Teenage girls are now less likely than boys to see themselves marrying one day, in a stark reversal of a decades long trend, according to a nationwide study of the US.

The Institute for Family Studies reported this week that boys in their final year of High School are now almost ten per cent more likely than girls to expect to marry.

That’s the opposite of what the same annual survey had found in the years 1976 to 2010.

From 2010 on, both sexes’ confidence in their expectation of marriage declined, though girls’ did so quicker than boys’. That change sharpened in 2020 with girls surpassing teenage boys in their pessimism.

“This trend is deeply concerning insofar as young women have traditionally been more marriage-minded than young men,” said Brad Wilcox, a University of Virginia sociology professor.

“The move away from embracing marriage is a recipe for misery.”

Mr. Wilcox said that two things have made women more pessimistic about coupling over the past 15 years: anti-marriage messaging among young women on social media and the “male malaise” of young men struggling to launch careers.

“It has an impact on the economy,” he added. “But we are also social animals who flourish when we live for and with others.”