Up First from NPR - How Smaller Families are Changing the World

Episode Date: November 2, 2025

Across the globe, there is a shift in the size of families as birthrates decline. Communities, schools, and workforces are all shrinking at an alarming rate. Even in the wealthiest countries populations are aging and straining key social systems. How are smaller families changing the world and what does it mean for our future? Explore the full series at npr.org/populationshift.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is a Sunday story from Up First, where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story. You may have caught wind of this already, but families aren't having as many kids as they used to, not just here in the U.S., but around the world. In fact, researchers say the average woman is having half as many children now than they did in the 1970s. Ashley Yvancho is a mom in upstate New York,

who decided one child is enough for her family. I don't need another one. I don't want another one. I love having only one child. It is, I think, a very elegant choice because I still feel like I have balance in my life. Why are so many families making this choice and what exactly does it mean for our future?

NPR has launched a new reporting series called Population Shift, how smaller families are changing the world. We're bringing you the stories of families that are making untraditional choices, communities that are graying faster than they're growing, and schools whose classes are getting smaller and smaller every year. You can find all their reporting at npr.org slash population shift. When we come back, we'll get some insight from the team that's taking the lead on this series, NPR's Sarah McCammon and Brian Mann. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees.

Join millions of customers and visit Wise.com. T's and Cs apply. Support for this podcast comes from Dignity Memorial. For many families, remembering loved ones means honoring the details that made them unique. Dignity Memorial is dedicated to professional. and compassion in every detail of a life celebration. Find a provider near you at DignityMemorial.com. So, well, hi to you both.

Hi, Sarah. Hi, Brian. Hey, thanks for having us. So how did you first encounter this story? Like, what made you want to do some deep reporting on it? You know, Aisha, I woke up to this kind of slowly. I've lived in small towns most of my life, and I've seen them kind of, of dwindling. You know, the population's getting older. And I started to realize this wasn't just

happening in rural America. It's happening everywhere. Nationwide, American women had between three and four kids typically in the 1960s when I was born. Now, it's an average of one to two kids. And that's not enough to maintain a stable population. So we started asking questions about this, why this is happening and what it might mean. Let me just introduce you to one voice. This is Jeremy Evans. He works on economic development in tiny little Franklin County in upstate New York. He says now population is his biggest worry. Our population will continue to decline. More worrisome to us is the decline in population of younger people. And what's amazing issues that this is happening all over the country. And half the counties in the U.S. now, older people outnumbered

kids. You know, I've also covered rural decline. I started my career in public radio. in Nebraska and Iowa. And so I'd seen some of these trends. You know, then I covered conservative politics and the abortion debate for a long time. So when Brian came to me looking at some of this data he'd been digging into, I was absolutely fascinated, both from the standpoint of how communities are changing and the choices that people are making. It feels like a really seismic shift in the way that people live and I wanted to understand it better. And, you know, I'll just share a personal story. I remember back when I was pregnant with my second child who's now in high school. I was attending a conference for environmental journalists, and I went to this session that was

talking about the impact of overpopulation on the planet. And I, you know, raised my hand, visibly pregnant, and I asked, you know, based on the research, what's an ideal number of kids for people to be having in this world? And, you know, everyone seemed uncomfortable with the question. Nobody would really give me a clear answer. But I've just been fascinated with these really, you know, personal and fraught and intimate questions ever since because they also have a really big impact on the way we live and on the way that, you know, economies work. Yeah. And this curiosity about the data, but also about what we've been seeing in our personal

lives got us started on this journey, which led to NPR and our member stations sending reporters all over the world to sub-Saharan Africa, to East Asia, Europe, all across the U.S. to look at why families are getting smaller, what it means and how we may have to adapt. I want to clear up some of the language before we dive into the specifics. What exactly do we mean when we talk about a declining birth rate? Yeah, so a really basic measure that scientists use looking at this is a thing called total fertility rate. That's a technical term. And that's the estimate of how many children the average woman in a country or on the planet will have in their lifetimes.

And it used to be really high. Just a few decades ago, the average globally was five children per woman. Now globally, it's dropped to 2.2, right? That's really low comparatively. And in the United States, in many countries, it's dropped even lower, down below what people call the replacement rate. That means we're having too few children to maintain a stable population. And so slowly, that all adds up to populations aging and event.

declining. I'm a single mother of three and I'm blessed to be able to take care of them, but they cost a lot of money. But I love them. They're great. But there are people out there who just wouldn't be able to financially afford it, right? Like how much of this decline that we're seeing in birth rates just boils down to people feeling like I cannot afford to have. kids or to have more than one or two. Yeah, money is definitely a big part of this. We hear this over and over from women. It's expensive.

It's hard to raise kids. Young families say the same things. But what's really fascinating is that it's happening even in places where standards of living are really high and incomes are really high. And there's a lot of support for families. And so really the fascinating piece here is that for sure money is a part of it, but there also seems to be some kind of a cultural shift that's really, really profound. I want to introduce another voice.

This is Martina Yopo Diaz, who's a sociologist at Santiago's Catholic University. All key social systems from the economy to the labor market to pensions to care are based on the principle that there would be new generations to replace the old ones. But now we see that that principle is no longer something that we can, you know, take as given. And we wanted to really get a sense of what this looks like on the ground. I went to a place where the impact of fewer babies being born is felt especially intensely. In Greece, the population is aging and it's also shrinking as younger people move away and those who stay have fewer kids. And I went to a couple of small islands where there are fewer and fewer children.

I met a girl named Georgia Grammaticu. She's 16, and she lives on this tiny island in the eastern Aegean Sea. She said she doesn't really see a future for herself there. It's very nice here, and it's peaceful. But I don't see myself living here in the future because there aren't many opportunities. Little by little, the small shops are closing down. There are fewer and fewer people.

And this is a concern for the Greek. government and also for local officials. Can you tell me more about how these declining birth rates are impacting local and national economies? Well, the big worry that I hear is that you get into sort of this vicious spiral where schools closed down, people move away, businesses close, and it just gets worse and worse over time. You know, you get young people leaving, having fewer kids, and it's harder to find workers. And eventually, there's just nothing left. The Greek government is so worried about it that they just recently rolled out a package of tax incentives worth several billion dollars designed to encourage younger Greeks to have children. I recently

spoke with the Greek finance minister Kyriakos Pyrakakis. This is an existential problem for us. It's an existential challenge for us. And we need to create the positive tailwinds to counter the negative headwinds of the effects of our demographic curve. And he told me they're focusing especially with some of these tax incentives on. rural areas and islands. And I think what's really important here, Ayesha, is that what's happening in Greece is happening all over the world. This is across Europe.

It's across East Asia. It's in South America and even here in North America. So we're going to be seeing schools closing, aging populations in more and more parts of the planet. Kids are expensive. After the break, Sarah and Brian dig into another big reason. people aren't having as many kids. A lot of young people are struggling to find partners right now. And there's some older people, too.

There's really this epidemic of loneliness in many countries. I would imagine that that's affecting decisions about parenting. Right. Like Brian mentioned, it's not just about money. some of the wealthiest countries in the world are seeing some of the biggest declines. I went to Finland as well, because that's a country that's known for its generous family leave. There's paid time off for both mothers and fathers, heavily subsidized child care, free health care, and so on. And yet Finland has seen its birth rate drop by about a third since 2010.

And I wanted to know why. I talked to Anna Rodkirch. She's a researcher at the Family Federation of Finland, and she prepared a report for the Finnish government looking at all of this, she says there are a lot of factors in play. It's definitely not just one. But one of the issues she sees is that younger people are having a harder time forming stable relationships that lead to families, even if that's what they say they want. We see in Finland that the overwhelming majority also of today's young adults would like to have a steady committed partnership. We go to schools. You talk to 17 years and we are like,

you know, what would be your ideal family if you want a family at all? You know, I want a small house with a dog and a garden and a spouse and three children. And it really breaks my heart because I'm like, that's not going to happen if the world goes on like it's now. But this is what they say they want. And for us, that's the starting point. And this is something I heard at least anecdotally from people I met in Finland, especially women. The idea that finding a suitable, stable partner is difficult, sometimes even for those who'd like to have children. Larissa Rudolfson is 48 and a single mom by choice.

She was married until her 30s and she did not have children with her ex-husband, but later decided she wanted to become a mother and had two children in her 40s with the help of assisted reproductive technology. Here's what she says about the women she meets in similar situations. I think as women get more educated and we are like getting further and further from the traditional model that the man earns and a woman takes care of the family and home, women also realize that they can earn and why put up with something that they don't want to put up with. So she said, you know, she liked to have a suitable partner, but she hasn't found that person.

And she says women have many more options today than they once did. And they are exercising those options. A lot of the talk around this issue, at least here in the U.S., does focus on the changing expectation and roles of women in society. And my brother and I are always talking about this. And he says, you know, it's just, you know, facts. It's not his opinion, he says, that women are kind of putting their careers ahead of families. But, you know, he's not saying that's a bad thing. He's just saying that's a fact.

but I do kind of feel like that puts a lot of the blame on women. Like, and it takes two to tango. What are you hearing from the people that you're meeting? I think that's a really important point, Ayesha. And the reality is that, you know, the world has changed and women do, as we said, have more choices now. And that's both in terms of educational and career opportunities, also access to contraception. You know, that's a relatively new thing in terms of.

of human history, those two things have come together and meant that the landscape of options for women is really different. And also, one thing I've heard from researchers is that, you know, for women to have more children, which often means taking more time out of the workforce, slowing down their careers, you know, the data suggests that women still do a disproportionate share of domestic labor. That comes at an economic cost now that hits the entire family. And so it really has changed the calculus. I talked to an economic demographer in Greece named Alexandra Tregaki. And here's what she said about the way that women are making decisions. Women changed, but nothing else did. Women changed roles, but no one else did, neither the

society nor men. So part of the roles that used to be covered by women were left uncovered. And when that happens, obviously it's the size of the family that is affected. You know, and she acknowledged that younger generations are starting to adapt to some extent that gender roles are shifting in response to these economic realities and social changes. But still, many women feel they just don't have the capacity to manage larger families alongside everything else that women do today. And I think, Asia, one of the things I'm hearing from a lot of the women and men who I'm talking to, the fathers or the people considering fatherhood, is they don't accept this. idea of being blamed for smaller families. They're pretty angry about it in many cases. They want to be left alone to make smart, private, personal decisions. They're happy about their lives in many cases. It feels good to them. And so, you know, I think all around the world, there are these

efforts to boost birth rates and to convince families to have more kids. And what I'm hearing from a lot of people is leave us alone. We got this. We're doing what feels right to us and to our families. And so that narrative that women who have fewer kids are doing something wrong, you know, that's not a popular view among most of the families I've been talking to. And one of the things we've heard is that both younger men and women, they just imagine their lives differently. Having kids is not assumed the way that maybe it once was for a lot of people. And younger generations do understand that there's a new dynamic in play when it comes to gender roles. In Finland, I talked to Anselmi Oramo. He's a 28-year-old student

in Helsinki, he's engaged to be married and wants children eventually, once he's more financially secure. But he said it's important to him that they be in a place financially where they can afford household help, for instance, so that they can both have their careers and time with their children. Because I don't want my partner to drop her life for our children in order to me to basically be the provider or whatever. I don't want that. I think that everybody can have their own kind of relationship and have the roles that they want in their own relationships. That's not my business.

But I don't want to push my partner or basically live myself the traditional model into action. You know, but he said he's still figuring out how to navigate that. And he's not exactly sure how that will work for his future family. Well, how is the current administration talking about this issue in the U.S.? what are they proposing should be done about it? Well, this question of whether or not Americans are having enough children has become a major theme on the political right, as you know. Vice President Vance has said he wants more babies to be born in America. Alabama Senator Katie Britt has described the Republican Party as the party of parents.

Several months ago, you may remember President Trump himself promised to be the fertilization president. and he said during the campaign last year that he would expand access to fertility treatments like IVF. Now, in terms of actual policy, the administration has taken fairly modest action so far. That massive spending bill that was passed over the summer did include an expanded child tax credit and a temporary program to give a thousand dollar investment accounts to babies born while Trump is in office. He also recently announced a deal to lower the costs of some IVF drugs. But Aisha, critics say that none of these measures really do much in the scheme of things to help families, given just the huge costs involved in raising a child. One thing you think about is like, is this really a problem?

Like, is this something I should be worried about? Okay, well, eventually, maybe nothing will be left. But maybe that's what the Lord intended. Yeah, it's really a great question. But here's what I think I've learned over the months and months we've been reporting on this. This is huge, right? This is a big population shift. China is going to lose 200 million workers very quickly.

Italy is getting so old, so fast the country is scrambling to maintain its pension system. Even here in the U.S., there are questions about how we're going to pay for things like Social Security and Medicare as we get older. So it's a lot. And what's really interesting is that Lant Pritchett, an economist at the London School of Economics, says there's So much population change happening so fast, it's not clear how it's all going to work. Hard to tell what's going to happen when things that have never happened before happen. We just don't have any example of countries doing this successfully. So not so much a problem, Aisha, but a dramatic change in the way we humans are living.

For a lot of women and couples, it's a really positive change. They're living free or more prosperous lives. But it also means for the economy and a lot of social systems, like how we care for the elderly, we're going to have to adapt and make some big changes. Some of the researchers I talk to believe that there is a gap between the number of children people say they want and the number that they actually have. They're not having as many kids as they might want. And to the extent that's true, you know, researchers across the ideological spectrum tell me if there are policies that can help people get from where they want to be to where they are, if that means having another child, they see those kinds of policy ideas as a good thing. So looking forward, like on a practical level, what are we actually seeing governments or communities do to prepare for or adapt to these changes?

Well, governments are concerned about this, and they're trying a number of different things. We mentioned Greece has put through some tax incentives to encourage families to have more kids if they want them. Finland's government recently wrapped up a committee looking at this issue and suggested a bunch of possible solutions. And there are also some private sector efforts in places like Greece to spur economic development in smaller communities and help young parents pay for things like medical care. But the reality is that a lot of our research suggests it's really hard to address this through policy. And so, you know, one thing I'll be curious about is whether or not any of these efforts actually result in a significant increase in birth rates. Yeah, and I think the other piece that's really going to be interesting, while there are these efforts to have families stabilize or maybe even grow a little bit, There's a question about how countries can prepare themselves for an aging and eventually dwindling population.

It may mean more use of AI, more automation in factories. It may mean we have to extend retirement age a little bit. So what the economists and other researchers I've been talking to say is that this family shift is pretty deeply rooted, and the rest of us are going to have to start adapting what the rest of the economy. economy and society look like, and we're just still taking baby steps toward that now. Well, it sounds like another huge problem that we're all going to have to face at some point. It's a profoundly personal issue, but it's one that has huge implications for the rest of the world. And I just thank you both for looking into it.

Absolutely. Thanks, Ayesha. Thanks for the great conversation. That's NPR correspondence, Brian Mann. and Sarah McCammon, and for more of their reporting, go to our website at NPR.org slash Population Shift. The series is called Population Shift, How Smaller Families Are Changing The World. This episode was produced by Michelle Aslam and edited by Leanna Simstrom and Irene Noguchi. Special thanks to Andrea DeLeon and Megan Pratt. Mastering by Co. Takasugi Chernovin. The Sunday Story team includes Andrew Mambo, Justine Yan, and

and Jenny Schmidt. Thomas Coltrane is our intern. I'm Aisha Roscoe. Up first is back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.