Fertility Declines and Why We Care

Learnings from the Pew Charitable Trust

Today, most states find themselves in a relatively healthy fiscal position, my own state, New Jersey being something of an exception. Fewer births in recent years have contributed appreciable cost savings. (Thanks pandemic?) Teenage pregnancies are down, which eases the strain on health expenditures. Center for Disease Control data on immigrants show that as incomes rise, fertility falls. Elon Musk can't make up for that by himself.

However, if low fertility persists, the demographics will touch nearly every area of state budgets in the coming years. Domestic migration and international immigration will counterbalance some effects. Even so the implications for individual states vary: Those with a shrinking workforce and dependent on Federal subsidies are going to be vulnerable to lower income and sales taxes.

Colleges and universities have been feeling the effects of fewer college-age students. Some college towns in New England and the Midwest have to be worrying. Nationwide, undergraduate college enrollment dropped 8% from 2019 to 2022, with declines even after?returning to in-person classes, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse. Some of that is the sky-high cost of tuition which changes cost-benefit analysis of a college degree. Another part of the problem is that brick-and-mortar institutions of higher learning don't scale down well, while online education does.

I believe that many male lawmakers have this economic situation in the back of their minds when they fight women for control of their bodily autonomy. You're pregnant? That's one more baby for our state! How dare you think of what's best for you and your family.

To conclude this unusually personal essay, I want to say that the economic effects of population decline need to be elevated. Let's deflect from some of the other issues and look at what might be behind them - that's not just Tucker Carlson level sexism and racism. Sermon wrapped! Cheers.