My husband and I have one little girl and we are expecting our second child at the end of this year, six weeks before our third wedding anniversary. We represent a growing minority among Generation Z. In 1965, five in six adults between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four were, or had been, married. Since 1970, however, the marriage rate has fallen by sixty percent. Today, approximately one-third of Gen Z is on track never to marry, with many preferring to remain in unstable cohabitating arrangements.

What began as a marriage recession has turned into a full-blown birth dearth. In 2023, the birthrate fell to its lowest point of 1.62 births per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. The future of the United States, along with that of every developed nation except Israel, is threatened by demographic decline. Our economy, Social Security, military readiness, eldercare, education, and more depend on new generations of children. On an individual level, this decline reflects a much darker reality. Happy, hopeful people have babies. If we are not having babies, what does that say about the health of our nation? …

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