The link between higher income and fewer kids holds over time as well. Between 2010 and 2019, birth rates fell the most in U.S. counties with strong job growth—exactly the opposite of what you’d expect if money or lack of jobs was holding people back from having kids. A recent paper by three economists concluded that economic factors, including the cost of rent and student loan debt, were not the major driver of falling birth rates. Instead it was “shifting priorities across cohorts of young adults”—in other words, generational differences in attitudes.
