- A new report maps substantial geographic differences in marriage and married-parent households across the United States.

- The highest-ranking areas have married-householder shares of 74%–79%, compared to 13%–17% in the lowest-ranking areas.

- Higher marriage shares tend to occur in suburban areas, while lower shares often occur in urban centers.

America’s family divide has its own geography, with potential to impact family structure.

A new report from the Institute for Family Studies uses Census data maps and rankings to demonstrate the country has distinct “marriage gardens” and “marriage deserts,” with implications for economic well-being, social capital and what’s being dubbed “America’s family divide.”

In marriage deserts, per the report, “stable married-family life is uncommon.” In marriage gardens, it blossoms.

The report maintains that neighborhood family structures influence each other and calls up research by Harvard economist Raj Chetty that found “the most predictive factor of upward mobility in a community was the share of homes with two parents present in the household.”

“This analysis is motivated by a large body of research showing that family structure is closely associated with economic mobility and broader measures of social capital,” per “Marriage Deserts: Mapping America’s Family Divide.” “As other research has found, the share of children growing up in two-parent households is one of the strongest predictors of upward mobility within a community. Yet this aspect of social life is not evenly distributed across the United States.”

Marriage plays an important role in the “social capital divide,” with higher rates of marriage and stability found among high-income families. The report cites research showing that across many measurements, children growing up in stable married families fare better than children growing up in less stable cohabiting or single-parent households.

Because the researchers were studying marriage, they looked specifically at households led by married couples, excluding cohabiting couples, single parents or separated spouses. What they found was a big difference between the marriage gardens where 60% to 79% of households with kids were led by married couples, compared to the deserts where the share fell below one-third and in an extreme case dipped as low as 13%.

The report complements the institute’s “Get Married Maps,” highlighting areas with high or low marriage rates, “of most use to those looking to find a spouse.” The new report is designed to help newlyweds — and policymakers — see areas with large shares of other married couples and “potentially stronger communities and support networks.”

Where are marriage deserts and gardens?

The counts are based on marital status of heads of households, according to study co-author Ken Burchfiel, a research fellow in the institute’s Family First Technology Initiative, who wrote the report with Chris Bullivant, a senior fellow of the Social Capital Campaign. They used data groups called Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) that most often include 100,000 to 200,000 individuals to see what share of householders ages 15 to 64 were married. They also analyzed American Community Survey microdata.

The researchers examined two separate measures: the share of householders ages 15 to 64 who are married and the share of households with children headed by married couples. Among the 10 areas with the lowest married-householder shares, roughly 13% to 17% were married, compared with 74% to 79% in the 10 highest-ranking areas. For married households with children, the corresponding ranges were approximately 18% to 26% and 87% to 89%.

Where are the deepest deserts, with the lowest share of householders who are married?

A portion of Detroit tops the list, with 13% married, followed by portions of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Cleveland, Ohio; and the District of Columbia, which all had areas with just 14% of heads of households who were married. Then portions of St. Louis, Missouri, and Columbus, Ohio, which tied with 15%.

The rankings apply to the PUMAs, which don’t necessarily correspond to county boundaries. Burchfiel said that PUMAs let researchers compare distinct neighborhoods in large cities while creating large enough regional groupings to accurately study rural populations. “When we look at data by PUMAs, that both lets us group people in rural areas into large enough regions that we can make decent estimates about them, but it also lets us go into a lot of detail for urban areas like New York or Los Angeles.”

More households are headed by married couples in the northwestern portion of Fort Bend County, Texas, located in the Houston metropolitan area, at 79% than anywhere else, though Utah County’s eastern area in Utah, including Spanish Fork, Springville, northeast Lehi and Highland, come in a close second at 78%. And the west part of Utah County — Saratoga Springs, Payson and southwest Lehi — are a single percentage point behind at 77%.

The other top marriage gardens can be found in specific areas in Texas, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey and Tennessee.

The research shows that marriage is more likely among households in the suburbs than in urban areas, Burchfiel said.

The report also notes that the largest grouped marriage desert in the U.S., with more than 686,000 householders between ages 15 and 64, is in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, while the largest grouped marriage garden, with more than 630,000 households in that age range, is found in Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs, “identified by grouping together contiguous PUMA-level marriage deserts and marriage gardens.” Those totals include householders regardless of marital status.

“In some parts of the country, only 18% of households with kids are led by a married couple — 4 in 5 of these households do not have a married couple leading them. If you’re in a married family desert, you’re just not going to have as many married role models in your life,” said Burchfiel.

The maps show where married households are concentrated, but they do not establish why those patterns exist or whether marriage itself causes the associated community outcomes, according to the report.

Why family structure matters

The goal in doing the study is to consider what gives children their best future, Bullivant and Burchfiel wrote.

Married-parent households have several advantages, much of it economic, Burchfiel told Deseret News, noting that single parents work hard, but have a hard time competing with the benefits of shared resources, the possibility of two incomes and economies of scale in household expenses that result from married parents. Married parents can back each other up in terms of time, resources, skills and other factors.

“Think about like Tiger Woods,” Burchfiel said. “If Tiger Woods is given a hockey stick to play golf with, he’s still going to do OK, but it’s going to be a struggle compared to having a real golf club. Single parents do heroic work to support their kids, but it is going to be more of a struggle than if they had a spouse there to help them.”

Living in areas with more married households affords stronger built-in support networks, such as providing stay-at-home moms contact with others, Burchfiel said. The communities tend to have less poverty and more stability because married-parent families typically don’t move as often, “unless they’re military families,” he added.

He also highlighted the benefits of what’s been called the “success sequence,” which says that doing certain things in a certain order are more likely to lead to economic success and prevent poverty. The success sequence involves graduating high school, getting a job and getting married before one has children, all in that order.

Burchfiel cites a more personal benefit, too. “When you get married and you have kids, it really does force you to become more other-focused — to think about, ‘How can I support my family?’”

He believes that schools should talk about marriage when they discuss ways to secure stable futures. “Childhood poverty rates are lower among married couples ... Why wouldn’t counties and schools stress the value of marriage in their own efforts to relieve poverty? Children have the right to know about these differences in outcomes.”