Thirty-nine percent of Americans now say it is “very important” for couples who have a child together to marry, up 10 points from 2020, with the largest shift occurring among Republican voters.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Americans’ views on the importance of marriage for couples raising children have returned to roughly where they stood 13 years ago, according to a new Gallup poll showing a substantial rebound since 2020 that has been driven largely by Republicans.
In 2026, 39% of Americans said it was “very important” for a couple with a child together to legally marry, according to the Gallup poll released Friday.
That figure is one percentage point higher than in 2013, when 38% gave the same answer.
The latest result also represents a 10-point increase from 2020, when just 29% of Americans said marriage was “very important” for couples who have a child together, the lowest level recorded by Gallup over the past two decades.
The political breakdown shows the strongest change among Republican voters.
In 2026, 58% of Republicans said marriage for parents was “very important.” That figure remains four percentage points below the 62% who held that view in 2006, but it is sharply higher than the 36% recorded in 2020.
That amounts to a 22-point increase among Republicans over the past six years.
Democrats moved only modestly in the same period. In 2020, 18% of Democrats said marriage was “very important” for parents, compared with 21% in 2026.
Over the longer term, however, Democratic support for that view has fallen considerably. In 2006, 42% of Democrats said marriage was “very important” for couples with children, compared with 21% this year.
The gap between men and women has also narrowed significantly.
In 2006, 53% of men and 45% of women said marriage was “very important” for parents, an eight-point difference.
In 2026, the gap fell to one point, with 40% of men and 39% of women saying the same.
Gallup also found that, for the first time in 20 years, Americans are now slightly more likely to say marriage is “very important” for couples who have a child together than for couples who simply plan to spend their lives together.
Thirty-nine percent said marriage was very important for parents, while 37% said it was very important for couples who intend to spend their lives together.
ReconMR conducted the Gallup survey by telephone in May among 1,000 U.S. adults.
The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.
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