Building Family: How American Family Life Is Changing and Why Family Meals Matter

Building Family White Paper Cover

With a focus on Gen Z, the new FMI Foundation white paper shows how eating together builds family.

American family life has changed in the last 50 years. Family households – people related by birth, marriage or adoption – fell from 79% of all households in 1974 to 64% in 2024. However, these numbers only show who lives together, not who functions as family, or how.

The FMI Foundation’s Building Family: How American Family Life Is Changing and Why Family Meals Matter white paper examines how family life in the United States is evolving and why eating together still matters. The research focuses on Gen Z, the generation born between 1997 and 2012. Drawing on demographic research, FMI shopper data, peer-reviewed studies and original ethnography, the white paper finds that young adults define family by actions: showing up, cooking for one another and gathering at the table, even when that table is a couch.

Download the White Paper

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Infographics

These infographics were developed to support the research featured in the Building Families white paper. Click on an image to enlarge it and share!