The United States has a low fertility rate. Is that good or bad news? It is complicated.

Between 1990 and 2023, the US -Fertility rate – the average number of children that every woman is created – fell by 22%according to the latest data of the centers for the control of the disease and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). It is not a new trend; The decline began in 2007 shortly before the recession from 2008. In conjunction with the rapidly aging American population, the fertile fertility rate has long nervous the political decision -makers to empty the social security and generally cause economic turbulence due to a shrinking employment population.

Is the solution that Americans should have more babies? And should we even worry about the decline in fertility rates? The problem is more complex than that, according to three experts who think about shifting demography, population and fertility for their livelihood.

What happens?

In 1990, each woman had an average of 2.08 children. This number had fallen to 1.62 by 2023. The number of babies born every year has dropped by 14% in the same period, which led in 2023 compared to 1990 562.195 fewer births.

This decline is driven by a dramatic decline in the number of teenagers who have babies. In 1990, 1.4 babies were born for 1,000 girls between 10 and 14 years. This number had fallen to only 0.2 by 2023. And the birth rate per 1,000 women between 15 and 19 years fell by 78%.

Historically, low pregnancy and birth rates of teenage are viewed as profit in public health. “If a young person gets pregnant and wants to keep the baby, you should have this right, but most pregnancies of teenage are unintentional or undesirable, and it is absolutely good that people are good at preventing births that they do not want,” says Leslie Wurzel, a demographer and deputy director of the Colorado University Population Center, says Yahoo Life. The reduction of unintentional pregnancies of teenage is largely thanks for young women.

The problem

Fewer pregnancies of teenage mean that young women are more likely to complete the high school, stay in good health and avoid poverty – positive indicators for their individual life and for the economy. But the downturn in teenagers who have children also contributes to a general lack of birth. Despite the increase in the number of babies that were born in the thirties and 40s, there are not enough births in these age groups to compensate for the babies that the teenagers do not have.

This is a problem because the fertility rate under 2.1 children per woman provides a number known as a replacement rate. The replacement rate is the result of a very simple math of the population: it requires two children to “replace” each of their two parents to maintain the future population (plus .01 to take into account the possibility of children, the young die). The fertility rate is currently 1.62 children per woman. This is not enough to replace the number of parents in the population while retiring and finally dying.

The number of people in the population of a nation – or the world population is largely important for economic reasons. If there are more people or children or children as people at work, social security is exhausted, and there will not be enough people who pay in them to restore the health insurers.

“I think there is reason to worry,” Phillip Levine, Professor of Economics in Wellesley College, told Yahoo Life. “Having a birth rate so low has an impact on society, including economic activity.” Fewer workers are likely to generate less edition. When populations shrink, slow creativity and innovation. “And our social security system is completely dependent on the fact that more children are” who contribute to the retirement security network, says Levine.

Give me a context

This is not new for the beginning. The fertility rates have decreased in the United States for almost 20 years, and we have not went beyond the replacement rate since 2007. The phenomenon is also not only for American families. The global fertility rate drops and the rate is about two thirds of the countries below the replacement level.

This is not quite bad. “I believe that the falling fertility rates all over the world and history are great,” said Philip Cohen, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, to Yahoo Life. “It was incredibly important for social progress, it increases the opportunities for children, gives people more opportunities on how they can lead their families and opened the professional world for women.” The larger proportion of women in the employment population is also a blessing for the economy and means that more income taxpayers are paid in state and federal budget.

But finally the conditions will turn around. Women (and men) who are now working will retire. The most important thing for maintaining a stable population is not so much that the number of babies, but the relationship of work to non -editing people. According to the arrival of baby boomers who were born between 1946 and 1964, this ratio was actually brought out of balance when less than 50% of Americans were born at work. In 2023, almost 54% of the Americans were in work age. However, since Boomer reach the retirement age and remain low, less adult workers will replace these boomers. In order to ensure economic stability, the United States needs more workers.

What should be done?

There are two important ways to ensure that the US population – or every country – does not shrink, experts say Yahoo live: babies and immigration.

Since 2015, immigrants and their children have been responsible for most of the growth in the US population in the work event and it is far the easiest and fastest way to expand the population. In 2022, 77% of immigrants in the United States were in work age, compared to 58% of the population born in the United States. On the whole, immigrants will arrive as adults.

On the other hand, it is a slower and expensive process to make babies into workers. “The production of more babies Today she will cost trillions more dollars before reaching the work age,” says Cohen. And in conjunction with the increasing number of baby boomers who leave the workforce, “the birth rate that is now increasing would only make things worse” because it would mean more aspiring people, “he adds. “The only problem for the American birth rate and the population is when they prefer American babies migration background.”

In this sense, increasing the birth rate is the simpler option. “Immigration is something that can quickly fill stains in the workforce, but it is and was always political,” Jennifer Sciubba, Demographer and Author of 8 billion and count: How sex, death and migration shape our worldPresent Yahoo tells life.

Demographic experts agree that the state efforts to have people to have children who are also known as pronatalist guidelines – such as paid parental leave, free early childcare and tax credits for children – are generally good for society. Other countries with falling birth rates and population groups, including Japan, Finland, China and Hungary, have tried to introduce a pronatalistic policy to promote population growth, but SCIUBBA says: “We do not see much success with countries, the pronatalist guidelines in the fact that they actually put the birth rates in.” Sciubba. “There is not much that the governments of the country can actually do.”

And although there is a reason to worry about national and global population declines, says Cohen that it is unrealistic, to be expected that the problem is solved by telling people that they should have more children. It may work on the side, but it is unlikely that it will convince enough families to make the birth needle sensibly. “People have no children for the well -being. You never did it, ”he says.