Can America Fix Its Fertility Crisis?

Even on a joint salary of $ 250,000 a year.

Adams and her husband, both university graduates in full -time jobs, earn much more than an average American family income of $ 80,610. However, their relatively high salaries – from a technology company, from the US State Department – were not sufficient, to compensate for the monthly mortgage of $ 3,000 on their home in Vols Church, Virginia, and a suburb in Washington, DC, and the cost of daytime sponsorship of $ 2000 per month per child.

Adams said: “I am the third of three children. So at any time you imagine the presence of a family, he was always with three,” Adams said. “Unfortunately, although I have a space in my house and the space in my heart and my partner heart, we cannot afford the costs of a third child.”

Adams’s story about longing and disappointment is common in the United States, one of the many countries facing a decrease in the birth rate that threatens population and economic growth. With the majority of women moving to the workforce during the last century, and with the growth of children’s costs and child care, the size of the normal family decreases.

Adults do not replace themselves with new generations, a fact that represents a special problem for countries – such as the United States – which depends on a young worker to support the aging of the population.

Last year, the fertility rate in the United States reached 1.62 births for each woman, a decrease of 1.99 births for each woman 30 years ago, according to the United Nations. The United Nations also stated that in 2024, the global fertility rate was 2.2 births for each woman, fell from 4.8 in 1970. In four countries – Cina, South Korea, Singapore and Ukraine – the fertility rate decreased to less than 1.

“The fertility rates are largely decreased because many of them feel the inability to create the families they want, and this is the real crisis,” said Natalia Caneem, doctor and executive director of the United Nations Population Fund, who recently released a survey of more than 14,000 adults in 14 countries. Nearly five (18 percent) of the respondents under the age of 50 said they do not expect to have a number of children who want. More than half blame economic barriers.

During his campaign last year, US President Donald Trump said he would take steps to increase the birth rate, announcing, “I want a child’s mutation.” Vice President JD Vance also wants to see more children born in the United States and the former close -up counselor of Trump, billionaire Elus Musk, in a political and personal research to reconfigure the planet. (Bokit admitted 14 children with four women.)

The satirical stickers arose around Washington, DC, in April, and passers -by provides the opportunity for “next Elon Child”. Sarah Burnston/Fuller Project

According to what was reported, the administration heard from the conservatives policies that would reward parents to have children with tax incentives and rewards for one time and actual medals (the last, for mothers of six children or more). Trump’s huge tax and spending bill included in this month the creation of investment accounts for children born from 2025 to 2028, classified as $ 1,000 each, although money cannot be withdrawn for 18 years.

However, women’s rights defenders say these measures fail to provide the level of support that parents already need.

“Mothers do not need incentives,” said Erine Erinberg, CEO and co -founder of the “Mothers Chamber”, an organized non -party base organization. “I say it is not a secret that will lead to more children. They are these three things: paid family medical leave; accessible, child care at reasonable prices; and improving the health of the mother.”

Through the political spectrum, defenders of parents in the United States agree that people will have more children if the costs are not very high. They want government policies to enable parents to build their dreams. But they do not agree to how to do so.

“If we will get daytime care support, I think we must also have a home bond to maintain parity, to avoid discrimination,” said Lehman Stone, Director of the Exhaustion Initiative at the Family Studies Institute. “But I just want to say, in general, we should not do any of these.

Conservative activists who encourage women-often married women-married women-married women-are on the basis of more children. However, even among supporters of the ligaments, there are differences in opinion about the reason and how to develop the population.

The mother and her two children deals with a personal photo in Jabal Rashmour, in the US state of South Dakota, on April 23, 2020. Kere Yucel/AFP via Getty Images

“You have people worried about economic decline, dependency, payment for social security, innovation, and any of these things. We have worried people about loss of culture, civilization, civilized retreat, and the end of certain societies. Then you have people who think it is bad because people do not get what they want,” said Stone.

In a written blog publication last June, sixty clips devoted one segment entitled “Collective Residents”, which said “covering a huge group of political lands, from the simple love of the family to the ties of faith and belief, to – in some of the worst cases – the great great, the great.

The Trump administration has not determined how parents will inspire to have more children after the cash incentives set out in the new draft law. In response to a request for an interview with this story, the White House press office sent a price of a spokeswoman for Taylor Rogers, who echoed some of the pro -Pournetist positions described by Stone.

“President Trump believes that parents know the best way to raise their children, and this administration follows policies that enable parents to flexibility to make the best options for their children while reducing the costs of child care,” Rogers wrote.

It is difficult to assemble women to have more children.

The two countries have created a large number of programs to increase fertility in recent years. Jennifer Scuba, President and CEO of the Population Reference Office, a non -profit research organization, said that some have stopped the collapse of the population, at least temporarily, but nothing changed the general path of retreat.

“Anyone tried this, especially if his goal is to reach the replacement again – no one did it at all. It may prevent him from declining faster – this is possible, but not everywhere.”

She noted that the northern countries of the northern have offered a paid parental leave, a policy preferred by feminism, however, the rate of fertility of Finland is 1.3 children per woman, Sweden and Norway is 1.4, and Denmark in 1.5. Sciubba said that the tax credits for children, which allow parents to reduce the tax burden on the basis of the number of children, did not complete the trick.

South Korea is a low fertile fertility child. According to Sciubba, East Asia has spent nearly $ 270 billion on policies, credits and cash rewards since 2006. In 2024, the birth rate was only 0.73 children per woman. (According to what was mentioned, birth rates have increased at a rate of 34 years faster, a large transformation that is largely due to an increase in marriages after birth.)

There is one thing that undoubtedly enhances the inhabitants of the nation, even when birth rates rise: migration. According to Sciubba, this is because the United States attracts a large number of immigrants whose population has not reached its peak. She said: “This will only depend on our immigration levels regarding the shrinkage of the population of the United States or this century.”

Members of an immigrant family from Ecuador, who seek asylum, are praying together while waiting for the arrest of customs officers and border protection in Ruby, Arizona, on June 24, 2024.Brandon Bell/Getty Pictures

However, reducing immigration is the axis of Trump’s agenda. As for Jocelyn Frye, these immigration policies reveal an ugly fact about some supporters of the two ligaments: racism.

“If it is related to birth rates, you will not follow all kinds of declining policies against societies that have higher birth rates, such as migrant societies, right?” Free, head of the National Partnership of Women and Families, said. “At the same time they are [the U.S. government is] They talk about increasing birth rates, and they also talk about kicking groups, and different pockets of black and brown people. “

In fact, women’s rights advocates say, a number of Trump’s policies will do more to suppress the birth rate more than this. This includes limiting access to family planning resources and reproductive health – including abortion – enabling people to have children if and when they choose. It also includes cutting the Medicaid program, a state -funded program that pays more than 4 out of 10 births in the United States

“You have to look at a full set of policies that the administration is trying to present, and then start getting a picture,” said. “Their agenda is very narrow, and it is rooted in a vision about the place where women are supposed to play a role, and their opinion is that the role of women is to have children and stay at home, and all they do is in mind.”