The U.S. fertility rate hit a record low in 2024, 1.59 births per woman. Below replacement level, and still dropping. It's not a mystery why this is happening. It’s lack of support: no childcare, no leave, no security. People aren’t “anti-family.” We’re broke. Fix the system, or keep shrinking.
And losing agency.
Or like me 30 YEARS ago: “ Why would I want to bring an innocent child into a shit world like this?” Meaning that I was already seeing the writing on the wall for people that were not very well off.
Someone told me once that I should be grateful to live in the greatest nation in the world. I wish that were true. But for me, it’s been surviving the biggest lie in this nation.
So you live in Denmark? 😉
LOL!
Young women are afraid. Look at it from their prospective. Get pregnant and possibly die or be imprisoned for a miscarriage. The combination of expenses and fear, are keeping the burth rate down.
*birth!
It’s also why businesses need immigrant workers. The numbers in the US workforce are in decline. The encouragement to demand tax cuts is feeding the decline in support for families and that is driving the increase in immigration. A perfect storm driven by Republican values.
I would add no enforcement of child support payments
Who would want to bring a child into this hellscape?
Who wants to bring a child into a land without environmental protection, the risk of no fresh water resources in their lifetime, the risk to a woman's life if she has complications and they let her die on the table rather than perform a D & C, the risk of ending up in a concentration camp, etc...
If no one has time off how are we going to have to take care of children. Not everyone has a grandparent to help out. They made it impossible to live without 2 paychecks. Fix it.
My son said he’s not sure he wants to bring a baby into this world due to climate change, food and resource’s are not a guarantee anymore. Never mind the political environment.
The correlation is high. No support, no babies…
Don’t they mean birth rate instead of fertility rate? That would imply that people are sterile.
I agree. Drop in fertility means they cannot conceive. Birth rate is based on the decision to conceive. That’s why eliminating birth control is in their sights
I could see eugenicists and propagandists in this regime wanting to conflate the two 🤷♂️
I think having Donald Trump‘s picture all over the media all the time has something to do with this.
Expect more forced pregnancy legislation in the coming weeks.
Also, COVID impacts men’s capacities
Why would anyone want to bring a child into this fu€ked up world? I don't blame parents.
Why would any woman anywhere in the country really want to be pregnant now. If she has a spontaneous miscarriage, she'll be accused (and maybe jailed for) having an abortion. If she has a bad outcome (ectopic pregnancy, one example) she won't be able to get good care and may die. High cost.
No support during pregnancy, no support at or after childbirth, no guarantee of her income source (job, spouse) still being there when she's ready to return to paid work, no help with childcare or school. Sneers and scorn from multiple sources if she dares need help.
If I were a young woman again, I'd get a hysterectomy abroad EARLY. Would not risk pregnancy from rape. We don't protect women at all; the power structure hates women, values them only as broodstock and not much then.
Republicans are absolutely anti-family, or at least they vote that way.
I’m in the last year I would feel comfortable getting pregnant. From when I felt ready to think about kids I’ve been laid off, tripled my housing costs for the same place, watched trust in science & mass vaccination collapse, seen the rise in hateful vitriol from neighbors & dawn of American fascism
Less human beings is our best chance for long term survival. Of all the things that represent extinction level events, wouldn't it be prudent to at least practice influencing the ones that we have some kind of control over. WE are likely causing our own extinction RIGHT NOW.
Good. The entire world needs to reduce its fertility rate until we reach a planetary population of about 3 billion.
Yes! Kids are expensive! Rent and mortgages have only increased, along with interest rates. Not many people can afford to raise kids and buy a home and provide for a family, it's gotten so much more expensive.
Not surprising. Nobody wants to have kids in a dictatorship, autocracy, authoritarian system. It would be cruel and humane to the kids to bring them up in an environment like this. Although the Goebbels did kill their kids so they wouldn’t have to grow up in a world without Hitler.
Don’t discount the chilling effect of abortion bans on willingness to get pregnant. Any woman can face a life threatening risk at any point during pregnancy and be refused a necessary abortion and: (1) Die, and/or (2) Be kept alive as a brain-dead human incubator. No thanks!
And also the fact men are just ugly with their bald head and beards. What a turn off. Where did all the real men go? The ones you could actually fill safe around.
This is actually a global phenomenon, not just the U.S. Europe, Asia, Russia, South and Central America and Mexico are all seeing plummeting fertility rates. The Middle East and Africa have declining fertility rates also, but not as precipitous yet. Mother Earth is telling us to stop killing her.
All this heat probably isn't helping as it cooks certain parts of the male anatomy important for reproduction. Clothing probably makes it worse for people than other mammals.
Now THAT will get the attention of the patriarchy — global warming creates male infertility. You’re probably right.
Needs to go to or close to 0. They will legalize rape before they reinstate Roe. Carry something to defend yourself with.
Not to mention worry about the future with impending climate change doom.
Good. We are neither brood mares nor incubators.
Talk to the 20 year olds! They lived/are living with school (mass) shootings, a pandemic, global warming and now fascism . They don’t want to bring kids into this hell!
Yeah I’ll be 40 next year, and I can tell you that the cost of everything is 50% why I don’t want kids and I’ve been married working on 20 years. 30% Childhood trauma, 5% kids are assholes and the screaming makes me want to take an ice pick to my ear drums. 15% Climate/Political issues.
Exactly! I was the weirdo creative kid who got bullied in grade school so young kids make me uncomfortable to this day. Ok with teenagers...9
Who really thinks we need more babies at all? We never had more than 1 billion people in all of this planets history, suddenly we industrialize and we are at 8 Billion and rising. And for what reason exactly other than personal vanity? It’s all overrated.
Who in their right mind wants to bring a child into this hellhole country.
Stephen Miller's plan as much as he wants it to be canon, will continue to fail. And I'm glad. So much for wanting only a hundred million people in America, looking just like him.
If there's a chance a woman might die bc of a miscarriage because doctors aren't allowed to treat them, who the freak is going to be willing to get pregnant? Many women may think twice right now. Wait until MAGA & Trump are gone.
Also MAGA men are free birth control!
Less people. Good.
This should surprise nobody.
Honestly? Good. This is good. They fear plummeting birth rates and the one thing they can't do is clone humans for them to torture, institutionalize, overwork, and murder for profit. Bringing it close to zero will force them to negotiate.
Republicans are too busy giving billions to the rich and corporations with tax cuts. They could give a shit about subsidized childcare, payed parental leave, or free preschool. It's all about priorities people! #VoteBlue
Always a silver lining. There are far too many people in the world. Far too many.
My conversation with my husband 29 years ago, " should we have another baby?" Our mutual consensus - we couldn't afford it. Twenty years later child bearing age people can't afford one child!
Having babies & raising children was always overrated.
No. We need to drop below the replacement rate for the planet. We overpopulated and more have to reverse it somehow.
If I was younger, there is no way I would bring a life into this hellscape.
What right-thinking person would bring a child into this fucked up world right now?
Now only are we broke, but they are putting stuff in our processed foods that other counties have banned for health concerns.
Also young people think the world is shitty and scary and they don't want to bring children into a world like that.
can't afford housing, unsafe environments...etc.
I have two friends who originally wanted children. They WANTED to have kids and raise a family. When Trump got reelected, they saw the writing on the wall of expenses and cruelty, and found a doctor who would tie their tubes. They still want kids. But know it's not doable. It makes me so sad
And the fact that this is so sad, it so changes THEIR life plans, is so heinous & awful, yet trump thinks it’s great what he’s done-despicable. A monster is over us.
Soon US is begging for Immigrants.....
There is absolutely no way I’d be willing to even have sex, if I was young, fertile, and living in the US. If I want contraception, i might not get it If I miscarry, I can go to prison Health insurance is a joke No family leave No childcare School shootings “Handsmaids Tale” laws No thanks
What thinking person would want to bring children into this world? Climate chg threatens world stability & in the present US, all supports for children are being gutted or canceled, making costs too high. I'm for controlled de-population which isn't compatible with capitalism as we know it.
This might be good news. Unchecked and continuous growth is not the answer... The earth, the globe, the environment doesn't need a huge influx of new humans. If our policies are discouraging people having babies, that might take a little pressure off - only capitalism needs new babies
Who wants to bring a kid into this shitshow of a country?!
We women are also terrified of becoming pregnant and dying from that condition for lack of care.
That’s good
Who would want to get pregnant?
We was fixing it an people voted against it in November
Not to mention that a miscarriage can leave you bleeding out on the ER floor in certain states 🤷♀️
or charged with a felony.
And we could die or be imprisoned for having a miscarriage, which is very common. Also, who's eager to bring an innocent & vulnerable life into the hell scape we're living in? No thanks.
Hoping my kids don’t have kids, I doubt they will. They can’t even support themselves.
Women realize they don’t need men and they don’t need a traditional family in order to have fulfilling lives
And… it’s too much work! Women bear the lions share of the drudgework, the day to day bullshit needed to keep a household running. And then you’ve got the disrespect from the kids, the schools,the husband, whatever. Who needs it?
What are the birth rates in Red states as compared to Blue states?
I don’t know the birth rates, but I do know the sky-high & increasing maternal & infant death rates for the red states. The GOP lets women know how much contempt they have for women, including electing an adjudicated rapist for president, & they expect women to want to give birth?
This is also related to the state of reproductive health care in this country, specifically the lack of maternal care; also the laws preventing women from being able to get abortion care if needed, and the fact that women are being prosecuted for spontaneous abortions (better known as miscarriages).
And also... Choosing to carry babies, knowing their lives could be put in jeopardy at the hospital, is rather frightening for informed young women. And knowing their children would be delivered into a fascist nation is a very hard sell.
All of my kids say they won't have children, too expensive and this world sucks I don't blame them one bit
What we are also experiencing in Australia is lower divorce rates because couples can not find, or afford, two seperate residences because of the critical housing shortage, which our govt promotes with poor policies 😡
Republicans will learn they can’t force large numbers of women to have babies. Even when they ban contraception in some states, birth rates aren’t going to skyrocket. And the more they tighten their grip the more people will move away to sane states.
Yea…. So they ‘fixed’ it by banning abortions….
Thanks gop and supreme court
To just have an uncomplicated pregnancy and birth in the US is $20,000. If you have insurance that cover pregnancy and delivery it is still around $4,000. Cost of childcare, no paid leave and cost of healthcare coverage is prohibitive in the US.
So long as Satan is the president, you’ll never force women into doing something that is against their best interests! People want to have children in secure times-not this shitshow of uncertainty!
Also… there’s a lot less fucking going on because of the Republican abortion laws.
And fear of dying if there any complications during pregnancy because you won’t get needed medical care must weigh on a woman’s mind as well.
Taking the autonomy away from women never seems to make the list of what men are outraged about. Why aren't you outraged that half the population does have our right to live in thid country. Have you noticed?
I’m guessing a lot of women don’t think it’s safe to get pregnant at all in the current system which caters to religion and not medical expertise.
100%
Childcare per month in my area is average $2000. It's crazy! So if you have 2 kids that's $4000/mo just on childcare. That doesn't include feeding them and housing them and clothing them.
Looking into after school care as well. Even with parks and recs it's $600/mo. Childcare prices are outrageous. We need programs that support working families. Between my 2 kids if I work full time I'm going to spend $2600/mo on childcare. That is the equivalent to my mortgage.
I wouldn't want to bring an innocent child into the US. Not as it is, now.
Fear that if you miscarry, you will get life in prison. What will the Gazillionaires do?
My son made up his mind while in high school that he would never raise a child in this crazy country. He is now 32 and still stands by this. Wake Up America!!
Nope Nope Nope Signed, A #DINK
It's estimated the cost to raise a child to 18 is at least 250,000$. Too many people can't afford to live comfortably. Cut off any WIC, SNAP, child lunch programs, and it's punishment for having kids. Let alone defending education and health care.
who is crazy to have babies in tis environment?
Also, who wants to birth children into a budding dictatorship.
I’d also add climate catastrophes and dying earth to the list.
Exponentially combined with FEMA, NOAA, NWS and more being dismantled. Even a low multimillionaire can lose everything in a storm. Yet alone their lives, like the food victims in Texas...
My daughters (30 and 34) don't want kids, they want lives. Babies are overrated.
Who would want to have kids now in this country?
Likely for the best.
It was bad enough 30 years ago but now I can't even imagine bringing up two kids.
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Good. Bring it to 0.
Yep. My husband and I have been asking for help to start our family because we know the government sure isn't going to send gay men checks for babies (or even let us have them, i fear, in the not-too-distant future). gofund.me/fb40447a