The U.S. birth rate plunged to an all-time low in 2024 after being on a downward trajectory for roughly 20 years, with soaring housing costs widely cited as a major contributing factor.
Earlier this summer, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released updated birth data for the previous year, revealing that the nation’s fertility rate decreased to fewer than 1.6 kids per woman, down from 2.1 kids per woman recorded in 2006, which is the rate the country needs to sustain its population.
The last two decades saw women increasingly delaying having children, or choosing not to have them at all. There are many factors fueling this trend, including personal and cultural, and one of them is the rising housing costs, according to some experts.
Data analyzed by Realtor.com® economists show that from 2006 to 2024, the financial burden of purchasing a home has grown dramatically.
In 2006, the median price of a single-family home was $221,923, which translates to about $343,806 in 2024 dollars when adjusted for inflation. By comparison, the median sale price in 2024 was $410,100, more than $66,000 higher in real terms than the 2006 equivalent.
Over the same 18-year period, the U.S. total fertility rate dropped from about 2.1 births per woman to just under 1.6 births.
What experts say
“Larger homes that can comfortably accommodate multiple children have become increasingly out of reach for many families,” says Realtor.com senior economic research analyst Hannah Jones. “As prices have far outpaced wage growth, couples may delay homeownership or remain in smaller homes longer, limiting the space available for growing families.”
A study published by the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research in 2012 found that home prices have a significant impact on family planning.
In the research paper titled “House Prices and Birth Rates: The Impact of the Real Estate Market on the Decision to Have a Baby,” authors Lisa Dettling and Melissa Schettini Kearney write that a 10% jump in home prices leads to a 1% drop in births among non-homeowners in an average metro.
As part of the study, Dettling, principal economist with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and Schettini Kearney, then a research associate at the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Economics, looked at fertility rates of women ages 20 to 44 in 66 metros from 1990 through 2006.
During that 16-year stretch, U.S. birth rates remained relatively flat as average median home sale prices steadily increased.
The paper explains that rising home prices exert downward pressure on birth rates because they represent, on average, the largest expense associated with raising a child, far surpassing food, child care, and education.
So when the price of housing goes up, the cost of having children follows suit, leading some couples to pump the brakes on having kids, or to have fewer children over their lifetime. Additionally, the paper suggests that house price changes are even more important than unemployment rates in driving birth rates.
“House prices are a relevant factor in a couple’s decision to have a baby,” write Dettling and Schettini Kearney.
Jones points out that for prospective parents, the financial stress of competing for scarce, expensive housing can make the prospect of having additional offspring “seem less feasible or even risky.”
On the other hand, for existing homeowners, rising home prices can actually spur a baby boom.
For the typical U.S. family, housing makes up a large portion of household wealth in the form of equity, so when home prices increase, the homeowners’ wealth grows as well. According to the paper, this can lead them to have children sooner and to have more of them.
On top of that, cash-strapped families who own a home can even use their equity to pay for child-related expenses such as schooling.
Other factors impacting birth rates
It’s important to note, however, that when it comes to national fertility rates, housing costs represent just one factor, which is why there are periods in recent history when both home prices and birth rates trended up at the same time.
Jones explains that in the early 2000s, expanding credit and economic growth made larger homes more attainable. Feeling financially secure, many Americans opted to welcome more children, even as home prices increased.
But from 2008 through 2011, both home prices and birth rates nosedived.
“The housing bust and Great Recession not only reduced home values but also pushed up unemployment, delaying or derailing the plans of families hoping to buy homes and have children,” says Jones.
After 2012, home prices began rising again while the birth rate continued declining, suggesting that higher costs and tighter supply in the post-recession housing market have increasingly become a barrier to having children.
Put simply, as the financial hurdle of buying larger homes to accommodate larger families has risen, many Americans have been forced to either put off having kids, or have fewer of them, or none, reinforcing the downward trend in U.S. birth rates.
“This doesn’t make housing the sole cause of falling birth rates, but it is likely an important structural constraint on family size in today’s economy,” notes Jones.
Geography and fertility rates
Location also plays an important part in family planning.
A 2012 study authored by Dr. William A. V. Clark, a research professor of geography at UCLA, found that women living in expensive housing markets like New York City or Boston delay having their first child by three to four years.
Clark points out that pricier metros have a higher share of women with advanced college degrees who are interested in pursuing careers, which may lead them to put off motherhood.
“We can suggest that high cost housing markets create a threshold for fertility behavior,” writes Clark, adding, however, that there is no evidence that expensive housing markets suffer from lower completed fertility rates—the actual number of children born to women by the end of their childbearing years—compared with more affordable markets.
So even if women put off having their first child by a few years to focus on their eduction or work goals, the researcher argues that they are “still able to complete their fertility expectations” over time.
Low birth rates raise concerns
The record low fertility rate of fewer than 1.6 kids per woman that was recorded last year set off alarm bells in Washington, DC, this year, prompting the administration of President Donald Trump to issue an executive order aimed at expanding families’ access to in vitro fertilization, and consider offering “baby bonuses” in a bid to convince couples to have more children, as The Associated Press reported in July.
But Dr. Leslie Root, a University of Colorado Boulder researcher studying fertility and population policy, insisted that there is no real cause for concern.
“We’re seeing this as part of an ongoing process of fertility delay. We know that the U.S. population is still growing, and we still have a natural increase—more births than deaths,” she told the AP.
The fact is, Americans are marrying later than before and women are waiting longer to get pregnant for a variety of reasons, including financial concerns, and employment and economic uncertainty. Researchers agree this trend is not about to change anytime soon.
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