The birth rate in the US has declined. One reason is economics not moral failure | Moira Donegan

For years the US has made domestic policy that has punished women for becoming mothers, and de-incentivized those who want to have as many children as they would like

Last month, the Brookings Institution updated a June survey on American fertility, concluding that 2021 would see a sharp drop in US births. The pandemic and its attendant economic recession would result in 300,000 to 500,000 fewer births in 2021, Brookings estimated, threatening what the thinktank called a baby bust". Brookings also cited a study by the left-leaning Guttmacher Institute, a group that tracks data related to reproductive rights and health. That study - based on an internet survey of roughly 2,000 straight women of childbearing age - found that a staggering 34% of respondents had chosen to wait to get pregnant, or to have fewer children, as a result of the pandemic. As corroborating evidence, the authors of the Brookings report also cited data from the University of Indiana and the Kinsey Institute that indicate that Americans, and particularly those with school age children, are having less sex since the advent of coronavirus restrictions.

Declining birth rates in the United States are a longstanding trend, consistent with similar phenomena in nations where women have gained greater economic independence and greater control over their own bodies. And the sharp downturn in fertility in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic is not unique to the United States, as the trend has also been seen in among women in European countries that were hit hard by the virus. The acute downturn in American fertility is likely temporary: sharp declines in births, followed by rapid increases, have been typical in the midst of historic events that caused mass disruptions to family life, such as the second world war. It's likely that if life ever goes back to something like what it was before the pandemic, birth rates will go back to their previous levels, too.