Q&A: Concerns about future may be driving declining US birth rate
Across birth cohorts since the 1940s, young adults in the United States have consistently reported that they intended to have about two children on average, with the typical intended childlessness rate falling below 15%.
Despite this, the birth rate in the U.S. declined during the Great Recession (December 2007-June 2009) and has continued to drop, according to a study published in Population and Development Review.
Healio spoke with Karen Benjamin Guzzo, PhD, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, to learn more about what may be causing the declining birth rate and how clinicians can use this information in practice.
Healio: What prompted your research on this topic?
Guzzo: I have long studied the conditions under which people have children — whether they want to have children and actually plan to do so; when they have children; how many children they have; and characteristics such as whether they were married when they had children, became pregnant without intending to do so or had children with different partners. The conditions in which people become parents and have additional children reflect how well people are able to control and have autonomy over their reproductive lives and, of course, have implications for the conditions in which children are raised. To put it frankly, having children is a pretty big deal, and it’s best for parents, families and children if people can have children — and have the number of children — when they themselves feel the circumstances are right for them. In this particular study, we were interested in how people’s intentions to have children — and how many — have changed over time given that we know the actual number of births that are occurring in the U.S. is changing.
Healio: What is the take-home message?
Guzzo: The take-home message is that the declining birth rates in the U.S. over the past decade, by and large, don’t reflect downward trends in childbearing goals among young adults. People’s goals have remained generally stable — most people want to have children, and most people want to have two children. There’s been a very modest uptick in the share of young adults who don’t want kids, but it’s much, much too small to explain the decline we’ve seen. What this means, then, is that there must be other changes in society that are preventing people from deciding to have children, or to have another child.
Healio: Were any of your findings surprising?
Guzzo: The findings largely confirmed what we suspected given our other research and from other countries — that even if there is a small increase in people who don’t want to have any children, people generally still want and intend to be parents and have two or more children. What’s interesting is that while the goal of having children remains nearly universal, people are waiting longer and longer to have their first child, which has implications for whether they’ll be able to achieve their overall goals — the number of children in their desired context, which is usually to plan their births and to have them within a stable partnership. In general, the longer people wait, the less likely they are to reach their goals.
Healio: Why is it important to understand fertility goals and behaviors on the national scale?
Guzzo: If people are having fewer births because there have been downward shifts in childbearing goals, that’s one thing. But if childbearing goals haven’t really changed, then we as a society need to step back and figure out what’s happening with young people. What challenges they are facing? In general, people have children when they feel optimistic about their futures, so it’s a sign that there’s something amiss in the U.S. and other industrialized countries. In the U.S., young adults face student loan debt issues, less-than-ideal working conditions, high housing costs, lack of affordable child care, very limited parental or sick leave — not to mention more existential issues like political polarization, climate concerns, income and racial inequality, attacks on reproductive autonomy and freedom and the like.
Healio: How should clinicians apply this information to their practice?
Guzzo: It’s more important than ever for people of reproductive age to have clinicians and practitioners who understand and respect their reproductive plans, whether that’s the decision not to have children at all, to avoid hormonal methods or to feel as if they’re being taken seriously when they voice concerns. Given some of the larger conversations about reproductive freedoms being under assault and the U.S. high — and vastly uneven — levels of maternal morbidity and mortality, a lot of young people are worried about their futures.