Publication

What Changed for People Born in 1985-1996?

Institute for Reform Issue Brief 2026-39 (October 19, 2026), a supplement to the "Politics and Generations" series, asks what changed in marriage, households and net worth for people born in 1985-1996 compared with the earlier cohort at the same age. What changed is the share of people who formed households, not the net worth of those who formed households. The decline in marriage is a trend that continued from the earlier cohorts, and the differences were larger within cohorts than between birth cohorts. The conditions for forming a household lie in areas that labor, care and housing institutions deal with, so the decisions of politics are related to when and how this cohort forms households.