Edward Conard

Top Ten New York Times Bestselling Author

  • “…a must-read for serious students of economic policy.” - Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia Business School, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
  • “Unintended Consequences is full of substance, it is one of the must-read books of the year, and once I finish it I will be giving it a second read through right away.” - Tyler Cowen, Professor, George Mason University
  • “Unintended Consequences is far smarter and more thought-provoking than most economics written for the general public” - Greg Mankiw, Harvard University, Former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors
  • “Unintended Consequences provides a provocative interpretation of the causes of the global financial crisis and the policies needed to return to rapid growth. Whether you agree or not, this analysis is well worth reading.” - Nouriel Roubini, New York University; Chairman, Roubini Global Economics
  • “There are an amazing number of good ideas and interesting points made in Unintended Consequences. The thinking underlying it, and the obvious depth of understanding of the author, are very impressive.” - Steven Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics; 2004 John Bates Clark Medal
  • “…reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking.” - Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group, former Director of the National Economic Council
  • “…a comprehensive explanation of the modern economy.” - Julian Robertson, Founder, Tiger Management
  • “A full-throated defense of economic dynamism.” - The Wall Street Journal
  • “…a must-read for serious students of economic policy.” - Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia Business School, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
  • “Unintended Consequences represents the most cogent and persuasive analysis of the Financial Crisis to date.” - Andrei Shleifer, 1999 John Bates Clark Medal Winner
  • “Unintended Consequences should be read by anyone who takes for granted the superiority of progressive taxation and has not thought carefully about the trade-offs involved.” - The New Republic
  • “…reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking.” - Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group, former Director of the National Economic Council
Upside of Inequality Oxford Unintended Consequences

AI Summary. Across surveyed countries, intended fertility and the ideal number of children both declined, while children came to be seen more as a constraint on parental freedom and less as a source of status. Gender roles grew less traditional and housework more equally shared, yet the belief that a fulfilled life requires children weakened most of all attitudes measured.

Raquel Fernández, Inés Berniell and Milagros Onofri National Bureau of Economic Research
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Fernández et al. cast doubt on Goldin’s hypothesis that men’s limited willingness to share domestic responsibilities is central to fertility decline, pointing instead to the erosion of the belief that children are necessary for a fulfilling life.

Are shifting attitudes about children behind falling fertility intentions?

Core argument: Intended fertility fell in every Generations and Gender Survey country, from 28% to 21% on average, while the ideal number of children fell in 17 of 22 International Social Survey Programme countries, from 2.42 to 2.31.

Figure 1 documents how fertility outcomes and attitudes changed over the decade. Intended fertility fell in every GGS country, from 28 to 21% on average (Figure 1a). The ideal number of children fell in 17 of the 22 ISSP countries, from 2.42 to 2.31 on average (Figure 1b). [Children] became more likely to be seen as constraining parental freedom and less likely to be seen as conferring status (Figure 1c). Gender roles became less traditional, and the division of household work became more equal [Figures 1i]. Despite this greater sharing of chores and care, work–family conflict rose sharply. The decade saw changes that might have been expected to make the burden of children lighter, at least for women. Simultaneously, however, children became less attractive and, above all, less necessary: the belief that a fulfilled life requires children lost more ground than any attitude we measure [Table 2, Part II, Panel B].

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Intended fertility fell in every Generations and Gender Survey country, from 28% to 21% on average, while the ideal number of children fell in 17 of 22 International Social Survey Programme countries, from 2.42 to 2.31.
  2. Children became more likely to be seen as constraining parental freedom and less likely to be seen as conferring status, and the belief that a fulfilled life requires children lost more ground than any other attitude measured.
  3. Gender roles became less traditional and household work was divided more equally, yet work–family conflict rose sharply.

Related Articles:

  • The Rise of Female Autonomy and the Decline of Fertility: The Role of Mismatch — Across 22 countries, the gap between women's and men's daily hours of housework and caregiving is strongly correlated with lower total fertility rates. Countries that modernized rapidly show larger gender gaps in home work and lower fertility than those with more continuous economic growth since 1920.
  • Babies and the Macroeconomy — Fertility rates have fallen in nearly every country, but timing differed: some developed nations fell below the 2.1 replacement level as early as the 1970s, while others dropped to "lowest low" levels below 1.3. The author argues nations with rapid, discontinuous growth saw sharper declines as women's expectations outpaced tradition-bound men's willingness to share family time.
  • The Demographic Future of Humanity: Facts and Consequences — The authors estimate the world total fertility rate is around 2.17, below the global replacement rate of roughly 2.21, meaning humanity is already below replacement, with fertility and births falling faster than anticipated. They project middle-income countries' fertility may fall below that of rich countries outside East Asia, with emigration compounding population decline.

AI Summary. Global fertility is likely below the replacement level needed to keep population constant in the long run, though population momentum from large cohorts of women now having children means world population will keep growing for roughly another 30 years. Unless trends change, it is projected to peak near 9bn around 2056 and then decline.

Jesús Fernández-Villaverde and Patrick Norrick University of Pennsylvania
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The UN appears to systematically overestimate births; e.g. 33 of 37 countries with high-quality statistics registered fewer births in 2024 than the UN had forecast. Fernández-Villaverde and Norrick infer humanity is below replacement fertility in 2026.

Will world population keep growing even as fertility falls below replacement?

Core argument: As of 2026, humanity is likely to be below replacement fertility, with fewer births than needed to keep population constant in the long run.

In Table A1 we compare the World Population Prospects (WPP) estimates of births in 2022-2023 with the official numbers reported by several countries. [A2 shows the full sample with the deviations.] As of 2026, humanity is likely to be below the replacement fertility level: we are having fewer births than we need to keep population constant in the long run. This astonishing fact does not mean that population has stopped growing. Because of momentum effects (the large cohorts of women born two or three decades ago are having their children now, and their own parents have not died yet), world population will keep growing for another 30 years or so. But unless trends change, it will peak at roughly 9 billion around 2056 and then start falling, first slowly, then fast.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. As of 2026, humanity is likely to be below replacement fertility, with fewer births than needed to keep population constant in the long run.
  2. World population is set to keep growing for roughly another 30 years because of momentum effects, as large cohorts of women born two or three decades ago have their children while their own parents are still alive.
  3. Unless trends change, world population will peak at roughly 9 billion around 2056 and then start falling, first slowly, then fast.

Related Articles:

  • The Demographic Future of Humanity: Facts and Consequences — The authors estimate the world total fertility rate is around 2.17, below the global replacement rate of roughly 2.21, meaning humanity is already below replacement, with fertility and births falling faster than anticipated. They project middle-income countries' fertility may fall below that of rich countries outside East Asia, with emigration compounding population decline.
  • Depopulation Globally and in the Asia-Pacific: The Shape of Things to Come — Population aging and fertility below replacement levels are connected to a revolution in family structure in which families grow smaller, fewer people marry, and voluntary childlessness becomes common across countries. As a result, families become less able to bear the demands that may be placed on them.
  • The Wealth of Working Nations — Because of population aging, growth in GDP per capita and GDP per working-age adult have diverged across advanced economies; from 1998 to 2019 Japan's accumulated growth per working-age adult was 31.9% versus 29.5% in the US. The authors find a standard neoclassical growth model calibrated to each country's working-age population tracks output per working-age adult in most economies.

AI Summary. Immigration from Asia and Latin America has been the chief driver of rising US diversity and the declining non-Hispanic White share of the population. Intermarriage across racial and ethnic lines is far more common among Hispanic and Asian Americans, and rising among Black and non-Hispanic White Americans, leaving more people outside single racial categories.

Justin Fox Bloomberg
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Less than half of Americans < 29 years old are non-Hispanic whites. As of 2020, 33.8mm Americans – 10.2% of the population – identify as being of two or more races, largely driven by intermarriage between whites and either Hispanics or Asian Americans.

Are immigration and intermarriage making single racial categories obsolete?

Core argument: Immigration from Asia and Latin America since the 1960s has been the chief driver of rising U.S. diversity and the declining non-Hispanic White share of the population.

The increase in immigration from Asia and Latin America since the 1960s has been the chief driver of the rise in diversity and decline in the non-Hispanic White share of the population. But those immigrants have been doing what generations of immigrants before them did and, well, becoming Americans. Marriages across racial and ethnic lines are much more prevalent among Hispanic and Asian Americans than Black or non-Hispanic White Americans, while intermarriage rates have been rising steadily for the latter two groups, too. As a result, a growing share of Americans just isn’t going to fit neatly into any single racial or ethnic category that the US government can come up with.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Immigration from Asia and Latin America since the 1960s has been the chief driver of rising U.S. diversity and the declining non-Hispanic White share of the population.
  2. Intermarriage across racial and ethnic lines is much more prevalent among Hispanic and Asian Americans than among Black or non-Hispanic White Americans, though rates have been rising steadily for the latter two groups as well.
  3. A growing share of Americans does not fit neatly into any single racial or ethnic category the U.S. government defines, as recent immigrants follow earlier generations in becoming Americans.

Related Articles:

  • Do Adults Have the Skills They Need to Thrive in a Changing World? — An international assessment of adult skills describes numeracy proficiency levels ranging from counting objects and adding small whole numbers at the lowest level, to extracting information from tables and graphs and performing basic arithmetic with money and percentages at Level 1, up to analysing complex mathematical information and critically evaluating whether data support a claim at Level 5.
  • Do Past Wealth Gaps Explain Modern Inequality? Evidence From Immigration To The United States — Historical records indicate immigrants arriving in the United States around the turn of the twentieth century came with almost no wealth, and by 1920 nearly half of white adults were foreign-born or had foreign-born parents. Households of Southern or Eastern European ancestry, who arrived later with fewer resources, are on average wealthier than those of Northwestern European ancestry.
  • America’s Immigration Mess: An Illustrated Guide — Current Population Survey estimates indicate America's foreign-born population surpassed 50m for the first time and exceeded 15% of the national population, above the prior peak of 14.8% recorded in 1890. Mass immigration during that earlier wave was associated in contemporary opinion with widening income and wealth gaps and depressed wages for less-skilled native-born men, and sweeping national restrictions followed.

AI Summary. The surge of baby boomers, women, and immigrants entering the US labor force between 1960 and 1980 was difficult for the economy to absorb, and young workers' wages fell sharply after peaking in the early 1970s. The author argues those entrants kept occupying jobs and suppressing demand for new workers until retirement.

Steven Ruggles Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
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Accounting for both inflows and the overhang of previous labor market entrants, Ruggles predicts a labor shortage such that “Americans born in the 2020s might be the first cohort in a half century that earns significantly more than their parents did.”

How does a large influx of workers affect young workers' wages?

Core argument: Wages for young U.S. workers declined sharply after peaking in 1973, as the economy struggled to absorb the influx of workers entering the labor force between 1960 and 1980 from the baby-boom cohort, rising female participation, and increased immigration.

Figure 3A highlights the influx of workers that occurred between 1960 and 1980, as the large baby-boom cohort entered the labor force, female labor-force participation expanded, and immigration rose [see Figure 2 for a detailed breakdown]. It was difficult for the economy to absorb all the new workers, and wages for young people declined sharply after peaking in 1973. Figure 3A does not, however, provide a valid measure of labor-market competition because the baby boomers and newly employed women and immigrants did not suddenly vanish after they entered the labor force; they kept working and occupying jobs until they eventually retired decades later. The glut of workers entering the labor force in the 1970s would continue to stifle demand for new workers until their eventual exit from the labor force, a process that is still in progress. The index of employment competition shown in Figure 3B is [a better] measure of relative cohort size than 3A. It represents the cumulative net labor-market entries over the previous five decades as a % of the working-age population in the current decade. As shown in Figure 1C, we are already seeing signs of an uptick in the wages of young workers, and as the demographic shortage accelerates we may finally see real wages of the young exceed the levels of the early 1970s.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Wages for young U.S. workers declined sharply after peaking in 1973, as the economy struggled to absorb the influx of workers entering the labor force between 1960 and 1980 from the baby-boom cohort, rising female participation, and increased immigration.
  2. Decennial labor-force entries alone misstate labor-market competition, because baby boomers, newly employed women, and immigrants kept occupying jobs and stifling demand for new workers until their retirements, a process still in progress.
  3. An index of employment competition measuring cumulative net labor-market entries over the previous five decades as a percentage of the current decade's working-age population is offered as a better gauge of relative cohort size, with young workers' wages already showing an uptick.

Related Articles:

  • Baby Busts and Growth Booms: Demographic Change and the Macroeconomy — A 1pp lower birth rate 20 years earlier is associated with 22 log points higher output per worker 20 years later and 29 log points higher after 40 years, about 0.73pp faster annual growth. The authors find lower birth rates are also associated with more labor-saving patents, larger high-tech shares, and higher productivity growth.
  • Technology and the Baby Bust Paradox — Aging populations create structural incentives to automate, and the argument is that demographic change could become one of the strongest long-run drivers of artificial intelligence deployment. Technology-producing economies may benefit twice, offsetting their own labor shortages while exporting automation, robotics, and AI to other aging societies.
  • Can A Depopulating America Still Flourish? — US labor force participation among women aged 25-54 has reached all-time highs, exceeding its previous 1999 peak, yet remains over 4 points below Europe's level and nearly 6 points below Japan's. About 3.5m prime-age American women are neither working nor looking for work, without children at home or husbands, compared with roughly 7m such men.

AI Summary. A 1pp lower birth rate 20 years earlier is associated with 22 log points higher output per worker 20 years later and 29 log points higher after 40 years, about 0.73pp faster annual growth. The authors find lower birth rates are also associated with more labor-saving patents, larger high-tech shares, and higher productivity growth.

Daron Acemoglu, David Autor, Keelan Beirne and Andrew Scott National Bureau of Economic Research
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Cross-country evidence from 1950 to 2020 shows that a 1pp lower birth rate is associated with 22 log points (~25%) higher GDP per worker 40 years later and 29 log points (~44%) after 60 years, likely driven by labor-saving technical change.

Do lower birth rates raise output per worker decades later?

Core argument: A 1pp lower birth rate 20 years earlier is associated with 22 log points higher GDP per worker at t+20 and 29 log points by t+40, roughly 0.73 percentage points faster annual growth over the 40-year interval.

Figure 3 traces out how GDP per worker evolves following a 1pp increase in birth rates at t−20. Since cohorts born at t−20 (e.g., 1970) do not enter the working-age population until t = 0 (e.g., 1990), we should observe no response before t = 0; [indeed] the estimated coefficients are ~0 and statistically insignificant before t = 0. Beginning at t = 0, however, higher birth rates are associated with lower GDP per worker, and the negative effects grow progressively larger over time. For example, a 1pp lower birth rate at t−20 is associated with 22 log points higher GDP per worker at t+20 and 29 log points higher by t+40. The latter corresponds to roughly 0.73 percentage points faster annual growth over the 40-year interval. We find that lower birth rates are associated with more labor-saving patents and a growing share of high-tech industries across countries and US commuting zones [Figure 11]. They are also predictive of higher TFP growth across countries and US industries and increased patenting in ICT and broader automation technology classes. Using cross-country variation in WWII-era military and civilian deaths, we present suggestive evidence that the positive growth effects of falling birth rates are primarily driven by the scarcity of younger workers rather than by reductions in population per se [Figure 14]. [Editor’s note: the paper does not grapple with the fiscal consequences of an aging population.]

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. A 1pp lower birth rate 20 years earlier is associated with 22 log points higher GDP per worker at t+20 and 29 log points by t+40, roughly 0.73 percentage points faster annual growth over the 40-year interval.
  2. Estimated coefficients for GDP per worker are near zero and statistically insignificant before affected cohorts enter the working-age population at t = 0.
  3. Lower birth rates are associated with more labor-saving patents, a growing high-tech industry share across countries and US commuting zones, higher TFP growth, and more ICT and automation patenting, with WWII-era death variation offering suggestive evidence that scarcity of younger workers, rather than smaller population, drives the growth effects.

Related Articles:

  • Can A Depopulating America Still Flourish? — US labor force participation among women aged 25-54 has reached all-time highs, exceeding its previous 1999 peak, yet remains over 4 points below Europe's level and nearly 6 points below Japan's. About 3.5m prime-age American women are neither working nor looking for work, without children at home or husbands, compared with roughly 7m such men.
  • Capital Is Making a Comeback — Tangible investment in property, factories and equipment fell from 12.5% to 8.5% of private gross domestic product, while intangible investment in intellectual property, software and process knowledge rose from about 11.5% to 16.75%. The author argues demand for tangible capital investment will now have to rise.
  • America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1 — Building an identical robotic arm in the US costs about 2.2x more than in China, and US-labeled components still depend heavily on Chinese parts and materials with no scalable alternative. The author argues China is the only country positioned to capture full-scale intelligent robotic automation, which would let it outcompete the US across production.

AI Summary. Running standard demographic models—including the Cohort-Component, United Nations World Population Prospects, Lee-Carter, and Lotka-Volterra approaches—across all plausible analytical choices yields a wide range of possible global population outcomes for 2050 and 2075. The authors argue that presenting a single population trajectory hides the compounding uncertainty inherent in such projections.

Samuele Lo Piano, Marta Kuc-Czarnecka, Roger Pielke, and Andrea Saltelli Social Science Research Network
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Simulation of the decision chain yielding projections of world population in 2050 that range from 6 to 14B suggests most of the variance in demographic forecasts arises not from parameter uncertainty or data randomness but from model choice.

How much uncertainty do single-trajectory population projections hide?

Core argument: Propagating all plausible analytical choices through global population projections to 2050 and 2075 yields wide overall uncertainty distributions, with the Cohort-Component, UN World Population Prospects, Lee-Carter and Lotka-Volterra models showing distinct sensitivities and outcomes.

We explore demographic predictions by propagating all plausible choices that can be made during the analysis through the modelling process. This approach involves navigating the so-called ’garden of forking paths’—mimicking in silico what would happen if multiple investigators were to examine the same problem. For this, we now abandon [the Chinese government mathematician] Song Jian’s ‘historic’ model and turn to models currently in use: the Cohort-Component and UN WPP models, the Lee-Carter model and the Lotka-Volterra model. Note that in standard use, these tools are used in isolation, see e.g. the FAO’s How to Feed the World in 2050, resting on a single UN WPP population trajectory shielding the reader from the compounding effect of their uncertainty. Unsurprisingly, the exercise capturing the modelling of the modelling process for global population projections to 2050 and 2075 reveals distinct characteristics regarding the sensitivity and projection outcomes of the different models. Once abandoned the straitjacket of Song’s approach, uncertainty is free to manifest itself. The overall uncertainty distributions of the projected populations show a wide range of possible outcomes, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in demographic projections.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Propagating all plausible analytical choices through global population projections to 2050 and 2075 yields wide overall uncertainty distributions, with the Cohort-Component, UN World Population Prospects, Lee-Carter and Lotka-Volterra models showing distinct sensitivities and outcomes.
  2. Standard demographic practice uses these projection models in isolation, as in the FAO's How to Feed the World in 2050, which rests on a single UN World Population Prospects trajectory and shields readers from the compounding effect of their uncertainty.
  3. Abandoning Song Jian's historic model and navigating the "garden of forking paths"—mimicking in silico what would happen if multiple investigators examined the same problem—allows uncertainty in demographic projections to manifest itself.

Related Articles:

  • The Demographic Future of Humanity: Facts and Consequences — The authors estimate the world total fertility rate is around 2.17, below the global replacement rate of roughly 2.21, meaning humanity is already below replacement, with fertility and births falling faster than anticipated. They project middle-income countries' fertility may fall below that of rich countries outside East Asia, with emigration compounding population decline.
  • World Depopulation: Prospects and Implications — The US is projected to account for a growing share of the rich world's labor force, youth, and highly educated talent, with continuing population and labor force growth and only moderate aging through 2050. Its fertility, though below replacement, exceeds that of East Asian and nearly all European countries, and sustained legal immigration is essential to this demographic advantage.
  • Take the Under — Downward revisions to global population and GDP projections make climate change appear more tractable, the author argues, since the scenarios used to model emissions rely on socio-economic assumptions that are more extreme than real-world observations. With slower population and economic growth, even partial policy successes could bring emissions consistent with a 2C target within reach.

AI Summary. Census Bureau microdata analysis finds that in Illinois annual out-migration by households earning under $50K fell by 104K while out-migration by households earning over $200K rose by 54K. Across the Midwest, adults with a bachelor's degree or higher now make up 57% of out-migrants, up from around 40%.

Aziz Sunderji Home Economics
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The “Brain Drain” is ongoing in the Midwest. The fraction of adult out-migrants with at least a bachelor’s degree is now 57%, up from ~40% in 2005. “It’s the most educated and highest-earning that are still leaving in droves.”

Are the most educated and highest-earning residents leaving the Midwest?

Core argument: Annual out-migration by Illinois households earning over $200K rose by 54K between 2014–15 and 2023–24, according to the author's analysis of Census Bureau microdata.

Take Illinois, the most populous Midwestern state: my analysis of Census Bureau microdata shows that between 2014–15 and 2023–24, annual out-migration by households earning under $50K fell by 104K. Out-migration by Illinois households earning over $200K rose by 54K over the same period. Across the region, the trend along educational lines is the same: the bachelor’s-or-higher share of adult out-migrants is now 57%, up from around 40% in 2005. It’s the most educated and highest-earning that are still leaving in droves.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Annual out-migration by Illinois households earning over $200K rose by 54K between 2014–15 and 2023–24, according to the author's analysis of Census Bureau microdata.
  2. Annual out-migration by Illinois households earning under $50K fell by 104K between 2014–15 and 2023–24, according to the author's analysis of Census Bureau microdata.
  3. Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher make up 57% of out-migrants from the Midwest, up from around 40% in 2005.

Related Articles:

  • Housing and the American Worker — Wages net of housing costs were once substantially higher in high-density areas than low-density areas for workers both with and without college education, but over the past half-century that urban wage premium has persisted only for college-educated workers, not for those with a high school degree or less.
  • Where is Standard of Living the Highest? Local Prices and the Geography of Consumption — The authors estimate that geographical differences in cost of living are especially large for low-income US households, and that expensive cities offer college graduates a standard of living similar to affordable cities while offering less-educated households a lower one. A high school dropout household moving from the most affordable to the most expensive commuting zone would see consumption fall 18.5%.
  • The Determinants Of Declining Internal Migration — A 10% increase in wages where people live is associated with 3.5% less migration, while a 10% increase in destination wages is associated with 7.8% more migration; a 10% rise in destination home prices is associated with 2.6% less migration. The authors find wage responses alone would have raised migration rates, but housing-related factors more than offset them.

AI Summary. Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the U.S. general fertility rate at a record low of 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, with childbearing shifting toward older women. The total number of births held at roughly 3.6m for a sixth straight year.

Anthony DeBarros, Paul Overberg and Andrea Petersen Wall Street Journal
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The US’s total fertility rate likely hit a record low of 1.57 in 2025, according to provisional CDC data. Childbearing continued to shift toward older women with the birthrate for American women 35–39 exceeding that of women 20–24 for the first time.

Why has the U.S. fertility rate fallen to a record low?

Core argument: The U.S. general fertility rate fell to a record low of 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15–44 in 2025, according to provisional CDC data, with childbearing continuing to shift toward older women.

The nation’s fertility rates hit record lows in 2025 as childbearing continued to shift toward older women, according to new federal data released Thursday. For the sixth straight year, the number of children born in the U.S. remained at roughly 3.6 million. The number of births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44—the general fertility rate—reached a record low of 53.1 in 2025, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate has mostly headed down since 2007, a prerecession peak when millennial women started to enter their prime childbearing years. While non-Hispanic white women saw a small increase in births last year, births by women of other racial and ethnic groups declined slightly.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. The U.S. general fertility rate fell to a record low of 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15–44 in 2025, according to provisional CDC data, with childbearing continuing to shift toward older women.
  2. The number of U.S. births held at roughly 3.6 million for the sixth consecutive year, even as the fertility rate has mostly declined since its 2007 prerecession peak, when millennial women began entering their prime childbearing years.
  3. Non-Hispanic white women saw a small increase in births in 2025, while births by women of other racial and ethnic groups declined slightly, according to the CDC data.

Related Articles:

  • The US Has One of the Highest Fertility Rates Among Peer Countries — The tempo-adjusted fertility rate, which accounts for shifts in the timing of births, shows the US rate falling since roughly 2009-10 and dropping below the 2.1 births-per-woman replacement level around 2017, reaching 1.82 in 2022. The US decline is less severe than in many peer countries.
  • The Eldest Millennials Had the Same Fertility as the Youngest Baby Boomers — Completed fertility for US women aged 41–44 has been stable for more than two decades, with the large decline having occurred earlier; among those with at least one native-born parent it averaged 1.88 children versus 1.87. What changed is timing: 30-year-old women averaged 1.34 children versus 0.98.
  • Depopulation Globally and in the Asia-Pacific: The Shape of Things to Come — Population aging and fertility below replacement levels are connected to a revolution in family structure in which families grow smaller, fewer people marry, and voluntary childlessness becomes common across countries. As a result, families become less able to bear the demands that may be placed on them.