US Birth Rate is Below Necessary Replacement Rate of 2.1 Per Woman

Articles | July 30, 2026 | by Catholics for Catholics

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The Institute for Family Studies released what is possibly the longest historical look at birth rates in the United States’ population and found that US birth rates are now an average of less than 1.6 children per woman.

The report found that “the U.S. is now in its third historic period of extended below-replacement-rate fertility” and that “this current period of decline is already longer than previous declines, has fallen to lower lows, and is more widely shared around the country.”

Crucially, peer culture is a significant factor in inspiring family sizes. “Having very helpful versus relatively unsupportive friends can increase desired family size for young Americans by nearly an entire child per family and can increase a couple’s intentions to have another child by about 10 percentage points (an increase of about a third),” the report reads. 

This peer culture even extends to celebrities: being a fan of a celebrity who has children can impact an individual’s desire to have more children or their own.

The Institute for Family Studies recommends a unique proposal to combat the concerning birth statistics: baby bonuses. 

The authors write that “generous baby bonuses worth five or six figures can be paid for with less than 1% of the federal budget; in fact, they’re cheaper than recently proposed child care or parental leave expansions. Massive increases in the generosity of family policy do not have to be fiscally reckless.”

Interestingly, western states have historically had higher average birth rates while urban, eastern states have had the lowest rates. The states of Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia have had lower birth rates than the national average since the 1970s.

The only state in the country meeting replacement-rate fertility is South Dakota. 

The Institute recommends five specific reforms:

• Implementing a Finnish proposal called Vauvasampo, in which every child born as a U.S. citizen has a certain amount of money invested in their name. The report notes that the Trump Accounts are a “good start” but Vauvasampo is a more complete proposal.
• Child caregiver credits: as explained by the Institute, “if a person has a child under the age of 5 at home, for the purposes of future Social Security benefit calculations, they should be ‘credited’ as if they were still working at their income levels 1-3 years before birth, adjusted for inflation.”
• End marriage penalties: According to the report, when Sweden, Canada, and the United Kingdom switched from joint-filing to individual-filing systems for taxes and welfare, the fertility rates in those countries sharply rose. The Institute argues that reforms are needed to end any kind of loss of benefit with marriage.
• Build family housing: according to federal data, there has not been any increase in residential square footage per capita in the United States in the past 25 years. As home prices continue to rise, many families feel like setting down permanent roots is a far-off, even impossible goal.
• Family-impact budgeting: simply put, every policy considered at the state and federal level should consider how the proposal might impact marriage and fertility.