Generation Uncoupled

Young men and women are growing apart. Dating, long-term partnership, and marriage are in decline, and a widening gender divide has left a generation less sure of what they want — or what's expected of them.

In Generation Uncoupled, Daniel Cox traces how an immersive digital culture, polarized politics, and over-structured childhoods have bred fear, resentment, and insecurity — and how rising social disconnection has only made things worse.

With rigor, compassion, and a refusal to take sides, this is not a book about blame. It's a call for a cultural reset: a clear-eyed account of how we got here, and what it would take to rebuild trust — between men and women, between left and right, and across generations.

Daniel Cox is the director and founder of the Survey Center on American Life and a senior fellow in polling and public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute. He holds a PhD from Georgetown University.

His research on the gender divide, dating, and social connection has been cited extensively in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. He writes the Substack newsletter American Storylines.