adopted in the United States in 2019 — down 40% from the 2004 peak.
U.S. Children's Bureau, 2021children were in foster care in the United States as of September 2023.
U.S. Children's Bureau, AFCARS Report 2024Field Notes
What we're hearing.
Field notes are observations from the research process — patterns, surprises, and signals that don't fit neatly into a statistic. They are updated as the study progresses.
August 2026
The aspiration gap is real.
Gen Z wants marriage more than any prior generation. They are also less likely to be in a relationship, less likely to be dating, and more likely to say they are not looking. The gap between aspiration and action is the central tension of the study.
June 2026
Adoption is invisible — not rejected.
The most striking finding from Phase 2 is not that young adults rejected adoption as a path to parenthood. It's that it never came up. In 100 interviews about family futures, not one participant mentioned adoption. This is not hostility. It is absence. Adoption has fallen out of the cultural imagination of the next generation of parents.
March 2026
The cost signal is everywhere.
Across every area of inquiry — marriage, parenthood, fertility, adoption — cost emerges as the dominant barrier. This is not new. What is new is the degree to which Gen Z has internalized cost as a reason not to start, rather than a problem to solve.
Stay Close
Come along.
Subscribers get field notes, stat stack updates, and the full Family 2040 report when it publishes in June 2027.