Despite changes in marriage’s role in young adulthood, youth in the United States report similar or higher expectations to marry than those from decades before, and very few report explicit expectations to not marry. Marital expectations may be one way to understand if the U.S. is indeed experiencing a second demographic transition, and uncertainty in those answers may provide additional information beyond simply yes and no. Using public-use data from 1976 to 2017 from the 12th Grade Monitoring the Future annual cross-sectional surveys, I found that young men and women were more likely to report uncertainty than explicitly expect not to marry, and that boys were generally more uncertain than girls. Slight changes in past decades suggest that boys are becoming more certain regarding marriage, however, and gender differences have diminished over time. Additionally, between 2008 and 2017, I found that boys with the greatest educational prospects were the least likely to report uncertainty about marriage. Uncertainty is common in adolescent marital expectations and should be considered as a possibly informative answer to questions about hypothetical marriages. Results suggest that marriage continues to hold strong meaning in adolescents’ ideals.

尽管婚姻在青年期的作用发生了变化，但美国的年轻人报告说，与几十年前相比，他们对结婚的期望相似或更高，而且很少有人明确表示不结婚。婚姻期望可能是了解美国是否确实正在经历第二次人口转变的一种方式，而这些答案的不确定性可能会提供超出简单是和否的额外信息。使用 1976 年至 2017 年 12 年级监测未来年度横断面调查的公共使用数据，我发现年轻男性和女性更有可能报告不确定性，而不是明确预期不结婚，而男孩通常比女孩们。过去几十年的微小变化表明，男孩对婚姻的态度越来越坚定，然而，性别差异随着时间的推移而减少。此外，在 2008 年至 2017 年间，我发现教育前景最好的男孩最不可能报告婚姻的不确定性。不确定性在青少年婚姻期望中很常见，应被视为对假设婚姻问题的可能提供信息的答案。结果表明，婚姻在青少年的理想中仍然具有很强的意义。