My father always says, “The world is full of opportunity,” and I believe him. Opportunity exists everywhere – to solve problems in business, relationships, communities and public policy. When it comes to the family institution, policymakers have a unique opportunity to solve public policy problems by meeting families where they are, rather than where they want them to be.

For example, during a family policy panel at the AEI-Sutherland Institute FREE Forum, AEI Senior Fellow Tim Carney said, “It’s actually a deliberate policy goal of the Biden administration and many state governments … that they prefer the two full-time paid jobs and child care model.” However, in contrast with what Carney terms the “GDP maximization” approach, 75% of Utah’s two-parent households prefer having one parent work full time while the other is a full- or part-time stay-at-home parent. If those same parents had the option to cover household costs on one income, the preference rises to 81%.

Lawmakers should craft policy approaches that empower families to pursue their own solutions to their own problems over approaches that offer a solution to some families while doing little for families for whom the solution is a bad fit. Doing so will help families become stronger and more fully thrive and will better help resolve complex policy problems with fewer new problems created by unintended consequences.

Where are families now?

Last week, The Wall Street Journal highlighted recently published research about the changes to sources of income for families. The article shared how the proportion of U.S. households in which the husband is the sole breadwinner dropped from 49% in 1972 to 23% in 2023. The share of U.S. households in which women earn more than their husbands tripled during that same period from 5% to 16%.

While Utah has changed at a different rate than the rest of the nation, it too has experienced demographic changes to family formation and structure. Like the rest of the U.S., individuals in Utah are marrying and having children at later ages. From 1960 to 2019, Utah saw a consistent downward trend in the proportion of married couples with children from 54.5% to 29%. In contrast, nonmarried households with children increased. Nonfamily households – unrelated roommates, unmarried partners, or single people – also increased from 15.1% to 35.2%. Women-led households increased from 7% to over 50% from 1980 to 2021.

Where aspects of family structure have changed, some family dynamics have stayed the same. The Pew Research Center showed that more households consist of egalitarian-earning marriages (where both husband and wife earn about the same amount of money) now than in the past. However, when it comes to household labor and caregiving, women in egalitarian-earning marriages put more time into housework and caregiving and less time into paid work and leisure than men do.

Existing family structures and dynamics have increased in diversity, influenced by changing societal attitudes and economic factors and cultural transformations. By recognizing these changes and adapting policies to meet families where they are now, policymakers can better support families.

Policymakers can meet families’ needs now and empower them to solve their own problems in the future. As my colleague Nic Dunn wrote, “National and state leaders should take the elevated approach to family policy by empowering parents, not government, to decide the best work and care arrangements for their families.”