In 2007, Americans welcomed approximately 4.3 million babies. But following a decline in birth rates during the Great Recession, birth rates have not recovered. Over the past 15 years, the number of U.S. births has decreased annually, with the most recent 12-month period on record indicating only 3.6 million babies born.

Straight Arrow News contributor Tim Carney asserts that the United States is currently in the midst of a baby bust and suggests that the situation may be worsening. He highlights the consequences of the country’s declining birth rate and attributes the issue to cultural factors within American society.

But more importantly, fewer people will simply be doing productive work. This will mean longer wait times, lower quality, and higher prices. Your retirement savings don’t do you any good if nobody can come to fix your leaky pipe.

There’s a bigger reason the baby bust is bad news. Americans still want babies. In Gallup’s latest poll, the average American said that 2.7 was the ideal number of children. We are an entire baby below that. All of this reflects that something is wrong with America and with the other countries where birth rates are low and falling.

It’s not a simple economic story. Birth rates were higher during the recession than they were in 2019 when we had full employment, low inflation, and a record-high stock market. And richer people don’t have more babies than the middle class does. And millennials aren’t poorer than Gen X or the baby boomers were. The problem with America is our culture. Ours is a family-unfriendly culture. Parenting culture is too intensive. Mating and dating culture is broken. And our culture doesn’t support parents enough.

The good news is that we can turn our culture around. It won’t be easy or quick, but it will be necessary if we’re ever going to climb out of our baby bust.