Young men are reporting a sharp rise in religiosity. Young people are now the only age group in which men place greater importance on religion than women.

—Gallup

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Over the last two decades, American religiosity has steadily declined. (See “Is America Losing Its Religion?”) Church attendance has fallen, affiliation has weakened, and a growing share identify as religious “nones.” But one group is now reversing that trend: young men.

According to a new Gallup survey, in 2025, 42% of men ages 18-29 said that religion was “very important” in their lives. That’s a +14 percentage point increase since 2023, when only 28% said the same thing. Young men’s religiosity is nearly back to its 2001 level of 43%.

This surge in religion among young men stands in sharp contrast to young women. Just 29% of women ages 18–29 say religion is “very important” in their lives, a -3 percentage point decline since 2023. That leaves a striking 13-point gap between genders. In fact, young adults are now the only age group in which men report higher religious importance than women. This is a clear break from the historical norm, where women at every age have consistently expressed more interest in religion than men.

On the ground, churches are reporting a similar shift. Catholic and Orthodox congregations in particular say they are seeing an influx of men in their 20s. Anecdotally, new converts often point to a desire for community, a search for meaning beyond an increasingly digital world, and inspiration from figures like Charlie Kirk.

As the example of Kirk may suggest, many of these longings—for community, direction, inspiration—come together for young men in Christian Nationalism. A sizable share of young men has shifted toward the Republican Party in recent years, and insistence on religiosity, usually Christianity, is often tied to a conservative identity. (Just as insistence on no religiosity is tied to a progressive identity; see “More on the Widening Youth Gender Divide.”) In that sense, saying religion is “very important” or “unimportant” may function less as a reflection of your institutional religious ties and more as a signal of your tribal identity, red zone or blue zone.

The data from Gallup appears consistent with that interpretation. While the share of young men who say religion is “very important” has risen by +14 percentage points, the share attending church at least once a month has increased by just +7 points, to 40%. In other words, the rise in stated belief is outpacing the rise in behavior.

It also turns out that both young men and young women are attending church somewhat more today (2024-25) than they were a few years ago (2020-21)—again, about +7% more—though attendance by all older age groups has declined. While this is mostly among young Republicans, it can also be seen among young Democrats. So there is something of a “church revival” among young people across the board. The difference, for young conservative men, is that even those who don’t go to church embrace the identity shift. It’s a big deal. It’s “very important in my life.”

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News:

• A new report from FMI found that more than 75% of US adults now view meat and poultry as part of a healthy diet. That’s up from 64% in 2020, an +11 percentage point increase.

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According to the CDC’s preliminary 2025 birth data, US fertility continues to decline. Births are rising among older women, but falling faster among the young.

—CDC

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The US total fertility rate (TFR) fell from 1.599 in 2024 to 1.574 in 2025. That’s a -1.6% decline and, once again, the lowest reading on record. If you exclude the 2021 blip, the TFR has fallen for the last ten years.

Let’s break it down by age. The teen birth rate fell -7.1%, hitting a record low of 11.7 births per 1,000 women. Birth rates among women in their 20s also declined. But for those 30 and older, rates ticked slightly higher.

This trend towards older moms has steadily accelerated over the last 30 years. But these gains are not large enough to offset declines among younger women. For an offset to be effective, we would have to see a significant rise in the birth rate of 30-to 34-year-olds. But we aren’t seeing that. The birth rate for this group is the same in 2025 as it was in 2004. Over age 35, the absolute numbers are simply too small to matter.

We are currently preparing for our 2026 US Demography Review. And we will provide a more in-depth look at the state of US fertility. Here is a sneak peek: Don’t expect a birth rebound any time soon.

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News:

• According to Bloomberg, the US military is committing nearly its entire stockpile of JASSM-ER cruise missiles to the war with Iran. The stealth weapons are being pulled from bases across the US and Pacific. Of the roughly 2,300 prewar stockpile, just 425 will remain available for use outside the Iran conflict.

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Time spent online is closely tied to how Americans see politics. The heaviest users consistently express the most hardline views.

—The Kettering Foundation

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According to a joint survey by the Kettering Foundation and Gallup, heavy social media use is associated with a darker and more extreme political outlook.

The divide is most visible in views on democracy. Among adults who spend an hour or less per day on social media, 73% say democracy is the best form of government. But among those who scroll for five or more hours, only 57% say the same. That’s a whopping 16 percentage point difference.

Heavy social media usage is also linked to greater tribalism. Just 21% of light users say they find it hard to get along with people who don’t share their beliefs, compared with 29% of heavy users. That’s an 8-point gap.

Most striking is the split in attitudes toward political violence. Only 9% of light users say it is sometimes acceptable to use violence to achieve political goals, versus 22% of heavy users. That’s a 13-point difference.

What explains these results? In part, it’s generational membership. Time spent on social media is a proxy forage. While this survey doesn’t provide crosstabs, we can assume heavy social media users skew young, while light users skew older. And these same divides show up consistently in age-based surveys.

In 2024, we highlighted a poll that found 42% of Americans ages 18–29 agreed that the country may need to resort to violence to get back on track, compared with just 11% of those 60+. (See “A Bleeding Ear, a Fist Pump, an Exit Post... and the Triumph of Populism.”) And a 2025 survey by the Manhattan Institute found that young people across both parties are more likely to endorse conspiracy theories, acknowledge racist views, and express negative attitudes toward minority religions.

Nevertheless, it’s easy to see how heavy social media use could reinforce more extreme views across all age groups. A small, highly vocal minority drives most online political content, and users tend to follow people they already agree with. The more time spent in that echo chamber, the more those views can harden. (See “Who’s Writing All Those Tweets?”)

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News:

• Since October 8, 2025, Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF ($ARKK) has declined by over -25%.

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The world is getting happier, but not the English-speaking world. While global life satisfaction has improved, the Anglosphere is falling behind due to rising pessimism among younger generations.

—Gallup

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Gallup has just released its 2026 World Happiness Report. The global survey asks over 1K respondents from each country to rank their lives, where zero equals the worst possible life, and ten equals the best. These scores are averaged over the last three years.

For the second consecutive year, no English-speaking country ranked among the world’s 10 happiest nations. New Zealand placed 11th, Australia 15th, the US 23rd, Canada 25th, and the UK 29th. The US now sits between Saudi Arabia (22nd) and Poland (24th). The top rankings continue to be dominated by Nordic countries, with Finland once again claiming the No. 1 spot.

Since 2012, the global average happiness score has increased by +4.33 percentage points. In contrast, the Anglosphere has moved in the opposite direction, with an average decline of −5.08 points: the UK (−2.8), New Zealand (−3.1), the US (−3.8), Australia (−5.9), and Canada (−9.8).

This decline in Anglosphere life satisfaction is concentrated among younger generations. Among those under 25, the six largest declines in happiness since 2011 have all occurred in English-speaking countries.

We’ve written extensively about the worsening mental health of young Americans. But this isn’t just a US story. Other surveys show that young people across the Anglosphere are reporting lower life satisfaction and growing distrust in institutions. And ultimately, this shift is fueling the rise of populist movements across these nations. (See “Generation Hopeless: The Despair of Young Americans” and “Global Millennials: Down on Democracy and Drawn to Populism.”)

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News:

• Since March 2, QatarEnergy has indefinitely halted helium and LNG production at Ras Laffan Industrial City. Even after the war, Qatar said annual helium exports will be reduced by -14% over the next 3-5 years until facilities are repaired.

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From crypto to prediction markets, young Americans are embracing higher-risk bets. Behind the shift is a growing belief that the old playbook no longer works.

—Northwestern Mutual

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According to a new survey by Northwestern Mutual, young adults are far more likely to dabble in speculative assets than older generations. For example, 35% of Millennials and 32% of Homelanders are invested in crypto or plan to do so in 2026, compared with 24% of all adults. That’s a gap of +11 and +8 percentage points, respectively.

The gap is even larger in sports betting and prediction markets. Some 32% of Homelanders participate, compared with 17% of all US adults. That’s a difference of +15 percentage points. And that gap may be widening.

Prediction markets are dominated by young men, but companies are working to broaden their appeal. To attract young women, platforms are increasingly offering bets tied to pop culture, from music charts to reality TV outcomes. The strategy appears to be working. Over the past 10 months, Kalshi has doubled its share of female users from 13% to 26%.

At first glance, these results may seem surprising. Millennials and Homelanders are known for their risk aversion. So why are they investing in high-risk assets? They do not view these bets as random lottery tickets. Instead, armed with data, algorithms, and their own intuition, many believe they can beat the system. (See “Sports Betting on the Rise.”)

That confidence may fade with experience. Early signs are already visible in sports gambling. While young men are the most likely to place bets, they have also recorded the largest increase in concern about its effect on society and on their own emotional health. This likely reflects their more direct exposure to the downsides. (See “The Sports Betting Backlash Has Begun.”)

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News:

• In 2025, Philip Morris International (PM) shipped 794 million cans of Zyn nicotine pouches in the United States. That’s a whopping +37% YoY increase.

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• Nicotine pouches have surged in popularity as consumers look for alternatives to traditional smoking. These smokeless, tobacco-free products deliver nicotine discreetly through …

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Dear readers,

On Friday, I joined my colleagues R. Patrick Kent, Sam Rahman, and David Salem as a panelist on the latest episode of Protect the Pile.

We explain why the escalating U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict and closure of the Strait of Hormuz could mark a major turning point for markets. We also examine the oil shock, rising stagflation risk, and broader policy fallout, arguing that investors need to get more defensive as geopolitical risk collides with elevated asset prices.

I hope you find the conversation useful.

Stay curious,
Neil Howe

Movie theater revenue and attendance remain stuck below pre-pandemic levels. In the streaming era, audiences increasingly prefer the couch to the cinema.

—Pew Research Center

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The 2026 Academy Awards are Sunday night. But behind Hollywood’s biggest celebration lies an uncomfortable reality: The movie theater business is in steep decline.

Nearly six years after the pandemic, theaters remain a shadow of their former selves. In 2025, the domestic box office totaled just $8.6 billion, down -3% from 2023 and -24% from 2019.

The drop in ticket sales is even more dramatic. In 2025, just 769 million movie tickets were sold across the US and Canada, down -6% from 2023 and -37% from 2019. The longer-term fall is even starker. Ticket sales are now -51% below their 2002 peak, when blockbuster franchises like Harry Potter, Spider-Man, The Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars dominated the big screen.

In AMC’s 4Q earnings call, the movie theater chain reported that global attendance fell -10% from the same period the year prior. The company also said it plans to continue closing more theaters. AMC, down -62% YoY, is now trading at barely $1.00 per share. If it doesn’t rediscover its meme stock mojo, the shadow of bankruptcy looms.

Hollywood is also spending far less on film production. According to FilmLA, filming permits in Los Angeles County totaled just 19.7K in 2025, down -49% from 2018 and roughly on par with 2020, when the world shut down due COVID-19. Part of the decline reflects productions moving out of California to cheaper locations. But it also reflects a broader shift in media spending, as studios redirect more of their budgets toward live programming, especially sports.

So why aren’t people going to the movies? The primary reason is streaming. The average American household now subscribes to four streaming services, spending about $69 per month. For many consumers, it makes more sense to wait for a new release to appear on Netflix or HBO, platforms they already pay for. With movie tickets now costing $13–$18 each, a single trip to the theater can easily cost more than an entire month of streaming. Indeed, the traditional ritual of the 200-minute, in-and-out theater experience may not survive the impact of the 10-hour, multi-episode streaming binge.

For Hollywood, the problem is simple: Consumers still love movies, but increasingly prefer watching them at home.

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Americans are more likely than people in other countries to say their society is immoral. They also express some of the strongest moral judgments about their own people’s behavior.

—Pew Research Center

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According to a new Pew survey spanning 25 countries, Americans are the most critical of their fellow citizens. Fully 53% of US adults say the morality and ethics of Americans are “somewhat or very bad.” That’s +25 percentage points above the cross-country median (28%). What’s more, the US is the only country where a majority believes their fellow countrymen are more bad than good.

This is the first year Pew has asked this question, so there’s no historical data to show whether Americans are becoming more judgmental over time. But other data suggest partisan views of morality have hardened in recent years.

Between 2016 and 2022, the share of Republicans who say Democrats are immoral rose +25 points, to 72%. And the share of Democrats who say Republicans are immoral climbed +28 points, to 63%. Similar increases occurred in how each party demonizes the other: closed-minded, dishonest, unintelligent, and lazy.

At the same time, Americans appear to have stricter standards of morality than most of the countries surveyed. Pew asked respondents whether nine behaviors were morally acceptable or unacceptable. In many cases, Americans were more likely than others to condemn them.

For example, 90% of Americans say extramarital affairs are morally wrong, +13 percentage points above the cross-country median (77%). 39% say homosexuality is immoral, +11 points above the median (28%). And 23% say getting a divorce is unacceptable, also +11 points above the median (12%).

However, in two areas, Americans were among the most permissive in the world. Only 23% say using marijuana is morally wrong, -29 percentage points below the cross-country median (52%). And just 29% say gambling is immoral, -20 points below the median (49%). That said, other surveys suggest American attitudes toward sports betting are becoming more negative as legalization spreads. (See “The Sports Betting Backlash Has Begun.”)

Because this is the first time Pew has fielded these questions, we cannot yet tell from this survey how Americans have changed over the last decade. But we do know that cultural attitudes have shifted in a more conservative direction over the last several years. (See “Social Conservatism Has Risen Since the Pandemic” and “LGBT Identification Rises, But Public Support Declines.”) Since it’s plausible that conservatives use a higher bar of acceptability in responding to these nine questions, then it probably is true that the recent trend is toward more judgmentalism.

The current Fourth Turning has brought a renewed interest in asserting—and perhaps even enforcing—boundaries of acceptable behavior.

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In South Korea, births have now risen for a second straight year. Although the country still has the lowest fertility rate in the world, the recent uptick suggests behavior may be shifting.

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