Millennials and Gen Z are less enthusiastic about having children than their parents. The reasons are many: financial, social, and biological, along with the preference among the younger generation for “freedom”.
America’s declining fertility rate has been a problem for decades. During the Great Recession of 2008, millennials delayed getting married and having children, causing fertility rates to drop.
Then, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a short “baby-bust”, when conceptions decreased slightly. A few months later, the rate rose again but it was insignificant compared to the daily death toll.
Over the next few decades, demographers expect population growth to slow again. But there is one hope for increasing the US population: immigrants.
A report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released Tuesday predicts that the nation’s population will be close to 373 million in 2053, up by almost 3 million from last year’s CBO estimate. Distinction? Increase in immigrants over the next three decades.
The current US population is 334.3 million.
Over the next 30 years, CBO projects a decline in births compared to deaths. By isolation, it means that the population will decline rather than grow.
But long-term population growth will be “driven by immigration as fertility rates remain below the levels needed for generations to replace themselves without immigration,” the report said.
Still, the rate of population growth through 2053 will still be only one-third that between 1983 and 2022, the CBO said.
US immigration rates are influenced by many factors.
William H. Frey, a demographer and senior fellow at Brookings Metro, a think tank, wrote in an analysis of census data earlier this month that government policies and economic trends impact immigration. “In the mid-2010s, the country received more than 1 million net immigrants from abroad every year. But mostly due to government restrictions, that dropped to 477,000 in 2019-20,” he said.
In addition to immigration patterns, the CBO report also predicts the population will age in the coming decades, with more Americans falling into the “65 and over” bracket. This may be why the forecast shows deaths exceeding births in 2042.
The CBO estimates offer some optimism because they still predict growth in the population, much of which is attributed to the prime age, between 25 and 54 years old. The segment will grow by 1.1 million per year, which means more individuals in the economy can work.
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