Fertility Decline: A Consistent Life Ethic Mom’s Perspective

by Christy Yao Pelliccioni

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In college, I had an interesting pair of minors: Geography and Management of Aging Services. In both disciplines, I learned about something I hadn’t really had exposure to before: demographics. 

In my Geography courses, which included Environmental Studies, the overwhelming sentiment was that the Earth’s population had stabilized fairly well overall, though there was concern for those living in countries where the population was not well balanced, either skewing too young or too old. In my Aging Services courses, even though we were looking at the same raw data, an emphasis was put on how a society was much better off when there were plenty of young people to support the elderly. A robust fertility rate is excellent for this purpose, but immigration is an additional way to reach this goal. 

In my professional life since college, I have worked with both the elderly and young children. Working in elder care, I see how lonely people can be when they do not have children to visit them or only have one or two children who cannot see them often. It certainly impacts the quality of the seniors’ life when they do not have children to assist and advocate for them. In addition, the vast majority of my co-workers in elder care are immigrants or first-generation Americans. Without them, there would certainly not be enough of us to care for the clients we serve. 

When I worked on the other end of the spectrum, in daycare, it struck me how much families were paying to have their very young children cared for. Add to the cost of daycare the cost of diapers, housing, and food, and you realize that having a child is not cheap. 

I am now experiencing this firsthand with my own two kids. My husband and I have to make tough decisions about careers, childcare, and even whether to try to have more children based simply on what we can afford. We would love to have more children, but our finances are already stretched very thin. Hopefully someday one of us will move up enough in our careers that growing our family doesn’t seem like a pipe dream. The problem is, by then it might be too late. And it seems like many Americans are facing this dilemma. 

According to National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, the US fertility rate is now the lowest ever recorded. In 2025, there were about 700,000 fewer babies born than at the United States’ peak in 2007. Population growth dropped 50% just between 2024 and 2025. 

For a long time, the US birth rate was stable compared to countries in Asia and Europe. When the Great Recession hit in 2007, the fertility rate started dropping and never recovered. Until recently, demographics were stabilized by immigration. Immigration has improved demographic structure because, for the most part, immigrants worked jobs and started families. However, the Trump administration has greatly reduced the number of immigrants in the United States. With less immigration and lower birth rates, the United States will have roughly 8 million fewer residents by 2055 than once predicted. 

According to Melissa Kearney, an economist at the University of Notre Dame, the combination of fewer babies and fewer immigrants will have lots of consequences. Taxes may increase dramatically. The United States will have to figure out a way to be as productive with fewer people of working age. 

Brian Mann of NPR reports that there is no consensus over why exactly US fertility is falling. Some say economic pressures, while others say cultural shifts and an increase in contraception and education is the root cause of this dip. 

Economist Martha Bailey of the California Center for Population Research at the University of California Los Angeles says one possibility is that women are delaying motherhood and will have children later in life. A CDC study from March 2025 shows that fertility rates are increasing for women in their 30s and 40s. This, however, is not happening fast enough to stabilize the fertility rate. Bailey says it makes sense to have policy discussions around ideas that might make it easier for couples to choose to have more or any children at all. 

One possible explanation for this demographic shift that struck me as interesting is higher use of contraception, lower sexual activity in youth, and access to abortion. 

On the NPR Program All Things Considered, it was discussed why there has been a drop in teen pregnancy. In 2025, nearly 126,000 babies were born to mothers aged 15-19. The birth rate for that group became 11.7 births per 1,000 females. For comparison, in 1991, the birth rate for that age group was 61.8 births per 1,000 females. 

Bianca Allison, a pediatrician and associate professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and fellow at Physicians for Reproductive Health, says the lower rates of teen pregnancy are due to an increase in contraception, a decrease in sexual activity of youth, and access to abortion. On the program, Allison asserted that the problems teen parents face are a lack of support, not a lack of an ability to parent. Allison insists that although there are fewer teen parents, there is still a need to help those who do have children young. 

So where does the Consistent Life Ethic fit into all of this? I think most people will agree that the decrease in teenage pregnancy is a good thing. Those who hold a Consistent Life Ethic would argue it is better to carry a pregnancy to term than for a teenager to have an abortion. As mentioned above, support is needed for young parents. 

I would say the question of having children in your 20s versus your 30s or beyond varies among people and situations. I was able to finish my graduate degree and somewhat further my career with two little ones in tow. But I had lots of support from my family and my husband. Would we be in a better place financially if we had waited until later in our 30s to have kids? Probably. But who knows if I could have gotten pregnant as easily a few years down the road? Besides, I can’t imagine the past few years without my two little sidekicks!