Americans are having fewer babies. At first, researchers thought the
declining fertility rate was because of the recession, but it kept falling
even as the economy recovered. Now it has reached a record low for
the second consecutive year.
Because the fertility rate subtly shapes many major issues of the day — including immigration, education, housing, the labor supply, the social safety net and support for working families — there’s a lot of concern about why today’s young adults aren’t having as many children. So we asked them.
Wanting more leisure time and personal freedom; not having a partner yet; not being able to afford child-care costs — these were the top reasons young adults gave for not wanting or not being sure they wanted children, according to a new survey conducted by Morning Consult for The New York Times.
Why Young Adults Are Having Fewer Children Than Their Ideal Number
For the people who said they had or expected to have fewer children than they considered ideal, here’s the share that cited each of these reasons as a factor.
