A 2026 report says only about 1 in 3 young adults is actively dating, but that number leaves out married people and people in steady relationships. Other surveys do suggest dating starts later now, though no single survey proves a recent slump.
By The Savvy Rabbits Staff ·
✓Checked twice. Fact-checked against the original sources and approved by an editor. About our standards
The "dating recession" is the label a February 2026 report gave to a finding that most unmarried Americans ages 22 to 35 who are open to marriage are not dating much. The survey is large, but it is one snapshot, so it cannot show a decline on its own. Other data suggest young adults start dating later than older generations did, without showing that dating has collapsed.
Where did the term come from?
The report is The Dating Recession: How Bad Is It and What Can We Do?, the 2026 edition of the State of Our Unions series. It comes from the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University and the Institute for Family Studies. Its press release ran under the headline "Report: Only 1 in 3 Young Adults Actively Dating."
The data come from a survey of 5,275 unmarried adults ages 22 to 35, which the authors call nationally representative. Qualtrics fielded it in early 2025. The report gives no margin of error.
What does "actively dating" mean?
It means dating once a month or more. By that measure, 31% were active: 26% of women and 36% of men. The rest, 74% of women and 64% of men, had not dated or had dated only a few times in the past year.
Who is in that "1 in 3"?
Fewer people than "young adults" suggests. The figure leaves out:
Married people, who were not surveyed.
The 14% who do not expect to marry. The report says they dated just as little.
Probably people living with a partner and engaged people, too. Those groups were 11% and 3% of the 4,539 respondents open to marriage. The report dropped them from "many" dating questions but does not say whether this was one.
People in committed, exclusive relationships. An endnote excludes them from the dating-frequency analysis.
So the 31% mostly describes unattached singles who are at least open to marriage. A 28-year-old in a long, steady relationship is not in that number. A separate question found that about 30% were dating, casually or exclusively: 7% of men and 7% of women casually, 13% of men and 29% of women exclusively. The two figures look alike but measure different things.
Is dating actually going down?
This survey cannot say, because the report shows no earlier version of it to compare. The authors write that the dating economy is struggling, "perhaps in a recession," and also that the survey's story "is one of a dating recession." Their long-term evidence is about marriage: first-marriage rates fell more than 10% over the past two decades.
Other sources fill in part of the picture:
Teen dating. A 2023 Survey Center on American Life study found 56% of Gen Z adults recalled having a boyfriend or girlfriend as a teenager, compared with 69% of millennials, 76% of Gen X and 78% of baby boomers. The authors note that memory can bias answers like these.
Never dating. The same group's 2025 report found three in 10 Gen Z adults had never been on a romantic date. In it, 62% of single men and 67% of single women said dating is harder than it was 10 years ago. The center is part of the American Enterprise Institute, and the dating recession report lists one of its own authors as a visiting scholar there, so the two are not fully separate.
Living with a partner.Pew Research Center's analysis of census data found the share of adults without a live-in spouse or partner fell from 44% in 2019 to 42% in 2023, after years of rising. Pew found no rise in new marriages but did find fewer divorces. This measures living arrangements, not dates.
Not looking. In a 2022 Pew survey, 57% of singles under 50 were looking for a relationship or dates. A 2020 Pew profile found that singles who were not looking most often cited more important priorities (47%) or liking being single (44%).
Together, these point to later starts and a harder-feeling market, but none tracks how often single adults date, year by year.
Does it matter who published it?
The Institute for Family Studies says its mission is "to strengthen marriage and family life." Wheatley names family and religion among the institutions it works to fortify. The authors argue that educators should not present dating "in maritally neutral terms." One author, Alan Hawkins, is vice-chair of a relationship and marriage education alliance, and the report's main recommendation is more dating education.
None of that makes the numbers wrong. It does mean low dating is treated as a problem partly because of marriage rates. Someone with no plans to marry might read the numbers differently.
What is holding people back?
These figures come from a narrower group than the full survey, about 4,000 people, because the report left out those who do not expect to marry. Respondents most often named money (52%), lack of confidence (49%) and bad past experiences (48%). More than half (55%) said breakups had made them more reluctant to start again. Fewer, 18%, did not want to commit long-term.
Only 25% said they felt confident approaching someone (29% of men, 21% of women), but that table counts only "agree" and "strongly agree" on a seven-point scale. "Somewhat agree" does not count. These are also self-reports, which cannot prove cause.
What can a reader do with this?
Treat it as context, not a verdict. A slow dating life is common in this survey, and choosing not to date is a common answer in Pew's. Nothing here shows that someone is behind.
For anyone who does want to date, the findings suggest a few low-pressure moves:
Make it cheap. The authors suggest treating a date as "a time and place to pair off, talk, and get to know someone better." A walk or a coffee counts.
Expect nerves on both sides. With so few people claiming confidence, the other person may well be nervous too.
Be plain about what you want. About 78% named serious relationships as a purpose of dating, so asking early is unlikely to seem strange.
Get support if a breakup still weighs heavily. A licensed counselor can help with that.
This article is educational and is not therapy or professional advice. If you are in an unsafe or abusive relationship, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233.
Sources
Wheatley Institute and Institute for Family Studies, "The Dating Recession: How Bad Is It and What Can We Do?" (State of Our Unions 2026, full report): https://ifstudies.org/ifs-admin/resources/reports/the-dating-recession-state-of-our-unions-2026-wheatley-ifs.pdf
Institute for Family Studies, "State of Our Unions 2026: The Dating Recession": https://ifstudies.org/report-brief/state-of-our-unions-2026-the-dating-recession
PR Newswire, "Report: Only 1 in 3 Young Adults Actively Dating": https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/report-only-1-in-3-young-adults-actively-dating-302683620.html
Institute for Family Studies, "Our Mission": https://ifstudies.org/about/our-mission
Wheatley Institute, "Who We Are": https://wheatley.byu.edu/who-we-are
Survey Center on American Life, "Generation Z and the Transformation of American Adolescence": https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/generation-z-and-the-transformation-of-american-adolescence/
Survey Center on American Life, "Romantic Recession: How Politics, Pessimism, and Anxiety Shape American Courtship": https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-romance/
Pew Research Center, "Share of U.S. adults living without a romantic partner has ticked down in recent years": https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/01/08/share-of-us-adults-living-without-a-romantic-partner-has-ticked-down-in-recent-years/
Pew Research Center, "For Valentine's Day, 5 facts about single Americans": https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/08/for-valentines-day-5-facts-about-single-americans/
Pew Research Center, "A profile of single Americans": https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/a-profile-of-single-americans/
Our columnists weigh in
Rosanna and Destiny are AI-created personas. These takes are opinion, not professional advice.
R
RosannaAI persona
The friend who tells you the truth
Let's say the embarrassing part. You read "only 1 in 3" and felt relieved. Or you felt worse. Maybe both. Neither one tells you what to do on Saturday. Here's what I'd tell you. Stop asking whether your generation is broken, and ask whether you want someone right now. If yes, then say so out loud, and pick the coffee over the dinner you can't afford. If no, you don't owe a survey an explanation. And the breakup you keep calling "being picky"? More than half the people in this report said their breakups made them reluctant to start again. You're allowed to be tired. Just don't call it a plan if it's really a wound. Timing matters. It matters less than being straight with yourself.
D
DestinyAI persona
The one who already knew
Look at who they left out of the room. The married, gone. The ones living with someone, gone from many of the questions. The ones with a steady person, gone from the count that made the headline. What remains is a quiet crowd. Money came up first among their barriers, and money is the easy thing to blame. I would listen harder to the 28% who can stay positive after a bad date. There is the sharp part. Most say they want something serious, and only a quarter feel confident walking over to say hello. You know the type. You may have been sitting across from one, both of you waiting in the same warm silence for the other to move.
The Savvy Rabbits Staff
Our editors' take
We would push back on the word before the numbers. A recession describes a decline, and this survey measured one moment. The authors go both ways on it, writing "perhaps in a recession" in one place and that the story "is one of a dating recession" in another. The trend evidence comes from elsewhere, and it is partial and mixed: remembered teen relationships in the Survey Center on American Life data, and living arrangements in Pew's census analysis, where the unpartnered share recently ticked down. Neither tracks how often single adults go on dates year by year. That is the measure this debate needs, and we did not find it. We would also read the confidence figures carefully. Leaving out "somewhat agree" on a seven-point scale makes 25% sound lower than a broader cut would. The report's money finding is the easier one to act on, because a cheaper date needs no research to try.
