- The director of the Survey Center on American Life, Daniel Cox, notes that US birth rates have dropped alongside a sharp decline in religious participation—weekly church attendance has fallen to 30% from 42% two decades ago.
- He studied the correlation, finding that Christians ages 40–59 average 2.2 children, compared with 1.8 for the unaffiliated. The fertility decline has been steeper among less religious Americans.
- Young religious adults are nearly twice as likely as nonreligious peers to want children (62% vs. 32%). Cox said that upbringing that emphasized family and marriage is more likely to result in a desire for children later.
- Cox argues that family hesitancy among nonreligious Americans stems from pessimism and mistrust rather than disbelief. He concludes that societies that foster collective hope and purpose, in addition to religiosity, could reverse low birth rates.
The falling U.S. birth rate, which hit an all-time low in 2024, is tied to a decline in religiosity, Daniel Cox, the director of the Survey Center on American Life, recently wrote in an article on his Substack.
“Falling birth rates have accompanied a dramatic decline in formal religious participation,” he said. He noted that a March Gallup report found that only about 30% of American adults attend religious services weekly, down from 42% who said the same thing 20 years ago. A Pew report from 2024 discovered that the majority of Americans in their mid-70s or older went to church weekly when they were children, compared with less than half of adults in their early 20s (68% vs. 48%).
“Pew’s landmark study also found a notable fertility gap between religiously affiliated and unaffiliated Americans,” Cox wrote, adding that Christians ages 40 to 59 have an average of 2.2 children, while people who are not religiously affiliated have an average of 1.8.
“But more importantly,” he wrote, “it’s the decline in fertility rates that distinguishes the two groups. This decline has been more pronounced among less religious Americans—suggesting a widening gap.”
According to Cox’s research, 62% of religious Americans younger than 40 years old say they want to have children someday, compared with 32% of nonreligious Americans. He hypothesized that the gap could be from “social contexts that prioritize marriage and parenthood,” noting that those who attend religious services are more likely than those who do not to say that their parents emphasized the values of finding a spouse and raising a family.
“Young adults today are far more likely to hear from their parents about the importance of getting an education or becoming financially independent than about marriage and starting a family,” Cox wrote.
He found that about two-thirds of Americans who said their parents often discussed the value of children also want children of their own, while only about one-third of those whose parents never talked about the benefit of a family want to have children.
Cox also noted that young men are more enthusiastic than young women about having children (57% vs. 45%), according to a 2024 Pew report. He wrote that young secular men and women have similar preferences for having children one day, but found that when separated by gender, religious Americans follow a similar pattern to the Pew report. Fifty-seven percent of religious women hope to have children at some point, compared with 66% of religious men.
“For nonreligious singles, the hesitancy to start a family may stem less from a lack of faith in a higher power and more from a pervasive sense of cynicism and mistrust,” he wrote, noting that nonreligious adults are more likely than their religious counterparts to be anxious, pessimistic about politics, and concerned about the future. He also found that those who are committed to being parents one day are the happiest.
Cox said that he doubts an uptick in religiosity alone would solve the US’ low birthrate, but added that “A society that does a better job of instilling young people with a sense of hopefulness about the future will better enable them to make forward-looking decisions.”
“Bringing children into the world is a radical act of hope. It’s a bet on the future and on ourselves,” he wrote. “It’s also a collective enterprise. But so many of our most critical social and civic institutions—the family, churches and places of worship, and schools—focus more on meeting individual needs rather than fostering a sense of collective obligation. Churches and places of worship can help foster a culture that values children and families, but they can’t do it alone.”
The post Report: Low US fertility rate tied to religious decline appeared first on CatholicVote org.