Changing attitudes to sex, extramarital childbearing and the expectations of marriage are driving down America’s marriage rates, according to a report from a leading think-tank.

This contradicts the narrative that declining male wages is primarily the fault.

Rachel Sheffield of the Heritage Foundation said that in the past, “owning a home or having a particular size of home was less of a prerequisite to entering marriage than it is today.”

Moreover, nowadays people have less expectation that marriage will last, so are more likely to want material security before entering marriage.

Furthermore, cultural norms about sex and childbearing have shifted, meaning far more children are born outside marriage, but this has impacted the working classes the most. The middle class still tend to marry before having children.

“While the college-educated are most likely to promote the cultural messages that marriage is unnecessary, outdated, and even oppressive, they do not practice what they preach.”

On a policy level, Sheffield called for funds to be used for “strengthening marriages,” including through high school marriage education programs and a reorientation of cultural messages in the media, TV shows, and advertisements.