An oddly divergent narrative has taken hold in the commentary class. On one hand, many argue that America’s declining birthrate is the predictable result of too much prosperity. As societies grow wealthier, more educated, and more urban, they tend to have fewer children—a pattern across nearly every developed nation. Meanwhile a competing view holds that Americans are not having children because they are not wealthy enough—that the prime childbearing generations are facing stagnant wages, rising costs, and downward mobility. These two explanations seem contradictory, yet both contain elements of truth—and even work in tandem. 

The data confirm that something significant is happening. The U.S. total fertility rate—the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime—has fallen from about 3.6 in 1960 to roughly 1.6 in recent years. This is well below the replacement rate of 2.1 required to maintain a stable population absent immigration. Annual births have declined as well, falling from a peak of over 4.3 million in 2007 to closer to 3.6 million today. The decline accelerated after the 2008 financial crisis and has remained low, with a notable dropoff particularly among women in their 20s. 

Those who attribute this decline to excess wealth have strong empirical support. Across countries, there is a well-documented inverse relationship between income per capita and fertility rates. Nations like Japan, South........

© Eurasia Review