Young Adults Want Serious Dating. Most Are Barely Dating at All.
A nationally representative IFS and Wheatley survey finds only about one in three unmarried 22-to-35-year-olds date monthly or more. Most still want serious relationships. Money and confidence, not commitment phobia, are the brakes.
The loudest story about Gen Z and millennial romance is that nobody wants commitment. A February 2026 national survey says something sharper: many still want serious dating. They are just not doing much of it.
In State of Our Unions 2026: The Dating Recession, researchers at the Institute for Family Studies and Brigham Young University's Wheatley Institute analyzed the 2025 National Dating Landscape Survey, a nationally representative sample of 5,275 unmarried U.S. adults ages 22 to 35. Most of the report focuses on the 86% who say they expect to marry someday. Lead authors Alan J. Hawkins, Brian J. Willoughby, Jason S. Carroll, and W. Bradford Wilcox call the pattern a dating recession: prime dating years, thin calendars.
Only 31% reported dating once a month or more (26% of women, 36% of men). That means about three quarters of women (74%) and nearly two thirds of men (64%) had not dated, or had dated only a few times, in the prior year. Just 51% even expressed interest in starting a relationship. Desire for marriage is common. Practice dates are scarce.
What they actually want
Most respondents endorsed a dating culture aimed at serious relationships and emotional connection, not casual hookups as the main goal. Social motives like fitting in ranked far lower. Confidence is the soft spot: only about one in three expressed much faith in their dating skills, and fewer than four in ten trusted their judgment choosing a partner.
Family arguments often confuse low dating volume with low interest in commitment. IFS and Wheatley's nationally representative survey separates the two: most unmarried young adults who expect to marry still want serious connection; money, confidence, and thin practice are the brakes.
Money and nerves beat fear of commitment
The top barrier was not having enough money (52%, including 58% of men and 46% of women). Lack of confidence (49%) and bad past dating experiences (48%) followed close behind. Relatively few named fear of long-term commitment, or worry that dating would wreck school or career, as the main brake. Breakup hangover matters too. Nearly half (45%) said prior breakups made them more reluctant to start again. About half reported more negative feelings about relationships in general after those endings. The authors call this a marital-expectations versus dating-skills gap: people want the destination and feel underprepared for the commute. That rhyme lands hard for diaspora readers who already hear "why are you still single?" over dinner while rent, remittances, and visa timing quietly shrink the weekend. Relatives often diagnose character. This survey diagnoses logistics and practice.
Apps are not the villain. Ambiguity still is.
Hinge's own Gen Z D.A.T.E. report, based on roughly 30,000 in-app daters worldwide, finds 84% of Gen Z Hinge users want deeper ways to connect, even while Gen Z daters report more hesitation than millennials to start deep conversation on a first date. Treat that as a brand research window into people already on an app, not a census of all singles. Still, it matches the IFS story: intention without ease. If your week looks like scrolling more than meeting, you are not uniquely broken. You may be living inside a dating recession. The useful move is not another lecture about settling. It is one low-stakes practice date, a clearer ask ("Are we exclusive?"), and a money plan that does not require a tasting-menu first meeting every time.
What to do this month
Borrow the report's cheaper-date instinct. Coffee, a walk, a museum free night, or a City Life date-night listing in your metro beats waiting until you can afford a performance of romance. Our Seattle, Bay Area, New York, and Los Angeles planners exist for exactly that: verified spots and events so "we should hang" turns into a calendar hold. Then pair the outing with one sentence for family pressure: "National survey data shows most unmarried young adults who want marriage are not dating much; money and confidence are the top barriers." You can want a serious partner and still refuse to treat a thin dating year as proof you reject family. If the real problem is a situationship that will not name itself, keep that for our next brief. This one is about empty calendars, not undefined ones.
Keep reading: Dating When Parents Keep Asking When You Will Marry, When They Won't Introduce You to Their Family, Hiding Your Relationship From Family (And When Secrecy Stops Working), and Premarital Money Talk: Debts, Remittances, and the Spreadsheet You Keep Postponing.
City Life date-night planners · Situationships feel close; trust says otherwise · Young adults still want kids; money is the brake · Early dating and marriage pressure hub