Marriages are scarce in urban America but abound in wealthier suburbs: study

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Friday, October 23, 2026

Despite extensive research showing that children raised in stable, two-parent married households are statistically more likely to succeed, a new report from the Institute for Family Studies found that marriages are concentrated in wealthier, predominantly white suburbs but are scarce in many urban, often predominantly black neighborhoods dubbed "marriage deserts."

“Just as it is harder to buy healthier groceries in a ‘food desert,’ it is likely more difficult to enter into stable married families in a ‘marriage desert.’ This is simply where relationship styles are learned in the context of existing relationships,” IFS researchers note in their "Marriage Deserts" report, published this month.

Reviewing the geography of America’s family structure, IFS researchers used 2020 Census data to examine Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs), geographic areas that generally contain 100,000 to 200,000 people.

In each area, they measured the share of householders ages 15 to 64 who are married, as well as the share of households with children headed by married couples. A householder is the person in whose name a home is owned or rented.

They then sorted the areas into groups. A marriage desert is a PUMA where fewer than 33% of householders ages 15 to 64 are married. A married-family desert is one where fewer than 52% of households with children are headed by a married couple. At the other end, a marriage garden is a PUMA where at least 61% of householders ages 15 to 64 are married, and a married-family garden is one where 79% or more of households with children are headed by a married couple.

IFS researchers highlighted a stark divide between urban, suburban and exurban areas. A review of the data by The Christian Post found that race and income often fall along those same lines.

The 10 marriage deserts with the lowest share of married householders, according to IFS, are Detroit’s South Central and Southeast area (13%); central Milwaukee (14%); eastern Cleveland and Bratenahl Village, Ohio (14%); eastern Washington, D.C. (14%); northern St. Louis (15%); central Columbus and Grandview Heights, Ohio (15%); southwest Atlanta in central Fulton County, Georgia (16%); central Cincinnati (16%); Boston’s Allston, Brighton and Fenway neighborhoods (17%); and Chicago’s Hyde Park, Grand Boulevard, Woodlawn, Douglas and Kenwood neighborhoods (17%).

Seven of these areas are majority non-Hispanic black. The Columbus and Boston areas are the only predominantly white ones on the list. Estimated median household incomes across the 10 areas ranged from about $26,000 to $69,000 in 2020. The top 10 married-family deserts are all areas where the black population ranged from an estimated 56.1% to 93.1%, with median household incomes of roughly $26,000 to $43,000.

“As shown in our maps, marriage deserts are present across the United States. They cluster in specific neighborhoods and, in some cases, extend across large metropolitan regions. At the individual PUMA level, some of the lowest marriage shares appear in parts of cities such as Cleveland, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C.,” the report said.

“When grouped, marriage deserts encompass far larger populations: the top three grouped deserts, which include parts of New York City and Chicago, each span over 500,000 households. The analysis also shows that marriage deserts and married-family deserts frequently overlap, though not uniformly,” the report explained. “In cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Newark, some neighborhoods experience both low marriage among adults and low shares of households with children headed by married couples.”

Nine of the 10 top marriage gardens — those with the highest share of married householders — are majority white.

Northwest Fort Bend County, Texas, where 79% of householders are married, is the only one where the white population falls below 50%, according to the 2020 Census.

The other marriage gardens are eastern Utah County, Utah (78%); western Utah County, Utah (77%); northwest Collin County, including Celina and Prosper, Texas (76%); Western Central Connecticut (76%); northwest St. Johns County, Florida (75%); the Lakewood area of Ocean County, New Jersey (75%); central Bergen County, including Ridgewood, Glen Rock and Westwood, New Jersey (75%); south-central Denton County, including Flower Mound and Highland Village, Texas (75%); and the Thompson Station–Fairview area of Williamson County, Tennessee (74%).

Median household incomes in these marriage gardens ranged from $88,000 to $192,000, according to 2020 American Community Survey data. Lakewood, at an estimated $53,000, was the exception.

Researchers stressed that the report only describes America’s family patterns, showing where married and married-family households are common or rare.

“This report does not seek to establish causal relationships between marriage rates, family structure, and economic or social outcomes. Nor does it attempt to explain why these patterns have emerged,” IFS researchers wrote.

“While the connection may seem obvious, there are areas where higher rates of marriage do not correlate with higher rates of married families, and there are areas where low marriage rates correlate with higher shares of married families. However, these maps are presented with the knowledge that areas of low marriage and weak family stability are more prone to less upward social mobility.”

Asked why IFS avoided discussing possible causes behind the racial and income divide, Ken Burchfiel, a research fellow for the Family First Technology Initiative at IFS, said, “We were unable to prove whether any given variable has caused the divides in marriage rate.”

“While it is true that income and marriage rates are positively correlated, it is also clear that income alone can't explain the divides in marriage rates. For instance, in Greenwich Village and the Financial District of Manhattan, the median personal income for men in their 30s is $182,000 — yet only around 40% of them are married,” he told CP Thursday.

“Meanwhile, in Lakewood Township, New Jersey (a region with a large Orthodox Jewish presence), 80% of men in their 30s are married, yet their median personal income is only $30,000.”

He added that “while marriage rates vary by race and ethnicity, I would not want any community to believe that they are consigned to low marriage rates simply because of their demographic background.”

Burchfiel said marriage is a valuable institution for people of all races. He pointed to previous IFS research showing that about 23% of black men in the U.S. were in the upper third of the income bracket, according to 2016 data.

In his 1987 book The Truly Disadvantaged, sociologist William Julius Wilson argues that the low marriage rate among black Americans, particularly in urban areas, is driven mainly by a severe shortage of “marriageable” black men caused by structural economic shifts.

Wilson explains that as deindustrialization wiped out low-skill, well-paying manufacturing jobs in central cities, it disproportionately stripped urban black men of the stable employment needed to support a family. High rates of incarceration and death further shrank the pool of economically stable men, creating a sharp demographic imbalance in inner-city communities.

At the same time, many black middle-class families moved out of urban areas, leaving behind a highly concentrated population facing extreme social isolation. Without stable job networks or local economic opportunity, marriage became less financially viable. Wilson argues that the rise of single-parent households and declining marriage rates do not reflect cultural failure or welfare dependency. Instead, he sees them as a rational adaptation to the chronic joblessness and economic marginalization that define life for the truly disadvantaged.

Building on Wilson’s work, the authors of a 2021 study, Incarceration, Unemployment, and the Racial Marriage Divide, found that mass incarceration, structural unemployment and skewed gender ratios together account for roughly 75% to 80% of the marriage gap between black and white Americans. The authors describe how high incarceration rates and poor job prospects make black men “riskier spouses” economically, lowering long-term family stability and changing how the culture values marriage.

In his response to CP, Burchfiel acknowledged the need for good jobs for men, but he also argued that communities seeking to raise low marriage rates should consider promoting the "Success Sequence" in schools.

“This means that they should encourage students to get at least a high school diploma, find a full-time job, and get married before having children. This sequence is tremendously important, as those who follow these steps are far less likely to be in poverty than those who do not,” Burchfiel said.

“Awareness likely won't be enough to boost marriage rates; solid, well-paying jobs within 'marriage deserts' will be important as well. However, I believe that teaching the Success Sequence could still make a powerful impact, particularly in communities that have a shortage of married-adult role models.”