In America and other developed countries, declining birth rates are prompting concerns that a population decline will cause economic stagnation and drain social welfare systems.
That’s drawing attention from a cross section of groups raising alarms about population collapse and promoting policies to encourage childbearing. The pro-natalist movement has a foothold in the White House, with President Donald Trump calling for a baby boom, Vice President JD Vance and former adviser Elon Musk championing large families, and administration policy aligning with anti-abortion advocates.
U.S. senators are now debating Mr. Trump’s budget bill, which targets a number of family-related issues such as the child tax credit and college financing.
Why We Wrote This
A record-low U.S. birth rate is sparking a movement to encourage people to have more babies. A challenge is unlocking why people are having fewer children than they say they want.
The groups who want Americans to have more babies promote a broad spectrum of reasoning. But there is common concern around a gap between the number of children people want and the number they’re having. Most (73%) idealize having either two or three kids, according to a Gallup survey; but the fertility rate (the number of live births per reproductive-age female) is a record-low 1.6.
“The fact that people’s desires to have kids remain high but that birth rates are falling is evidence that our society is not built in a way that allows people to fulfill their basic desires to have a family,” says Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Many policy experts, including those who say there’s an urgent need for more babies in the United States, agree that what’s in the budget bill won’t do much to boost births. Broader efforts are needed, they say.
The budget bill
The Senate bill would boost the child tax credit 10%, taking it to $2,200. Raising the credit has bipartisan support. The bill also includes $1,000 payments to savings accounts, called “Trump Accounts,” for children born between 2024 and 2028.
“I’m glad Congress is committed to raising the [child tax credit] … but I would like to see them do even more,” said Lyman Stone, director of the Pronatalist Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies, which promotes traditional family structures.
The focus on family is something both progressives and conservatives agree on, says Patrick Brown, a fellow with the Ethics & Public Policy Center who advocates for policies that encourage more births. He aims to “[make] it so that family is at the center of what we’re doing rather than just sort of economizing individuals.”
That includes making it easier for people to get married and start a family, and allowing parents to raise their children “in a way that doesn’t feel so isolating or individualistic,” says Mr. Brown.
The budget, he says, is “not my version of a pro-family agenda.”
It’s not that experts say financial incentives, along the lines of an expanded child credit, aren’t helpful and needed for parents. It’s that financial incentives alone may not be enough. The Republicans’ bill also proposes spending cuts – including to social welfare programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – that directly hit the finances of many lower-income families.
And despite spending cuts, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecasts Mr. Trump’s bill will add $3.3 trillion in debt over the next decade.
“They’re basically trying to cut safety net benefits in order to help cover the cost of your tax cuts for folks [in] the upper-income side of the distribution,” says Mr. Brown.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
The budget also makes major cuts to the federal student loan program, and qualifies K-12 expenses, including private school tuition, for pretax savings accounts, which now are limited to college-related costs. The bill included a proposed “school choice” pathway for K-12 education, but that faced a setback Friday when the Senate parliamentarian said it was among several items that violate procedure rules and must be considered separately from the megabill.
The policies are consistent with a report by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Heritage declined to talk with the Monitor for this story.
In addition to the budget bill, senators are considering a bipartisan proposal that would eliminate families’ costs for childbirth by requiring health insurers to cover the entire bill. President Trump has meanwhile announced expanded access to in vitro fertilization treatments. The White House has not released details.
The country’s population trend is not yet a crisis, says Catherine Pakaluk, director of Political Economy at the Catholic University of America’s Busch School of Business. But it is on a collision course with the government’s economic commitments. In the short term, she says, policymakers need to try for economic security by balancing the budget – a task, she says, that is “not remotely easy.”
Big tent, big differences, one aim
People who agree that the U.S. needs more babies can also be at odds. In March, the second annual NatalCon brought together IVF specialists, anti-abortion activists, demographers, and far-right extremists concerned about minority populations outpacing white people.
IVF is a point of contention. Those who consider conception the beginning of life oppose the disposal of embryos, which is a routine part of the IVF process.
Another group, from the tech industry, wants to apply technology to creating babies, including the use of IVF and genetic testing to screen for intellect or potential health issues.
Serious conversations about the U.S. fertility rate are happening among researchers and pro-childbirth groups who distance themselves from positions linked with racism, sexism, and eugenics.
For instance, policies to encourage more births would result in more births among nonwhite communities, as well, says Mr. Stone. “And we’re totally fine with that.”
Like Mr. Stone’s organization, many who support a higher birth rate also promote the idea that traditional families – married heterosexual couples with children – are ideal.
That ideal does not require a woman to give up on education or a meaningful career, says Mr. Brown. Women should be able to “exercise their talents in the same way that men can,” he says. “The way out of this trap that we’re in is by reorienting our economy, accommodating all people having family and work life, rather than pitting men against women.”
But there are concerns that focusing on fertility could further limit women’s reproductive options. The 2022 Supreme Court reversed federal recognition of a right to abortion when it overturned Roe v. Wade; since then, more than half of U.S. states have increased restrictions on the practice.
Any strategy aimed at fertility will ultimately sideline reproductive options, says Leigh Senderowicz, who studies fertility policies as a demographer and public health researcher with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We just have decades and decades and decades of evidence that this is the case.”
People are “balancing competing goods”
A collection of studies indicates anxieties about the cost of living, career pursuits, the housing shortage, and a breakdown in community supports are contributing to slowing birth rates. America’s birth rate is below the global average.
One Pew Research Center survey shows nearly two-thirds of adults believe free child care would encourage more people to have children; half say paid family leave and more tax credits for parents would help, and 45% say a monthly stipend would do it.
Mr. Brown and Mr. Stone, whose work often intersects, both link the fertility rate to a decline in the marriage rate. Another Pew survey shows one-third of adults who never had children said it was because they didn’t find the right partners. Twelve percent said it was because they couldn’t afford it.
Education matters, too. Mr. Brown says the U.S. should take notes from European models of higher education, which take fewer years for professionals who require graduate-level schooling. That means a person can get an earlier start on their career and family, he says.
But most European countries have even lower fertility rates than the U.S., including Nordic countries, which Americans generally laud for their family-centered policies and institutions.
People are having fewer children because that’s what they really prefer, says Dr. Pakaluk, whose book “Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth” explores why some women choose to have more children than others.
“Most people are doing a thing where they’re balancing competing goods in their lives,” she says.
Children today are a want, not a need, she adds, and the best way to influence values is with information campaigns – for example, stories from communities that desire more children about what it’s like to be a parent.
“Because information is the single most powerful changer of people’s choices,” she adds.
Amanda Stevenson, a demographer at the University of Colorado Boulder who leads the Colorado Fertility Project, says population shifts don’t need to cause alarm.
Politics and demographics are constantly influencing each other, and population is always changing, she says. Other parts of society are in flux, such as where people live and who cares for children and older adults, and people will find infinite ways to respond to population changes.
“We need to work on this together,” says Professor Stevenson. “We will respond in other ways, and it won’t just be the escalation of this [population] panic.”
Dr. Guzzo points out that birth rates are down, but the population in the U.S. and the world is still growing.
“Population collapse is not imminent,” says Dr. Guzzo. The number of people in the U.S. is expected to grow until about 2080, then plateau or decline “super slowly over time.” Beyond that, she says, assumptions lose hold.
The number and types of jobs, for instance, will change as artificial intelligence replaces people in the workplace.
“We can’t predict a whole lot of things because humans are remarkably resilient and inventive,” she says.
