Wendy Manning
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wendymanning.bsky.social
Wendy Manning
@wendymanning.bsky.social
470 followers 270 following 26 posts
I am a family demographer (aka population scientist) with a focus on American family and fertility patterns. Co-PI of NCHAT and co-director of NCFMR.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Wendy Manning
philipncohen.com
New from me: Ideal (family size) compared to what?
familyinequality.wordpress.com/2025/11/23/i...
Ideal (family size) compared to what?
It’s not just that the ideal is the wrong thing to measure for this. It’s also that total fertility rate is the wrong thing to compare it to.
familyinequality.wordpress.com
November 23, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
philipncohen.com
Follow @ncfmr-bgsu.bsky.social for timely, reliable, US demographic trends. Great they're here!
ncfmr-bgsu.bsky.social National Center for Family and Marriage Research @ncfmr-bgsu.bsky.social · Oct 20
💔 The U.S. refined divorce rate in 2024 was 14.2 per 1,000 married women, down slightly from 14.4 in 2023.
Nearly a million women divorced nationwide.
Read more → doi.org/10.25035/ncf...
October 23, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
ncfmr-bgsu.bsky.social
💔 The U.S. refined divorce rate in 2024 was 14.2 per 1,000 married women, down slightly from 14.4 in 2023.
Nearly a million women divorced nationwide.
Read more → doi.org/10.25035/ncf...
October 20, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
ncfmr-bgsu.bsky.social
⚭ Marriage in the U.S. varies widely. In 2024, the national refined marriage rate was 31.2 per 1,000 unmarried women. Utah ranked highest (51.7), Delaware lowest (20.1). 📖 Read the new @NCFMR Family Profile → doi.org/10.25035/ncf...
October 20, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
nchatstudy.bsky.social
Happy Sunday! Check out this recent NCHAT publication from @chrisajulian.bsky.social, Hannah Tessler, @wendymanning.bsky.social, Alexandra VanBergen, and @clairekampdush.bsky.social.
read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...
Half of the Picture: A Research Note on Measuring the Sexual Identity Composition of Couples | Demography | Duke University Press
read.dukeupress.edu
September 21, 2025 at 6:32 PM
wendymanning.bsky.social
Divorce rate decline continues… we have been documenting these trends alongside marriage. @ncfmr-bgsu.bsky.social www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resour...
August 9, 2025 at 1:31 PM
wendymanning.bsky.social
Check out our new paper using @nchatstudy.bsky.social dyadic data to measure sexual minority couples. The levels are twice as high when you consider the sexual identity of BOTH members of the couple. @chrisajulian.bsky.social

read.dukeupress.edu/demography/a...
Half of the Picture: A Research Note on Measuring the Sexual Identity Composition of Couples | Demography | Duke University Press
read.dukeupress.edu
August 8, 2025 at 3:44 PM
wendymanning.bsky.social
Three out of five recent newlyweds cohabited prior to marriage. www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resour... @ncfmr-bgsu.bsky.social
July 31, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
conradhackett.bsky.social
About 1 in 4 U.S. adults worry they or someone close to them could be deported
www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...
About 1 in 4 U.S. adults worry they or someone close to them could be deported
About four-in-ten immigrants (43%) say they worry a lot or some, up from 33% in March.
www.pewresearch.org
June 29, 2025 at 5:22 AM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
karenguzzo.bsky.social
Another new paper on fertility intentions! Using @nchatstudy.bsky.social data, we consider whether cohabiting & married people's short-term fertility intentions are subjective perceptions of well-being.

The answer? Yes! 1/

link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...
As fertility rates in the U.S. and elsewhere continue to fall, standard demographic theories that focus on objective micro- and macroeconomic conditions seem unable to explain these trends. New approaches, such as the Narrative of the Future framework and the “uncertainty” paradigm, have emphasized the potential for subjective perceptions to be important for fertility decision-making, net of objective characteristics. We use a unique new source of data—the National Couples’ Health and Time Study, a nationally representative sample of cohabiting and married adults interviewed between September 2020 and April 2021—to examine short-term fertility intentions and better understand if and how including a general subjective evaluation (overall life satisfaction) and domain-specific subjective evaluations (economic stress and relationship satisfaction) are related to fertility intentions. We find that most respondents did not intend to have a child in the next year, though about one in seven respondents were unsure about if/when to have a(nother) child. Net of objective characteristics, overall life satisfaction was positively associated with short-term intentions to have a child, and greater economic stress was linked to uncertainty about short-term intentions. We did not observe a link in multivariable models between relationship satisfaction and intentions. Further, models stratified by parenthood indicated that both objective characteristics and subjective perceptions were more strongly linked to first-birth intentions than higher-parity intentions. Our results add to the growing body of work suggesting that (a) subjective perceptions have modest but significant links to fertility decision-making and (b) uncertainty in decision-making is important to consider.
June 28, 2025 at 2:48 PM
wendymanning.bsky.social
4% of marriages each year are now to same-sex marriage! 10 years of love wins! www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resour...
June 26, 2025 at 10:26 AM
wendymanning.bsky.social
Support for marriage equality persists! www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/o...
Opinion | Roll Back Legal Same-Sex Marriage? Republicans Are Getting It Wrong.
www.nytimes.com
June 22, 2025 at 3:54 PM
wendymanning.bsky.social
Want to know more about same-sex couples? Check out our work. www.bgsu.edu/content/dam/...
www.bgsu.edu
June 21, 2025 at 1:03 AM
wendymanning.bsky.social
Check out profiles of marriages to same-sex couples. In 2023 there were newly 73,000 marriages to same-sex couples, representing about 4% of all marriages that year.

www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resour...
LGBTQ+ Population
Resources for Research on Same-Gender Couples and Families Family Profiles FP-25-21 Marriages to Same-sex and Different-sex Couples: 2019, 2021, & 2023 FP-25-20 Geographic
www.bgsu.edu
June 19, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
philipncohen.com
"personal economic pessimism and concerns about having a good relationship in the future are associated with greater importance of avoiding a pregnancy in the short term" (controlling for economic and relationship status, etc) @karenguzzo.bsky.social, Belykh, @wendymanning.bsky.social , & Roza
Perceptions of the Future and Pregnancy Avoidance in the U.S - Population Research and Policy Review
Despite low U.S. fertility rates since the Great Recession, two-child norms remain pervasive, suggesting individuals are unable to achieve their goals. To understand what may be driving the apparent m...
link.springer.com
June 13, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
karenguzzo.bsky.social
It's also worth noting that when women aged 40 and over have a birth, their partners are usually over 40, too. We don't often talk about delayed parenthood among men, but it's definitely happening. 3/3 www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resour...
Figure showing the distribution of paternal age of births to women who had a birth aged 40 and older.
June 4, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
aaronsojourner.org
EXTREMELY BAD NEWS for economic research, per former BLS Commissioner @ericagroshen.bsky.social on LinkedIn.

BLS is suspending access to its restricted data "for the forseeable future." Applies to projects through the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers & onsite projects with BLS.
#EconSky
June 6, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
policyhound.bsky.social
Exclusive: Confusion over new DEI language from NSF and NIH leads Williams College to be first institution to pause accepting any grants www.science.org/content/arti...
U.S. college is first to decline federal science grants because of new DEI language
Williams College says NSF and NIH requirement related to discrimination “undermines” academic freedom
www.science.org
June 6, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
karenguzzo.bsky.social
New paper alert on - you guessed it - childbearing decision-making!

@srhayford.bsky.social & I evaluate if people's perceptions of their personal lives & how things are going more broadly are associated with whether they thought it was likely they would have a(nother) child. 1/
CHAPTER 6 SUBJECTIVE EVALUATIONS OF PERSONAL AND PUBLIC WELL-BEING AND EXPECTED FUTURE CHILDBEARING Karen Benjamin Guzzo and Sarah R. Hayford ABSTRACT Since the Great Recession, birth rates have fallen steadily in the United States and other high-income countries, even as macroeconomic conditions improved and have since remained largely positive. To understand this surprising juxta- position, scholars are increasingly turning to subjective measures of current and future conditions, hypothesizing that worries about potential negative futures may lead to lower birth rates even when economic conditions are good. Building on this literature, we use survey data from the American Trends Panel (ATP; n = 3,696) to assess how respondents’ satisfaction with their own lives, their understanding of challenges facing young people, their beliefs about problems in their community, and their predictions of future COVID-19 impacts are associated with their expectations for having children. Results show that people who are more dissatisfied with their own lives are less likely to expect a child, controlling for other perceptions as well as objective sociodemographic char- acteristics. Further analyses reveal that this association is largely restricted to childless women.
May 27, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
us.theconversation.com
Our trans health study was terminated by the government – the effects of abrupt NIH grant cuts ripple across science and society buff.ly/eFZCL4H
Our trans health study was terminated by the government – the effects of abrupt NIH grant cuts ripple across science and society
The losses include millions of dollars the NIH has already spent on research that will no longer generate results, and the next generation of scientists whose work has been cut short.
theconversation.com
June 2, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
tiffanylgreen.bsky.social
Are you a grad student or postdoc stressing out about job talks? Join me on 6/26/25 at 2 PM CST for a free class. You'll learn how to:
✔️ Avoid the “Big 3” job talk killers
✔️ Use storytelling breath life into your research
✔️ Handle Q&A like a boss

Register here and please share: lnkd.in/g5f3YwtX
“Job talk got you stressed? I can help. Free Masterclass: Making Academic Job Talks Fun | June 26, 2025, 2 PM CST | 60 minutes of strategy, support, & clarity. Register now!" Zoom registration link: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/3c9_zpsFSsSy6mfv0fmmAQ
May 30, 2025 at 8:28 PM
wendymanning.bsky.social
Let’s focus on the empirical evidence provided by demographic research & population science. www.npr.org/2025/04/25/n...
They say they want Americans to have more babies. What's beneath the surface?
Pronatalists believe that modern culture has failed to adequately prioritize the value of nuclear families and making lots of babies. They see powerful potential allies in Elon Musk and JD Vance.
www.npr.org
April 26, 2025 at 9:51 PM
wendymanning.bsky.social
Folks should appeal! Some universities don’t have resources or are not interested but it is important to appeal.
davidimiller.bsky.social Dr. David Miller 🏳️‍🌈 @davidimiller.bsky.social · Apr 26
🧪 UPDATE: NSF just opened itself even further to lawsuit.

Yesterday, it doubled down on the false claim that its 1,000+ grant terminations are "not subject to appeal."

See question 16 here, published Friday afternoon: www.nsf.gov/updates-on-p...

A brief thread... 🧵
davidimiller.bsky.social Dr. David Miller 🏳️‍🌈 @davidimiller.bsky.social · Apr 20
🧪 Tip: You have the right to contest a grant termination, even though NSF says you don't. 🧵

On Friday, NSF terminated 402 grants (per Musk's DOGE).

The notification letters had one of the most egregious violations of fed regulations I've seen so far in these cases:

"not subject to appeal"
April 26, 2025 at 9:37 PM
wendymanning.bsky.social
Great to see demographic expertise used in coverage of fertility. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/h...
Birthrates Languish in Record Lows, C.D.C. Reports
Despite a 1 percent increase in 2024, U.S. birthrates remained in a historic slump, a trend that worries demographers and cultural critics.
www.nytimes.com
April 24, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Reposted by Wendy Manning
nchatstudy.bsky.social
One last NCHAT poster presentation today at 10:30am in the Ballrooms! Go check out the poster by
@chrisajulian.bsky.social @wendymanning.bsky.social, Alex VanBergen, and
@clairekampdush.bsky.social on Collecting Dyadic Data on LGBTQ+ Partnerships!
April 13, 2025 at 11:07 AM