IFS: Charting America's Marriage Deserts and Gardens

Chris Bullivant, Ken Burchfiel, IFS, October 8, 2026

In a new IFS report, we map the geography of family structure in the United States, identifying areas where married and married-parent households are either highly prevalent or notably scarce. Using newly-constructed maps and rankings based on 2020 Census data, we introduce two related concepts—marriage deserts and married-family deserts—to describe places where stable, married-family life is uncommon, alongside their counterparts, marriage gardens and married-family gardens, where it is most prevalent.

The 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. 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. This report and its corresponding maps seek to visualize these differences, mapping America’s family divide. 

To do so, we examine two measures at the level of Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs), geographic units that generally contain 100,000 to 200,000 individuals each. First, we measure the share of householders ages 15–64 who are married. Second, we measure the share of households with children that are headed by married couples.

This report also serves as a complement to our Get Married Maps, which illustrate parts of the country with particularly high or low marriage rates. While the Get Married Maps will be of most use to those looking to find a spouse, the maps in this "Marriage Deserts" report can help newlyweds determine which areas have particularly large shares of other married couples—and, thus, potentially stronger communities and support networks. 

Read in full at the Institute for Family Studies.