As the U.S. birth rate continues to shrink, new research is showing that increasing housing prices and shrinking apartment sizes may be exacerbating the fertility crisis.
In July, federal data showed that the birth rate had reached an all-time low of 1.6 children per woman, after steadily falling from the 2.1 replacement level rate over the course of the last two decades. At the same time, polling data compiled by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) surveying almost 9,000 adults age 18-54 found that almost 80% want a single-family home, with just 8% saying their ideal residence is an apartment. As IFS’s survey revealed, most Americans want single-family homes for raising their children because they provide more space than apartments and housing units.
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However, as the research noted, many young families are being priced out of starter homes. “[M]edian home prices in metro areas rose from 5.1 times young adult incomes in 1969 to 11.4 times their incomes today,” the IFS report states, adding that “Homeownership prevalence for Americans under age 35 has fallen from 50% between 1960 and 1980 to just 30% today.”
This means that young American families often “have no choice but to consider launching their family from an apartment,” IFS Senior Fellow Lyman Stone points out. Another contributing factor to this phenomenon is the fact that construction of new apartment buildings is outpacing the construction of new single-family homes, with the share of buildings with 20 or more units jumping from 17% in 2010 to 34% today.
To make matters worse for young families, these new apartments are getting smaller. Stone’s research found that the square footage of housing units has fallen from 1,300 in 2010 to just over 1,000 today. At the same time, “family-friendly apartments with 2+ bedrooms have declined from over 50% of apartments to under 40%.”
Further research by Stone found that the fertility rates of married couples living in apartments were lower than couples living in single-family homes. An IFS survey of 6,000 reproductive-age adults uncovered one reason behind this: “housing costs are burdening their family choices — the high cost of single-family housing is keeping young people in small apartments.” But cost is not the only reason, it’s also the fact that suitable houses simply aren’t available: “Americans who don’t live in their ideal house type (mostly young Americans in apartments) and who are childless but want to have kids are by far the likeliest to report that a lack of suitable housing is one reason for why they live where they do.”
Stone concludes by highlighting a clear unmet need in the American housing market: the pent-up demand for housing with more bedrooms. “The ideal way to address this problem would be to build more of the starter-home neighborhoods young Americans want,” he argues.
Other experts like Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, agree. “There are many parts of American culture that people don’t realize are family-unfriendly,” she told The Washington Stand. “As this study shows, smaller apartments really do cause couples to think, ‘Where would we put another baby?’ And unfortunately, when weighing whether the joy of another baby in the family is worth the price of being cramped, many couples value space over kids.”
“But this isn’t the only spot where the subliminal message of ‘don’t have more children’ is transmitted,” Szoch added. “We see it in neighborhoods without sidewalks, or family restaurants with tables limited to four or six, in the major increase in the cost of a vehicle that seats more than four, and in the lack of true neighborliness, which makes raising several children away from families nearly impossible.”
“With America facing a population crisis, we should examine all of the areas of our society that make couples wonder if having more children is possible for them,” Szoch emphasized. “Our churches, in particular, have an obligation to be as family-friendly as possible. Perhaps this means something small like offering parking for moms with kids, or maybe it’s something larger like free tuition for every child after the third or fourth who attends the church’s school. If our churches don’t step up and start encouraging couples to have more children, no one else will — and things like smaller apartments will discourage couples from adding one more gift from God to the mix.”
“America needs more families having children and raising them to be good citizens who love God, their country, and their neighbor,” Szoch concluded. “If we are ever going to reverse the population crisis, now is the time to start.”
LifeNews Note: Dan Hart writes for the Family Research Council. He is the senior editor of The Washington Stand.
