Is fertylity rate drop in the USA due to drop in fertylity rate among teens?

11 comments

1. The birth rate amongst teens has essentially been cut in half in the past 10 or so years. So yes, that is a contributing factor. But adults and married couples are also delaying or foregoing children based upon the huge increase in COL over the past generation.

2. Obesity probably has more to do with it.

   EDIT: Not sure why this is getting downvoted. Obesity contributes to polycystic ovarian syndrome, diabetes and lower testerone levels, all of which in aggregate, make having children more difficult.

3. Partially. People generally having children much later is the larger pattern. 

4. Ive read that too. While fertility among all groups under 35 is down (with over 35 being up) the biggest drop appears to be in under 20.

5. Thing is for years a political party harped about welfare queens and irresponsible breeding and how you need to be able to support your children… while removing the ability for people to make enough money to provide a good lifestyle for children.

   If you used to be able to support a family of four on a normal job that someone a few years out of college or trade school could rely on getting, now you can barely not have a couple of roommates at that stage in your life.

   So yeah, surprise surprise, birth rates fell. Because young adults don’t feel secure or comfortable in their ability to provide for kids.

   We need to give more “fat” to people so that they feel secure enough in their ability to provide for kids so they feel like they can have kids.

6. Fewer teenage pregnancies is because we have done a better job educating and equipping people to make better decisions. 

   Or do you mean, literally, how fertile people actually are who are trying to have children?

7. No, it’s a more significant, broader-based phenomenon than that. However, the fact that teenage pregnancies are literally at an all-time low is obviously a small part of it.

8. Fertility drop is the result of a perfect storm: shit economy, shit gov’t policies, housing market is shit, and as a result morale is low which means – less people having kids

9. Obesity, stress, and PFAS is what I think is probably driving infertility. PFAS is the one that concerns me the most tbh. I don’t think most people know how bad it is. I work with researchers on the subject and they always have new findings that are damning.

10. Better sex education, and better education on what child care is actually like helped a lot.

    But really it’s because a lot of Americans in general are now waiting till they’re older to have kids due to job security, housing market, medical costs, and education costs.

11. That did indeed contribute but the larger decline is cultural. It simply became a lot more OK to not have children. And while Reddit does not represent the US, there is definitely a strong anti-child sentiment here.

    You can even see this in old movies; it was a common trope that some rich businessman was devastated that he had to sacrifice having children to succeed at business. Now, people talk about how having children will affect your career opportunities and job choices!

    The default went from “the default lifestyle is with kids, and whomever doesn’t must have sacrificed a lot” to “the default lifestyle is no kids, and whomever has them must sacrifice a lot”.