The Sex Recession: The Share of Americans Having Regular Sex Keeps Dropping

Summary

Between trade wars and armed conflicts across the world, there is talk of an impending economic downturn. And while we at the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) are not equipped to forecast an economic recession, we can document a recession that already has America in its grips: the sex recession. Americans are having a record low amount of sex. We find that in 1990, 55% of adults ages 18–64 reported having sex weekly, according to the General Social Survey (GSS). But around the turn of the millennium, that number began to dip: by 2010, less than half reported having sex weekly, and by 2024, of the more than 1,000 men and women queried on this topic by the GSS, that number had fallen to just 37 percent. The sex recession has been documented previously, especially here at IFS. In 2016, Jean Twenge found that the decline is largely a cohort effect — younger generations are having less sex than their predecessors did. The causes? A decline in steady partnering, especially in marriage, and a decline in sexual frequency within couples. Twenge’s findings largely hold true today. Between 2014 and 2024, the share of young adults, ages 18–29, who reported living with a partner, both married and unmarried, fell 10 percentage points, from 42% to 32%, according to the GSS. Because partnered adults have the most consistent sex, and more young men and women are flying solo, the share of young adults who are having regular sex keeps falling. When it comes to sexlessness (“no sex in the last year”) among young adults, the biggest change comes post-2010. Prior and up to 2010, the share of young adults, ages 18-29, who reported not having sex held steady around 15 percent. But from 2010 to 2024, the share doubled, from 12% to 24% in the GSS. This “hockey-stick” shape resembles the pattern identified by Jonathon Haidt in The Anxious Generation. In his book, Haidt calls the period of 2010 to 2015 the “Great Rewiring.” Adolescents going through puberty over this period were subject to a...