Beyond policy: Reimagining family in the American psyche
July 2024 Issue
Dr. Clay Routledge, VP of Research and Director of the Human Flourishing Lab, Archbridge Institute
Americans are having fewer children than needed to sustain the nation’s population. As our country ages and a smaller working-age population struggles to support a larger elderly cohort, we face looming challenges including labor shortages, increased strain on social safety net programs, and decreased economic growth. However, discussions on how to solve this baby bust often fixate on broad societal concerns and obstacles but neglect the much deeper psychological barrier: surveys indicate that most Americans do not view starting a family as an important life goal and don’t believe our society is better off when people prioritize getting married and having children.
Even if our nation dedicates itself to increasing birth rates with pronatal public policies and family-friendly workplace initiatives, these efforts to ease the path to parenthood will fall short if Americans don’t aspire to become parents. Therefore, tackling our demographic challenges requires a cultural transformation. We must cultivate a society that champions family formation by educating young Americans about its pivotal role in creating a meaningful and fulfilling life.
The Psychology of Declining Birth Rates in the Modern World
Current discussions about falling birth rates often center on a range of economic, political, and environmental challenges that might deter young Americans from starting families. Rising housing costs, overwhelming student debt, deepening political polarization, and the looming threat of climate change are often cited as contributing to a growing reluctance to start and grow families. While these factors undoubtedly play a role, they only scratch the surface of a much deeper psychological transformation that is profoundly influencing fertility trends.
To understand the psychology of declining birth rates, it is useful to start by considering the advanced cognitive characteristics that have long distinguished our species. We are not the only self-aware organism but our high level of self-consciousness, coupled with other cognitive capacities, grants us the power of agency. We can imagine a desired future for ourselves, contemplate and plot a path toward realizing that future, and self-regulate our behavior in order to make that envisioned future a reality. All of this makes us a uniquely goal-oriented species.
This distinctly human brain power has led to advances in civilizational progress that further increase our ability to take personal ownership of our own life trajectories. Our basic neurological architecture remains unchanged from our ancestors, but modern humans have unprecedented freedom from biological imperatives and circumstantial limitations, allowing for a level of self-determination unimaginable to previous generations.
This enhanced agency provides crucial insight into current birth rate trends. Humans have long used various natural methods of self-regulating reproduction. However, widespread access to and utilization of modern, highly effective birth control, combined with increased personal liberty and opportunity, especially for women, have dramatically reshaped how people think about adult life and the role of parenting within it. This shift has brought many benefits, particularly in expanding women's educational and career opportunities, and resulting financial independence. Having children is no longer an expected, almost automatic milestone of adulthood. Instead, becoming a parent has evolved into a more deliberate life planning decision. This means that if we want to increase birth rates, we need to think about modern fertility in terms of goal striving.
How Culture and the Need for Meaning Inform Life Goals
The same cognitive capacities that make humans a highly self-conscious species, giving us the power of agency, also make us an existential species in search of meaning. That is, we are introspective, able to ponder the nature of our existence and place in the cosmos. This drives us beyond merely making sense of our external environment for survival; we seek to make sense of our own lives. We want our existence to matter. Indeed, the belief that our lives are meaningful is crucial to our overall well-being and functioning.
Culture plays a vital role in how we search for, discover, create, and defend meaning. As an agentic species, self-determination is crucial. Individuals are more likely to derive meaning from freely chosen actions rather than those resulting from external coercion, a principle that holds true even in collectivist societies. However, this doesn't diminish the importance of the external cultural environment. On the contrary, the goals we develop and pursue are strongly influenced by the cultural worldviews we adopt to structure our lives and imbue them with significance.
When searching for meaning, people often turn to cultural beliefs, religious and secular, for guidance. We don’t want to be controlled by other people or oppressive governments and institutions, but when planning our futures, we do seek to learn what aspirations, activities, and accomplishments are valued within our culture. We want to know what goals we should pursue to play a significant role in a meaningful cultural drama. Consequently, the dominant messages and trends within a culture greatly inform the goals individuals select in their efforts to build meaningful lives.
The dominant narrative in contemporary American culture suggests that living one's "best life" hinges on prioritizing individual pursuits over family goals. Individuals are encouraged to pursue independent development through education, career advancement, travel, hobbies, and self-care, rather than the interdependent objectives of marriage and parenthood. This modern perspective is reflected in recent surveys: only around one quarter of American adults report that getting married or having children is very or extremely important to living a fulfilling life, and only 39 percent of Americans believe society is better off if people make marriage and having children a priority.
Young Americans may be absorbing this cultural message from their own parents, who, despite finding parenthood to be one of the most important roles in their own lives, seem to prioritize different aspirations for their children. Nearly 90 percent of parents indicate that being a parent is one of the most important aspects of their identity. However, only around 20 percent report that it is very or extremely important for their children to one day get married or have their own kids. Parents are far more likely to emphasize the importance of their children achieving financial independence, securing jobs they find fulfilling, and obtaining a college degree.
Given the cultural messaging that young Americans are receiving at the broad societal level and even in their own families, it should not come as a surprise that a growing number are choosing not to have children simply because this is not an important life goal for them. Surveys indicate a rising percentage of childless Americans who express unlikelihood of becoming parents. Critically, those who say they're unlikely to have children cite a lack of desire for offspring far more frequently than financial constraints or other concerns like climate change. This finding is corroborated by scholarly research indicating that the declining U.S. birth rate cannot be explained by economic or policy factors but instead appears to be the result of changing personal preferences.
Such statistics suggest that America’s declining birth rate is more deeply rooted in cultural and psychological factors than in economic challenges or issues that can be primarily addressed through policy solutions. Indeed, nations that have implemented pronatal policies in attempts to reverse demographic trends have largely failed to achieve their objectives, despite allocating substantial resources to these initiatives. For example, South Korea's birth rate has continued to plummet despite the government investing over $200 billion in comprehensive family support programs, including monthly parental stipends, subsidized childcare, and generous paid leave policies.
The Truth About What Cultivates A Fulfilling Life
Regardless of where young Americans are picking up on this cultural messaging, it is at odds with a wealth of behavioral and social science research that sheds light on what truly leads to a fulfilling and successful life. When asked what makes their lives meaningful, Americans are far more likely to mention their family and children than aspects of their lives related to their occupation or financial wealth. In addition, studies reveal that parents report higher levels of meaning in their daily lives compared to non-parents, and they experience the highest levels of meaning when they are engaged in activities involving their children. As an existential psychologist, I have collected thousands of personal narratives from individuals regarding the memories they find most meaningful, and the vast majority of these cherished recollections revolve around experiences involving family.
In short, many Americans assert that marriage and children are not essential to life fulfillment despite the fact that most of them identify family as the greatest source of meaning in their own lives. Our culture highly values agency and goal-striving but we appear to be failing to teach younger generations the truth about the agentic family goals that are most likely to help them build meaningful lives.
Our culture may also be sending the false message that personal ambitions inherently conflict with family goals. Even individuals interested in starting families often believe they must first accomplish or make significant progress on other aspirations. However, this perspective overlooks the fact that family is a powerful source of meaning, which can actually catalyze the achievement of goals that our culture does champion, such as career advancement and financial success. This is because meaning in life is a self-regulatory and motivational resource, which means that people who view their lives as full of meaning are more mentally healthy, goal-focused, persistent, and resilient, and they live longer and are more financially successful.
Toward a Pro-Family Culture
Bring to mind a goal that's deeply important to you—one you're committed to achieving and believe will make your life more complete and meaningful. Now, contrast this with a less crucial goal—something that seems worthwhile but is just one of many options for enhancing your life. Reflect on how your life circumstances and the broader state of the world might affect each of these goals. When faced with life's challenges, which goal are you more likely to postpone or abandon? Conversely, which one would you persist in pursuing despite adversity, even at the cost of other opportunities?
The importance we assign to our goals profoundly influences our behavior. We're far more likely to find creative solutions and overcome external barriers when pursuing objectives we deem essential to our lives. Therefore, if we aim to increase birth rates, it's crucial to foster a pro-family culture that inspires Americans to prioritize family formation as a central life goal. This cultural shift requires concerted effort from all sectors of society: family members, educators, scholars, mentors, creatives, athletes, and thought leaders all play vital roles in shaping the values and aspirations of younger generations. By championing the importance of family, we can create a culture where parenthood is seen not as an obstacle to personal fulfillment, but as an integral part of a rich and meaningful life.
Parents and Family: The path to a more family-oriented culture must begin at home, especially considering that only one in five American parents report that it is important for their own children to eventually form their own families. Parents and other family members have a unique opportunity—and responsibility—to inform the next generation's perspective on family life. They should critically examine why the family experience they value so highly isn't an aspiration they deem important for their children's adulthood. Furthermore, they should openly share their experiences about the profound meaning and fulfillment that family brings, without glossing over the challenges. This approach can help counteract prevailing cultural narratives that often emphasize only the burdens of parenthood, helping to nurture a more pro-family mindset in future generations.
Educators and Scholars: Our academic institutions, particularly colleges and universities, also have a role to play in conveying information about the importance of family life to overall well-being. While it's not the responsibility of educators to promote specific life choices like family formation, academic institutions do offer courses and intellectual activities aimed at understanding human flourishing on individual, community, and societal levels. It's crucial to ask: Are they presenting students with the extensive body of evidence revealing that parenthood often leads to a greater sense of meaning and fulfillment compared to other life experiences and accomplishments? In courses related to social, psychological, and economic health, are students being exposed to research highlighting the positive effects of marriage and family? By ensuring that students have access to comprehensive, evidence-based information about family life, educators can empower young adults to make more informed decisions about their future, potentially influencing societal attitudes towards family formation in the long run.
Popular Culture: In our technologically advanced and interconnected digital age, where cultural norms and worldviews are shaped by influences far beyond one's immediate environment, popular culture creatives and celebrities play a significant role in informing societal attitudes. Musicians, television and film creators, professional athletes, social media influencers, thought leaders, and other cultural trendsetters have a unique opportunity to present a more positive narrative about parenthood. By showcasing the many ways that children enrich life, these influencers could help counter the increasingly negative, and often anti-natalist, cultural narrative surrounding family formation. Instead of portraying parenthood as a risky endeavor that closes off many of life’s great experiences, they could depict it as an adventure that opens up new avenues for joy, growth, and purpose.
This doesn't mean we should completely disregard economic and other factors that can influence personal preferences or dismiss potential policies aimed at addressing the challenges faced by modern parents. After all, when individuals plan their life goals and make big decisions, they often consider a wide range of variables. However, for any pronatal policies to truly resonate and support lasting change, they must be built upon a cultural foundation that values and promotes family formation. This means cultivating an environment where young Americans are inspired to view parenthood not merely as a lifestyle choice, but as a profoundly meaningful and fulfilling life goal.
We should be grateful for the remarkable progress that has given us freer, longer, safer, and more comfortable lives, allowing more individuals than ever to chart their own course and realize their full potential. However, we should also not lose sight of the fact that we are an existential species. Meaning is what gives us a reason to get up each day and strive to do our best. Of course, individuals can live significant and successful lives without having children. There are many ways to make contributions to the world. But for most people, family is the primary source of meaning that fuels these efforts. If we don’t do a better job teaching future generations this, we risk depleting this precious existential resource that supports both individual and societal flourishing.
Contributing editor: Bryce Fuemmeler