Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

June 6, 2019

The Decline of the Family and America’s Loneliness Epidemic

Cohabitation and kinlessness.

In the past few years, evidence has mounted of widespread loneliness in the U.S., which has been connected to alarming rates of suicide and drug addiction, among much else. To Kay Hymowitz, there is overwhelming reason to believe that behind the loneliness epidemic are the massive social changes that began in the middle of the last century—what sociologists term the Second Demographic Transition (SDT)—bringing about lower fertility, less marriage, more births out of wedlock, and more divorce. She writes:

SaveGift