Fertility Declines Are a Cultural Problem

Over the past few decades, birth rates have plummeted in the West. A recent Financial Times article reported that the decline in fertility has been much steeper among progressives than conservatives.

The fertility drop began in the 1960s. While some attribute it to “climate anxiety” or economic pressures, cultural changes offer a better explanation.

In his essay “The ‘Me’ Decade,” Tom Wolfe depicted a postwar America that had embraced a perverse form of individualism. In the prosperity and security of the postwar boom, his portrait suggests, Americans elevated the importance of personal satisfaction and deemphasized their obligations to others. The generation that came of age after the war often viewed family not as the foundation of society but as a potential obstacle to personal fulfillment.

These trends persist today. A July working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, for example, concluded that “the decline in fertility across the industrialized world . . . is less a matter of specific economic costs or policies and more a reflection of a broad re-prioritization of parenthood in adult life.” Its authors found that fertility declines “appear[] to stem from a complex mix of factors that shape how people decide to allocate their time, money, and energy,” factors themselves shaped by changing “social and cultural forces.”

One of those “cultural forces” is the increasingly common belief that parenthood impedes happiness. Forty-four percent of adults under 50, for example, said that they don’t want children, as they would rather “focus on other things such as their career or interests,” according to a 2024 Pew survey. Majorities in both age groups—under and over 50—said that not having children “made it easier for them to afford the things they want, have time for hobbies and interests, and save for the future.” An NBC poll released this month found that the top three priorities for men and women aged 18–29 are having a fulfilling career, having enough money to do what they desire, and achieving financial independence. None of those priorities explicitly involved having children.

Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman, authors of the forthcoming book What Are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice, identified the same cultural problem. Berg and Wiseman conducted hundreds of interviews and surveys over the past four years with young Americans. These discussions collectively revealed that “the success narratives of modern liberal life leave little room for having a family.”

What is to be done? Often, advocates treat declining fertility as a purely material challenge, solvable with subsidies and programs. They argue that expanded childcare and generous parental leave will help solve the problem. Yet in countries like Sweden and Finland, which have long implemented such policies, birth rates remain well below replacement level. Despite extensive social-safety nets, subsidized childcare, and some of the most generous parental-leave systems in the world, both nations now record birth rates lower than that of the United States.

To improve birth rates, we need to address the cultural narratives that demean family life. As Brad Wilcox, professor of sociology and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, told me, “If the education system is careerist, materialist, and hedonistic, then spending money on that is only going to drive us deeper into the ditch.”

One way to challenge those narratives, Wilcox argued, is to send children to private schools. “Culture is a product of education,” he said. “If we can advance school choice, that would make a difference in how we culturally view the family.” As Wilcox and his colleagues noted in a report for the Institute for Family Studies, a religious upbringing is tied to higher fertility, which suggests that faith-based education could inculcate the kind of family values that yield higher birth rates.

He also emphasized that institutions like the media and churches have roles to play in increasing America’s birth rates. “We also need to do more cultural media work conveying the truth—that marriage is the best predictor of happiness,” he said. Additionally, “religious institutions on the ground can be more intentional in promoting marriage with marriage counseling and an emphasis on a family-friendly culture.”

Wilcox highlighted Israel as an example of a relatively wealthy country with above-replacement fertility rates. The country’s high birth rate is shaped by its robust religious culture, which influences the choices of the devout and nonreligious alike.

While it’s possible for substantive policies to affect fertility—expanding the child tax credit, for example, could boost birth rates at the margins—efforts at cultural change should take center stage. Our education, media, and religious institutions must restore the family to its rightful place at the center of human flourishing—and encourage the next generation to aspire to more than fleeting pleasure.

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