US Birth Rates Are Falling—But It's Not Worrying Americans

Newsweek

3 days ago

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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President Donald Trump and Congress have offered tax credits and proposed legislation to tackle declining birth rates in the U.S., but according to polling, Americans don't consider the issue to be a "major problem."
Fertility rates are projected to average 1.6 births per woman over the next three decades, according to the Congressional Budget Office's latest forecast released this year.
This number is below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman required to maintain a stable population without immigration.
Despite those numbers, only three in 10 Americans say declining birth rates are a "major problem" in the United States, according to a recent survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Just 12 percent of those surveyed said that encouraging families to have more children should be a "high priority" for the government, researchers found after they interviewed 1,158 U.S. adults between June 5 and June 9. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Overall, 28 percent of Americans surveyed said declining birth rates were a "major problem" while 44 percent said it was a "minor problem" and 27 percent said it was "not a problem."
A newborn baby in the hospital.
A newborn baby in the hospital.
EyeEm'Americans Correctly See the Problem as Not Having the Support They Need'
Taking a closer look at the numbers, Americans seem to be concerned about the issues that they think may be the cause of birth rate declines.
Some 76 percent said the cost of child care is a major problem while 41 percent said the same about the cost of fertility treatments.
The risks of pregnancy and childbirth was also placed above birth rates with 39 percent saying they are a "major problem" and 43 percent saying they are a "minor problem."
"Americans correctly see the problem as not having the support they need to have the number of kids they want whether that's zero kids or five kids," said Beth Jarosz, a senior program director U.S. programs at the Population Reference Bureau.
"Americans understand that birth rates themselves are not a problem," she told Newsweek. "Birth rates only become challenging—whether they're high or low—when society doesn't plan ahead."
"A large number of babies without a plan means overcrowded schools, but you can plan ahead and build those schools," she continued. "The same is true for a smaller number—things like workforce training, automation, and family supportive workplace policies (like child care, consistent scheduling, and flexible leave) mean that we don't need to be afraid of low birth rates."
Declining Birth Rate Is Not Just an American Issue
Financial concerns are repeatedly cited as a reason for not having children.
Last month, the United Nations Population Fund warned of a global birth rate crisis, after finding that one in five had not had or did not expect to have the number of children they wanted. Some 39 percent said this was because of financial limitations.
But financial concerns do not appear to be the lone cause of declines with cultural shifts also playing a role in global birthrate.
For example, Norway is considered a global leader in parental leave offering parents 12 months of shared paid leave for birth and an additional year each afterward. It has also made kindergarten (similar to a U.S. day care) a statutory right for all children aged 1 or older in 2008.
And yet, Norway's fertility rate has dropped dramatically from 1.98 children per woman in 2009 to 1.44 children per woman in 2024, according to official figures.
Newsweek spoke to several experts about Norway specifically, who all cited recent culture changes.
For example, "young adults are more likely to live alone" and "young couples split up more frequently than before," Rannveig Kaldager Hart, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health's Centre for Fertility and Health said.
Recent Pew Research Center analysis showed that fewer Americans in their 20s and 30s are planning to have fewer children than a decade ago.
"Focusing on intentions rather than outcomes this study highlights the deeply complex and nuanced challenge of boosting birth rate," Theodore D. Cosco, a research fellow at the University of Oxford's Institute of Population Aging, told Newsweek.
"By flagging lower intentions as an upstream issue, we recognize that both immediate and long‐term factors must be tackled well before births occur," he continued. "If there is going to be meaningful change in birth rates, upstream and downstream factors will need to be addressed in a comprehensive and accessible manner."