U.S. Birth Rate Continues To Drop: Why One Demographer Warns Against Panic
New CDC data shows that the U.S. fertility rate dropped to 1.6 children born per woman in 2024 — a record low and far below the population replacement rate of 2.1. This places the U.S. in line with Western Europe and East Asia, where aging workforces and population declines have long been a concern.
The report also found fewer than 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. last year, continuing a steep decline that began with the 2008 recession. The U.S. birth rate is still higher than Canada, most of Europe, and East Asia (South Korea now has the world’s lowest birth rate at 0.75), and experts warn that economics are in part to blame for significantly reshaping family decisions.
“People do still want to have kids,” Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau told Mo News. “It's just they don't want to have kids right now, necessarily. I think some of it is the fact that it's hard for a lot of young people right now to find a good job. Some people are having trouble paying their rent, buying a home.”
UPS AND DOWNS
Mather notes that U.S. birth rates have historically fluctuated. In the 1930s, the birth rate fell to 2.1 children per woman following the stock market crash of 1929. After World War II, the U.S. experienced a “baby boom,” with the total fertility rate soaring to around 3.5 children per woman. By 1976, the rate had dropped to a record low of 1.7 children per woman. It gradually climbed back to 2.1 by 2007 before declining again amid the Great Recession.
The global trendline also is related to more women getting college degrees and pursuing careers, couples starting families later in life (having less children), decreasing teen pregnancy rates and an increase in infertility rates.
NOT JUST THE U.S.
Europe and East Asia are also seeing sustained birth rate declines. In Japan, where the population has been declining for 15 years, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has called it “a silent emergency.” This echoes some prominent voices in the U.S., like billionaire Elon Musk, who has said that falling birth rates are “how great civilizations throughout history have ended” and warned that we are on the verge of population collapse.
It’s complicated: James Pethokoukis, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, points to Goldman Sachs analysis from this year showing that demographic declines may have created a tighter labor market, which has increased worker bargaining power — with annual wage growth rising from 0.3% in the 2010s to 1.2% in the 2020s — and spurred more investment in productivity-enhancing technology that sets the U.S. apart.
EVEN BIGGER PICTURE
The global fertility rate in 2024 was 2.2 births per woman — above the the replacement rate — though down from around 5 in the 1960s and 3.3 in 1990.
Reality check: The world is not on the brink of imminent population collapse, Mather says, and declining birth rates in the U.S. will not cause immediate economic troubles.
In fact, the United Nations projects that the world population, which sits around 8 billion, will reach a peak of near 10 billion by mid-2080 before dropping.
Still, there are reasons to want to maintain a growing population — from keeping social safety nets like Social Security funded to ensuring there are enough workers to keep the economy stable and growing.
Mather says if the fear is job replacement, there are plenty of other measures to boost the workforce. “If you’re talking about the labor force in particular, increasing the fertility rate is probably one of the least efficient ways to address that. There are lots of other strategies that we could put in place to get more workers and to fill the job openings that we have,” he says, pointing to immigration policies, job training programs to reduce unemployment, and affordable childcare.
POLICY FIXES
President Trump is exploring policies that countries like Japan and South Korea have attempted in order to boost fertility.
The U.S. remains one of a handful of countries left on earth without mandatory national maternity leave. But, there are still no plans for Republicans to support that policy.
However, there are several other ideas circulating. Earlier this month, Trump signed into law his massive tax and spending bill that, in part, will create $1,000 “Trump Accounts” for millions of American babies.
He is reportedly also considering additional financial incentives and education programs to boost family growth.
Reality Check: Mather pointed out that other nations have attempted to reverse fertility declines with cash bonuses and parental benefits — but with limited success. South Korea, for example, saw only a slight increase despite major government spending.