What we’re seeing right now (U.S. snapshot). The number of U.S. births ticked up 1% in 2024 (to ~3.63M), but the rate at which women have babies fell 1% compared with 2023—another sign of postponement and smaller completed families. The U.S. total fertility rate remains below replacement.
Why economic precarity discourages having kids (evidence):
- Housing costs and interest rates. High rents and harder-to-afford homes push plans back. Research shows rising house prices raise births for homeowners (wealth effect) but reduce them for renters (price effect); mortgage-rate pass‑throughs also move birth timing.
- Childcare costs and access. In 2024, the average U.S. childcare price was about $13,100 a year—around 10% of income for married couples and 35% for single parents, with the U.S. among the highest net childcare costs in the OECD. These costs directly crowd out family formation.
- Job insecurity. Temporary contracts, layoffs risk, and volatile hours are associated with postponed first births; a meta‑analysis finds a non‑trivial negative effect of employment instability on fertility, especially men’s unemployment.
- Motherhood (child) penalty. The arrival of a first child creates a persistent ~20% earnings gap for women relative to men in high‑quality administrative data; recent U.S. evidence finds large motherhood penalties in earnings, which makes the “can we afford this?” calculus harsher.
- Debt and life‑cycle anchors. Student debt measurably delays milestones like marriage and homeownership, which in turn delay births. (Direct causal links to fertility are mixed, but debt clearly pushes back family formation.)
Is it just delay—or fewer kids, period? Both. In demography, shocks often reduce births via “tempo” (timing) effects—people shift childbearing later—but some of those delayed births are never fully “recuperated,” lowering completed family size (“quantum”). That’s one reason period fertility can fall and stay low when uncertainty persists.
COVID showed the mechanism in real time. The U.S. had a short “baby bust” in late 2020, then a partial rebound in 2021—especially among groups with more job security and remote‑work options—illustrating how perceived stability quickly feeds into fertility choices.
What actually helps (from the research):
- Cheaper, reliable childcare (supply plus affordability). Lowering out‑of‑pocket prices and expanding places can modestly raise births and clearly supports parents’ employment. (Sweden’s price cuts raised birth rates in quasi‑experimental work.)
- Stable jobs and predictable hours. Reducing employment instability (e.g., fewer temporary contracts) is linked to earlier first births.
- Paid parental leave & job protection. Reviews suggest generous leave increases fertility a bit (often by bringing forward next births); small or unpaid schemes do little.
- Housing affordability. Bringing rents and entry-level home costs down (or stabilizing financing costs) eases the constraint that bites young renters most.
- Direct family benefits. Cash allowances/“bonuses” can nudge timing but rarely transform long‑run fertility on their own; design matters and effects are often modest.
One more wrinkle: in surveys, Americans still say the ideal family is ~2.7 children, even as actual fertility is far lower. That gap underscores how money, time, and risk—not just preferences—shape whether people have the kids they want.
If you want, tell me your country or region and I can pull the latest local numbers and show how housing, childcare, and jobs compare nearby.