The Hill recently reported on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s latest statistics on U.S. fertility rates, citing Wheatley research in the 2025 American Family Survey as it explored potential attitudes and causes behind the steady decrease of national birth rates.
The 1% drop in births to women between 15-44 years old between 2024 and 2025 has been part of a much longer trend facing the United States.
"...the percentage of childless women has jumped significantly in recent years," Joseph Choi, Hill staff writer reports.
"Between 2014 and 2024, the percentage of women aged between 25 and 29 who were childless rose from about 50 percent to 63 percent. The only demographic that saw decreases in childlessness in that same time frame were women aged between 45 and 50, indicating more women had children as they entered their late 40s." Other research demonstrates that more adults plan to have smaller families, or express no desire to have children at all.
Why? One explanation is the developed world's increasingly high cost of living and the added financial burden of raising a family. Citing research from the Wheatley Institute, the Center for Studies on Elections and Democracy, and Deseret News' 2025 American Family Survey, Choi explains, "...71 percent of adults disagreed with the notion that having children was affordable for most people. Forty-three percent cited insufficient financial resources as being a barrier to having children, while only 22 percent cited a lack of personal desire."