To have children or not to have them? That is the question more and more Americans are asking themselves. Only 26 percent say having children is extremely or very important for a fulfilling life, according to a Pew Research Center survey, whereas 71 percent say the same about “having a job or career they enjoy.” The U.S. fertility rate has plummeted to 1.6 lifetime births per woman, well below the “replacement rate” of around 2.1, at which point a population remains stable between generations.
Lower birthrates mean fewer young people, which means a shrinking workforce and more difficult economic growth. But there are other reasons to hope for more children, no less real for being more intangible. Mass reluctance to bring a new generation into the (admittedly troubled) world could signify growing pessimism in a society that has historically thrived on optimism. A disproportionately elderly society could be a wiser but less dynamic one, with fewer young people to take risks, contribute new ideas and — yes — provide youthful joie de vivre.
The declining birthrate is puzzling, given that being married with children correlates with self-reported happiness — among both men and women. Nearly 40 percent of women who are married with children say they are “very happy,” according to the 2022 General Social Survey. It’s just 25 percent for those married without children, and even lower for those who are unmarried either with or without children. Meanwhile, 35 percent of married men with children report being very happy, compared with 14 percent of unmarried, childless men.
Of course, correlation is not causation. These data could indicate that having children tends to make people happy, or that happy people tend to have children. Either way, for most people, getting married is the first step to having children — and marriage is becoming less frequent. Twenty-five percent of 40-year-olds have never married, according to a Pew survey. In 1980, the figure was 6 percent. Unmarried rates are higher among men, who are also significantly more likely than women to want children in the first place.
In their book, “ What Are Children For?,” authors Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman show that a growing number of women say they don’t want children because of the economic costs. But the data complicate this picture. After being behind for a while, millennials have largely caught up and are even eclipsing previous generations on various income and wealth metrics. And in countries where economic supports for women are very generous, as in Norway and Finland, the fertility rate has dropped below the United States’ in recent years.
Today, having children is a choice rather than an expectation, and more women are deciding that the trade-offs are too great in light of competing life goals. If you can’t have it all, which many women feel they can’t, then a choice must be made, and having children comes to be seen increasingly as a zero-sum consideration.
This is progress. Expanding the range of choices available to individuals is what makes a free society free. Americans should not idealize a past when women were pressured into marrying unimpressive men or shamed for pursuing their careers.
But, just as people shouldn’t be pressured by circumstance into having children, they shouldn’t be dissuaded from it, either. Social expectations to engage in helicopter parenting might make having kids seem like a task only available to those with unlimited time and resources. Zoning regulations that limit housing density — including “in-law suites” — create impediments that restrict multigenerational housing, making child care harder. Major cities have become increasingly childless places: If more of your neighbors and peers are single or childless (and seem to be enjoying their lives), then this will likely temper your own enthusiasm about having kids.
As philosopher Jennifer A. Frey writes: “Marriage and parenthood are leaps of faith that require individuals to go from thinking and choosing for ‘me’ to thinking and choosing for ‘we.’” A leap of faith isn’t easy. Countries that have tried to boost birthrates through economic incentives have largely failed. But government could still seek to make the decision to have children easier for prospective parents: through ensuring access to decent child care, investing in high-quality education, boosting monetary assistance such as the child tax credit, permitting the construction of more and more densely built homes. Policies such as these would ease burdens on stretched families and promote healthy child-rearing — making them worthwhile regardless of whether they also supercharged American fertility.
The Washington Post
