 What's Behind Declining Birth Rates in the U.S.?Allen Bradley, Lila Newberry Bradley, Julie Hotchkiss, Clare Ostle () and Deborah Partey () No 2026-5, FRB Atlanta Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Abstract: Using the National Survey of Family Growth, this paper explores reasons behind the falling birth rate in the United States. The analysis confirms that newer generations of women are less likely to have any children than generations that came before. Comparing outcomes among women at the same age, two sources for this decline are identified: (1) a dramatic decrease in the desire to have children, but only among the youngest generation in the sample (Gen Z) and (2) an increase in the medical difficulty of having children among all generations of women since the Boomer generation. Various policies addressing both desire and difficulties are discussed in the context of a goal to arrest or reverse declining birth rates. The primary contribution of this paper is consideration of increasing medical difficulty in conceiving and bearing children (impaired fecundity) alongside the current dominant theory of shifting priorities and preferences of recent cohorts of women. Keywords: birth rates; total fertility rates; infertility; impaired fecundity; microplastic; IVF; family formation; Gen Z; cohorts (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedawp:103252 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from DOI: 10.29338/wp2026-05 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in FRB Atlanta Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Contact information at EDIRC. |
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