'It's a perilous moment for fertility in the US'

Worried man holding a young child at a desk looking over bills, worried about financial cost of childcare

"Many Americans won't have as many children as they'd like for reasons the government could help address"

(Image credit: ArtMarie / Getty Images)

published 6 August 2024

'Time is running out to craft smart, effective policy that reverses the trend'

Kathryn Anne Edwards for Bloomberg

The U.S. fertility rate has been falling for 15 years. "Economists care about fertility because it's difficult to grow an economy with a shrinking population," says Kathryn Anne Edwards. Many families actually want to have children but are "thwarted by circumstances" like "child-care costs, general affordability and too little or no paid leave." Policy shifts to address this issue and lessen the "financial cost of having and raising children" are now essential.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Has Trump's embrace of Silicon Valley backfired? "However lavish the campaign donations" from the tech world, "much of the Republicans' perceived abnormality stems from the same place," says Janan Ganesh. "Tech weirdness" involves an "almost teenage eagerness to provoke that jars outside of podcasts and internet chat rooms," and has led directly to J.D. Vance, "who it is hard to imagine as running mate before the tech-Trump entente," Ganesh says. "What the GOP ticket needed was another Mike Pence," but "what emerged was someone on whom Trump is the restraining influence."

A person gets "the ick" when they "suddenly feel repulsed by the person they're dating," says Kitty Ruskin. But this "common parlance among Gen Z and millennial daters" also "reinforces dated and sexist stereotypes," for example that "men shouldn't order Frappuccinos." "Instead of reflecting genuine red flags to look out for in relationships, the ick often speaks to an intolerance of others' quirks or vulnerabilities," but "the quicker we are to dismiss other people, the more isolated we'll feel."

Simone Biles' triumph at the 2024 Paris Olympics stands in contrast to her trouble at the 2021 Tokyo Games, and "she has credited therapy and other mental-health care with helping her return to form," says Talia Barrington. But "she's not alone in opening up about such struggles," as other elite athletes have similar experiences. "Depression associated with the pressure of competition can shape an athlete's career and their life after sports," says Barrington. "It has become widespread enough that athletes trying to raise awareness have called depression an epidemic among Olympians."

Explore More

Anya Jaremko-Greenwold has worked as a story editor at The Week since 2024. She previously worked at FLOOD Magazine, Woman's World, First for Women, DGO Magazine and BOMB Magazine. Anya's culture writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Jezebel, Vice and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others.