Married families with children are leaving blue states for red ones in large numbers, reshaping where families live and where population growth takes hold.
From 2019 to 2024, about 840,000 married families with children moved from blue states to red states, compared to 470,000 who moved the other way, a net gain of roughly 370,000 such families for red states. Over that same stretch, red states gained about 600,000 children, while blue states lost roughly the same number through lower birth rates and outmigration.
South Carolina has climbed from 45th to 28th in a national measure of family stability over the past decade, and Florida and Mississippi have also moved up, while New York, Illinois, and Hawaii have moved in the opposite direction, losing residents and seeing the share of prime-age adults who are married fall.
The report tracks those shifts through the Family Structure Index, which measures marriage rates, the share of children living with married parents, and fertility across states, and finds that domestic migrants skew married compared to the populations they leave behind, with many heading toward states with lower costs of living and fewer barriers to homeownership.
States in the Rocky Mountain and Great Plains regions dominate the top of the rankings, including Utah, Idaho, Nebraska, and South Dakota, where larger shares of adults are married, and more children live in married-parent households. At the bottom, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Louisiana post lower shares across those same measures.
“Families are increasingly seeking out social and political settings that allow them to thrive.”
In many blue states, housing costs have surged far beyond incomes, as zoning limits, tight supply, and regulatory costs restrict new construction and drive prices higher.
“One big reason that Red States tend to do better on the Family Structure Index is that they often offer more affordable homes to ordinary American families.”
Homeownership has dropped back over time. Among prime-age adults, the share who own their homes has fallen from 67% in 1980 to 48% in 2025, and married adults still account for the majority of homeowners. Those gaps are widest in higher-tax, higher-cost states, where entering homeownership has become more difficult for younger families.
The national picture has shifted as well. The Family Structure Index has fallen from 100 in 2000 to 87.3 in 2024 as marriage rates and fertility decline.
Blue states are not just losing residents. They are losing families, children, and future growth, as rising costs, heavier tax burdens, and tighter housing markets push households toward states where building a life costs less and starting a family is still within reach for more Americans.
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