
A solution to the housing affordability problem: Marriage
Fox News
Declining marriage rates worsen housing affordability for young adults, but pooling incomes through cornerstone marriage could help Gen Z access homeownership.
Howard Husock is the author of "The Projects: A New History of Public Housing" (NYU Press, 2025) and of "The Poor Side of Town: And Why We Need It" (Encounter Books). He is a senior fellow in domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He served on the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from 2013-17.
It’s no coincidence that high housing costs coincide with another socioeconomic trend: low marriage rates. Per the Institute of Family Studies, "only about 60% of 35-year-old men are ever married today, down from 90% in 1980." And, "just 20% of 25-year-old women and 23% of 25-year-old men have ever married today. These are close to the lowest levels ever observed for marriage rates."
The decline in marriage has several important implications for housing costs.













