The Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank has identified two main reasons for falling birth rates in the United States: a reduced desire among Gen Z women to have children, and a rise in medical difficulty conceiving across all generations since the Baby Boom.
The paper, published Sept. 30, draws on data from the National Survey of Family Growth and finds that Gen Z women are less likely to want children than women from the three preceding generations, according to the Atlanta Fed. Among the factors likely driving those preferences, the researchers cited the cost of raising children, inadequate social support structures, evolving societal norms, and concerns about personal safety and health.
Raising children has become 60% more expensive over the past eight years, with childcare driving more of that cost growth than any other factor, according to MarketWatch .
The Atlanta Fed paper also found that difficulty conceiving has increased among women of all generations since the Boomer cohort — a trend the researchers describe as a biological constraint separate from the preference-based decline seen specifically among Gen Z. The paper lists infertility, impaired fecundity, microplastic exposure, and IVF access among the key factors under examination.
The research was published through the Atlanta Fed's Center for Human Capital Studies as part of its Policy Hub series.
