After thirty years in private capital markets and family office consulting, I know a compounding problem when I see one. The CDC's 2025 provisional birth data, released this month, confirms one that has been building for nearly two decades. The U.S. general fertility rate fell to a record low of 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, down 23% from the 2007 peak. Some 3,606,400 babies were born last year, the lowest total on record. The total fertility rate sits near 1.6 — well below the 2.1 replacement level. Nearly 700,000 fewer babies were born last year than at the prior peak.

The Center for Immigration Studies found the fertility rate for U.S. born women stood at 1.73 in 2023, versus 2.19 for immigrant women. Immigration lifts the headline by only 4.5%. The native-born decline is the structural problem. Absent recovery there, deaths will outnumber native-born births within the decade. The downstream economic consequences: slower GDP, a contracting labor force, and mounting actuarial pressure on Social Security and Medicare.

Japan and China illustrate the endpoint. Japan's population peaked in 2008 and has been shrinking since. Close to 30% of its citizens are now 65 or older, and labor shortages have driven 5.25% wage inflation in 2025, not from productivity but from demographic scarcity. China's birth rate hit 5.63 per 1,000 people in 2025, the lowest since 1949. Some 7.92 million births were recorded against 11.31 million deaths.........

© Townhall