COLUMN: Viewpoint – Dealing with a declining birthrate

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/06/2025 (407 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“I want more babies in the United States.” American Vice-President J.D. Vance made that statement in his first public address after taking office. Elon Musk, who until just recently, has been President Donald Trump’s right-hand man, said, “The birth rate is very low in almost every country and unless that changes, civilization will disappear.” Musk, the father of at least 14 offspring, with a string of different women, is clearly doing his part to boost the rapidly declining number of children in the world.

President Trump has suggested a variety of tactics to increase the American birthrate like giving women who have children a $5,000 check, reserving a percentage of university scholarships for students with children, or presenting new parents with a medal. During his campaign, he promised to support couples who needed in vitro fertilization to get pregnant. But he recently cut funding to the Centre for Disease Control which does the majority of IVF research. While it is true the abortion bans imposed by many American states have increased their birth rates, at the same time, planned cuts to medical care and other social supports, will increase their rising infant mortality rates, so the overall impact will be negligible. Experts say the kind of solutions the current Trump administration is suggesting, will have little effect on the American birth rate.

Declining birthrates are of serious concern all around the world, in places like Japan, Italy, France and South Korea. One in four people now live in a country with falling birth rates. Here in Canada, the fertility rate reached its lowest point ever in 2023. I listened to a radio interview with economist Armine Yalnizyan who talked about how the Canadian economy will be negatively impacted by our declining birth rate. It means a much smaller number of young people are entering the work force, at the same time as there is a rise in the population of those more than eighty years old. Elder care has already become too heavy a financial burden for younger working generations to bear. We used to rely on a large immigrant influx to boost our work force, but now we are cutting back on the number of immigrants who are allowed to enter Canada. Who will take their place?

Why are birth rates declining? Partly it’s because more women are getting a higher education and prioritizing building a career. Couples are waiting longer to have children, so they don’t have as many. But the primary reason birth rates are declining has to do with economics. Housing and food are now so costly that both parents need to work in order to make ends meet and since having children is expensive, they have decided they can’t afford more kids. In 2023 Canadian women were having on average 1.26 babies.

One might think that more affordable childcare, generous maternity and paternity leave, free health care and quality public education would increase the birth rate. These are all things most Americans sadly lack, but most Canadians enjoy. However even in countries like those in Scandinavia, with the world’s best social supports, the birth rate is declining.

So what can we do about the declining birth rate? Quite possibly nothing, except to start investing immediately in research that will come up with innovative adaptions we can make to our societal structures, our work force, the nature of our communities, the framework of our families, and the health of our medical and educational systems to account for the fact, that in the future, there are going to be fewer children born each year into this world.