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By Jordan King
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The time is "ripe for a mini baby boom," but it remains to be seen where it will come to fruition, The Heritage Foundation has said.
The think tank, which authored Project 2025, the conservative manifesto for how the U.S. should be restructured under a Republican president, published a new report on U.S. fertility last Tuesday.
Newsweek has contacted the Heritage Foundation, via email, for comment.
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The Context
The United States is one of several countries that is struggling with population decline, driven by lower fertility rates.
America's fertility rate is now projected to average 1.6 births per woman over the next three decades, according to the Congressional Budget Office's latest forecast released in 2025. This is well below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman required to maintain a stable population without immigration.
Two academics from The Heritage Foundation previously argued that education policy discourages Americans from starting families in favor of attending university and also suppresses religious beliefs that encourage high fertility rates.
What To Know
The U.S. had its largest-ever cohort of women in their late twenties between the years 2016 and 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
These women are now in their early 30s, the age at which women have the highest fertility rate, meaning the time is "ripe for a mini baby boom," The Heritage Foundation argues.
But the thinktank fears this boom may be "forgone altogether," because "a rise in births has not materialized"—although it added: "Time will tell if births have simply been postponed."
This warning is a reference to The Heritage Foundation's main argument in its report, that "much of the recent decline in fertility is a result of women increasingly postponing births" influenced by "the fact that men and women in the U.S. have been increasingly delaying marriage."
This leads to a reduction in "the window of opportunity that women have to decide to have children with a stable and reliable partner," the foundation says.
It continues: "But if fertility intentions are not realized in time, postponed fertility becomes forgone fertility. As marriage and childbearing continue to happen later in life, it is likely that more postponed fertility will become forgone fertility."
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What People Are Saying
Population Reference Bureau's senior program director, Beth Jarosz, previously told Newsweek that, in 2025, "the country will be a bit older, the total number of births will be a bit lower, and people will still have trouble finding housing that meets their needs."
Dowell Myers, a professor of policy, planning and demography at the University of Southern California, previously told Newsweek that this year will see "most of the millennials spill across the 30-year age threshold, after which fertility can't be delayed much further and when intentions for homeownership are strengthening even more."
What Happens Next
The number of women in their early thirties, is projected to be the "largest cohort of reproductive age women under 40 in history."
The Heritage Foundation has called for "public policies that aim to help to women attain the number of children they want."
It says: "While the total fertility rate has declined in recent years, Americans' ideal family size has not—perhaps an indication that women would like to have more children than they are on track for having.
"If the desire for children among women soon to enter their peak childbearing years has not diminished relative to past cohorts, public policies aimed at helping couples achieve their desired fertility could have their greatest impact if implemented now and over the next 10 years."
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