'The birth-rate crisis is really an affordability crisis'

The cost of raising a family has gotten significantly more expensive over the last decade, rising faster than wages.

Gen Z women are "dramatically less likely to want children than all three of the previous generations," according to a recent report from the Atlanta Fed.

This is due in part to changing preferences, which the report's writers said are likely attributable to financial costs, a lack of social support, shifting societal norms, and safety and health concerns about having children.

The cost of raising a family has gotten significantly more expensive over the last decade, rising faster than wages. Basic expenses for families supporting children - such as housing, transportation and food - increased by 60% between 2016 and 2024, according to data from LendingTree (TREE).

Median wages for workers ages 25 and older, meanwhile, increased by just 42% during the same period.

"Having a kid is daunting in about a hundred different ways, period - but it's just getting more and more challenging financially," Matt Schultz, chief consumer-finance analyst at LendingTree, told MarketWatch.

The fertility rate in the U.S. fell to 1.6 in 2024, from 1.8 in 2016.

"Moms tell us it is only getting harder and harder to afford the basics and give their kids a strong start in life," Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director and CEO of MomsRising, told MarketWatch. "It's no surprise many are having fewer children. The birth-rate crisis is really an affordability crisis."

In 2016, households with children under age 18 had about $18,000 in additional annual expenses compared to households without children, according to a LendingTree analysis.

By 2024, households with children had about $29,000 of additional annual expenses, even after accounting for a $1,000 increase to the child tax credit, LendingTree estimated.

About half of those rising costs, or more than $6,000, were attributable to higher childcare costs.

As the cost of living continues to squeeze household budgets, affordability issues are leading voters' concerns ahead of November's midterm elections - particularly among households with kids.

"Concern about the cost of raising a family has been on the rise over the last two years," according to the latest American Family Survey by Brigham Young University. In 2023, 33% of survey respondents selected costs as among the most important issues families faced; by 2025, that share rose to 49%.

Concern among higher-income families increased as well, "possibly reflecting inflationary pressures, housing costs or broader economic uncertainties that are beginning to affect family expenses even at the upper end of the income spectrum," according to the BYU survey.

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"Parents are facing impossible choices between putting gas in their tanks and paying for prescription medications, between buying healthy food and paying the soaring cost of childcare," Rowe-Finkbeiner said. She added that many mothers say they are skipping out on their own healthcare so that their kids can go to the doctor, or skipping meals so their kids don't go hungry.

"Families don't need to be convinced to have babies - they need to be able to afford them," Rowe-Finkbeiner said. "We need lawmakers to pass paid family and medical leave, affordable childcare, accessible aging and disability care, and healthcare for all. It shouldn't be this hard to afford to raise a family in this country, and it doesn't have to be."