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A Data For Progress survey replicated for writer Derek Thompson shows the share of Americans hosting friends or family at home at least monthly fell from 42% in 1975 to 12% in 2026. The decline spans nearly every form of in-person socializing and matches Robert Putnam’s ‘Bowling Alone’ warning.
The share of Americans who say they host friends or family at home at least once a month has fallen from 42 percent in 1975 to 12 percent in 2026, according to new polling by Data For Progress that replicated the mid-century DDB Needham Life Style surveys. The findings, shared exclusively with writer Derek Thompson, confirm and extend the social decline Robert Putnam warned about in his 2000 book Bowling Alone — with hosting falling even faster than church attendance did over the same period.
The Data For Progress survey was designed to give an apples-to-apples comparison with the DDB Needham Life Style survey data cited by Putnam. Since 1995 alone, the share of Americans who say they have hosted guests or attended a dinner party has declined by roughly 20 percent — a drop layered on top of the declines Putnam documented. Between 1975 and 1998, according to the DDB Needham data, the share of Americans giving or attending a monthly dinner party fell by half, while the share saying they never entertain at home tripled.
The retreat from home entertaining is part of a broader pattern. In the last 30 years, Thompson reports, Americans have registered double-digit declines in practically every surveyed measure of socializing: playing cards, attending sporting events, going to bars, volunteering, and working on community projects. Overall face-to-face socializing has declined, and time spent at home has risen sharply since the 2010s.
Thompson argues that the most common counter-explanations do not fit the data. Socializing has not simply migrated to restaurants and bars — the restaurant industry has instead noted a sharp rise in eating alone. And while Americans exercise, travel, and attend concerts more than in 1975, he points to evidence suggesting much of the exercise boom is solo activity, such as gym sessions accompanied by podcasts rather than friends.
The Loneliness Data Behind the Headlines
The numbers give quantitative backing to a widely discussed concern about American loneliness and social disconnection. Putnam wrote in 2000 that if the trends he documented continued, the ancient practice of visiting with friends “might entirely disappear from American life in less than a generation.” Thompson argues the new data effectively confirms that prediction needed updating rather than rebuttal: one generation later, home hosting among Americans has reached a fraction of its mid-century level.
The scale of the decline also matters for how policymakers and commentators weigh competing explanations for loneliness. Thompson notes that cultural critics often focus on the decline of organized religion, but the DDB Needham data show the dip in church attendance was modest compared to the collapse in hosting — suggesting home-based social life may be an underexamined part of the story.
From Martini Evenings to Empty Living Rooms
Mid-century American culture placed middle-class living rooms at the center of social life, a setting reflected in period fiction such as John Updike’s Couples, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road. Thompson notes that while the dramas were fictional, the setting was realistic: until 1975, half of Americans said they entertained guests at home every month.
The inflection point coincided with major social shifts. Around 1970, the share of women aged 25 to 54 in the labor force surged past 50 percent for the first time; it is now near 80 percent. Putnam had observed that women historically served as the keepers of the family social calendar, and Thompson argues that as women moved into paid work, men did not take over the logistical labor of planning gatherings, and adult socializing eroded.
Thompson also cites the Swedish economist Staffan Burenstam Linder, whose 1970 book The Harried Leisure Class argued that as societies grow richer, leisure takes on a frantic, work-like quality — making a Netflix show that can be half-ignored while answering email more appealing than the multi-hour coordination a dinner party requires.
“As a society gets richer, leisure time takes on the frantic quality of work.”
— Staffan Burenstam Linder, The Harried Leisure Class (1970)
Where the Explanations Fall Short
Thompson frames his explanations — harried leisure, women’s entry into the workforce without men picking up social planning, and the pull of at-home entertainment — as plausible readings of the data rather than settled findings. He describes them as “fourish explanations”, signaling that the causes are not definitively established.
It also remains unclear from the reported findings whether the 12 percent hosting figure varies significantly by age, region, income, or household type, and how much of the shift reflects changed survey behavior or definitions of “hosting” rather than changed behavior. The Data For Progress results as reported do not isolate the pandemic era’s effect, nor do they establish whether solo activities like gym-going partially substitute for, rather than merely coexist with, lost social time.
What’s Next
Thompson’s report is the first publication of the Data For Progress replication, and fuller survey results — including demographic breakdowns — may follow. Researchers and commentators are likely to test his proposed explanations against the new dataset, particularly the claim that solo leisure is displacing hosted socializing rather than complementing it. The findings also feed into ongoing policy and public-health debates about loneliness and social connection, where home hosting could emerge as a measurable indicator alongside church attendance and club membership.
Key Questions
How much has home hosting declined in America?
According to Data For Progress polling shared with Derek Thompson, the share of Americans who host friends or family at home at least monthly fell from 42 percent in 1975 to 12 percent in 2026 — a roughly 70 percent decline over half a century.
Did Americans just move socializing to restaurants and bars?
The data suggest no. Thompson cites Robert Putnam’s finding that entertaining has “not simply moved outside the home, but seems to be vanishing entirely”, and notes the restaurant industry has reported a sharp increase in people eating alone.
Why did home entertaining decline?
Thompson points to several factors: leisure time feeling more frantic and work-like in richer societies; women’s mass entry into the workforce without men taking over social planning; and the rise of low-effort, at-home entertainment. He presents these as explanations, not proven causes.
How does this compare with the decline in church attendance?
According to the DDB Needham Life Style survey data, the dip in church attendance was modest compared to the collapse in hosting, suggesting home-based social life has weakened far more than organized religion.
Exercise time has increased since 1975, but Thompson cites evidence that the boom is mostly solo — gym sessions with podcasts, or yoga at home — and notes that overall time spent at home has risen sharply since the 2010s.
Source: hn
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