Commentary | Joshua Arnold
Study: Culture, Not Finances, Determines Family Size
Like most of the West, America has entered a fertility crisis. The U.S. fertility rate hit an all-time low in 2024, with a languid 53.8 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age (15 to 44), which works out to a mere 1.6 children per woman. It takes no math degree to recognize that this birth rate is significantly less than two, which means (native-born) American society is literally, numerically in decline. Worse, the birth rate has been plunging ever since 2007 (just before the Great Recession), and no cause for reversal is in view.
