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Single family households are actually declining now.  I'm not sure why they would make a change now for that... But perhaps it was overdue.  

BSA can follow a pretty wide lane and be “in line” as far as WOSM is concerned. The largest or fastest-growing WOSM programs have been sex-segregated. In many of these countries the Guides and Scouts collaborate nicely. So, to really fall in line, BSA and GS/USA would “play nice” together, and that ain’t happening. I think we in the U.S. are faced with an influx of citizens like no other country, and many parents from Europe and South America may envision scouting as co-ed because that’s all they’ve known since childhood. On the other hand parents from India, Indonesia, and Gulf states only know segregated models. For some, but not all, national scout organizations, that’s shifting. (It was nice to see young women singing and dancing while visiting with the Saudi tent in August.) I think single moms are a serious consideration, but many single moms that I’ve met are looking for unisex programs for their boys where they believe male role models to be instrumental in a young man’s development. So those moms will value sex-segregated programs over co-ed. So, any mom rhetoric is just corporate double-speak. The ground truth, I believe, is that the organization has collapsed to the point that it is unreasonable for it to produce an all-boy and all-girl unit in every small community; therefore, it is positioning itself to allow each unit to be more flexible in its configuration in hope that doing so may make up for six decades of losses three decades from now.

In our Troop there was a big change pre and post Covid. We have had a few den chiefs and traditionally Cub scouts participated in a hike, meeting and our winter Klondike.   We held a pretty elaborate crossover ceremony as well.  That died since Covid.  The packs had substantial losses, we had no Scouts interested in being den chiefs, the pack leaders and parents were no longer interested in hiking or camping with the Troop (at least vs the numbers we had 2019 and prior).  1 of our feeder packs collapsed once the Catholic Church stopped their recharter and the adults no longer cared to continue.  The other pack dropped down to 8 kids and the leaders there were no longer interested in continuing so they disbanded this spring. We are left with the one large pack, who does extremely well as a pack but their leaders and parents show no interest in Scouts.  We have met, had personal invites to hiking, camping, etc. and no one attended.  I do think Den Chiefs would help and hopefully the Packs new Cubmaster is more engaging.  The change since 2019 has been dramatic. I'm not sure about other Troops in my area.  But all of them are struggling with low membership at this time.

I'm continuously surprised that my Scouting experience is so different from others, or at least is appears that way. When growing up 35 years ago and in our Troop today, we put a special emphasis on Den Chiefs to engage with a Den in a Pack.  Its a near-certain way to recruit a whole Den of new Scouts. The Troop also puts a premium on engagement with Packs.  The Troop staffs the Cuboree.  The Troop staffs the Webelos Woods/Trail to Troop.  The Troop hosts an October open house directed to AOL Adventure completions.  The Troop hosts an October campout with Webelos.  The Troop tries to camp with the Pack and to cook meals for them.  The Troop helps to recruit Cub Scouts.  We go to the Blue and Gold and receive new Scouts. We don't wait for them to find us.  They have too many choices. Are we a rarity in this? 

I find high school recruits make a different sort of scout.  They discover their friends are training to go on high adventure: Philmont, Sea Base, etc. They decide they want to go too. So they join for a year, go on the shakedowns, go on the high adventure trip... Once the trip is over, we rarely see them again. Crossover scouts are more interested in earning rank advancement and merit badges, especially in the middle school grades. So that they are ready to go on high adventure in high school. Occasionally we get a lapsed scout who comes back later in high school, deciding they want to advance to Eagle at the last minute.