THE SEX ISSUE 

When Rosa Weinand considers having kids one day, it isn’t the idea of parenthood that makes them pause, but rather if the quality of life in the United States would make it possible to successfully raise a child.

“I think the ability to prevent it makes the want and the actual having of a child more meaningful,” said Weinand, a first-year acting for stage and screen major. “Now people are thinking about it more and don’t want to mess up a kid.”

This hesitation is becoming increasingly common, especially among younger generations. In 2024, U.S. birth rates reached a record low, a milestone that experts warn is a reflection of the rising cost of living, limited parental support systems and long-term economic uncertainty facing young adults.

“It’s almost as if we’re seeing more of a ‘cultural evolution’ overriding actual biological evolution,” said Michelle Rafacz, an associate professor of biology at Columbia who is teaching the “Evolution of Sex: Honors” course this semester.

She said that broader access to accurate sex education and effective contraception has generally led to fewer births per woman, longer gaps between children and delayed family formation.

However, Rafacz emphasized that declining birth rates are not simply the result of people choosing not to have children, but rather due to multiple contributing factors such as economic and structural influences.

Despite falling fertility rates nationwide, many young adults still say they want children. About 75% of women and men in their 20s and 30s already had or planned to have at least one child in 2023, according to data published by the Pew Research Center in 2025. While that figure fell from about 90% in 2012, only about one in four young adults say they do not want children at all.

“I do think the biggest misconception is that people don’t value family,” said Cari Beecham-Bautista, a part-time instructor who is teaching a “Gender and Culture” course this semester.

“They know how important it is. They value children,” she said. “They don’t want to raise them in the unstable times we live in, and they don’t want to have kids if they can’t do a good job. Our country makes it so hard to do it well.”

Financial insecurity is a major part of that hesitation. According to a 2023 analysis by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, most U.S. households do not earn enough to afford a “minimal quality of life.” The bottom 60% of earners hold just 22% of disposable income, but need at least 39% to meet basic needs.

Beecham-Bautista said the U.S. also lacks many social supports that other countries provide to families, including guaranteed paid maternity and paternity leave, affordable child care and universal health insurance.

She added that while changing social norms and personal preferences play some role in delayed childbearing, they are not the primary drivers.

“The bigger issue is that we keep telling people to have babies and how amazing it is, and then we give them absolutely no help,” she said.

Some students at Columbia echoed this sentiment as one of the most influential factors in whether or not they will actually have children one day, regardless of if they want to.

Weinand said that although they do think it would be nice to have a kid someday, becoming a parent isn’t a “necessity” to them.

Weinand identifies as demisexual, which means that they don’t experience sexual feelings towards a person before developing a deep, emotional connection with them. In modern dating culture where casual relationships are often physical-intimacy forward, this can make it especially complicated to find a romantic partner.

However, Weinand said that their sexual orientation doesn’t stop them from experiencing social and political pressures to get married and have children.

“In the world, especially with the U.S. government, it feels like if you have a uterus, you need to have kids,” said Weinand. “If they want us to have kids, they should make it feasible for us to live after kids.”

Weinand explained that even their own parents are fighting to keep up with the costs of raising their younger sister, who is now 10 years old.

“When my little sister was born, both of my parents lost their jobs because they couldn’t take out that much time for maternity leave,” they said.

Weinand also described how the rising cost of living amidst a dwindling job market that seems impossible to break into has already made financial stability virtually impossible for young adults. 

A 2024 investigation by the U.S. Department of the Treasury confirmed that median home and rent prices adjusted for inflation have almost doubled, while median weekly earnings of young workers have only increased by a small amount, and even fallen for men.

“I think more people are trying to not be like their parents if they had bad experiences,” Weinand said. “Now people are thinking about it more and don’t want to mess up a kid.”

Bee Sinclair, a senior student pursuing a BFA in film and television who identifies as queer, said that he looks forward to having a child someday because “kids open a world into your own world, and open a sense of wonder that you don’t get from other adults.”

Sinclair said that he knows many friends who may also want kids in the future that are extra cautious about bringing another person into the world because Gen Z is trying to hold themselves accountable, especially when it comes to establishing financial security before having children.

“There’s a large community that doesn’t want people to have rights to an abortion, but once the child is actually born, they don’t care at all what happens to the child,” Sinclair said. “Some get sent to adoption agencies or the foster care system,\ and neither of those are the best for the children.”

Foster care entries declined for the sixth consecutive year in fiscal 2024, while adoptions fell to their lowest level since 1999, with 46,935 children adopted, according to the National Council For Adoption. An additional 15,379 aged out of foster care, leaving about 70,418 children still awaiting adoption at the end of that year.

Sophomore interior architecture student Kayleen Golden said she wants to have children someday because family is important to her.

“I’m Hispanic, so a lot of my family expects it,” she said.

Golden said many of her relatives had children at a young age because they lacked access to comprehensive sex education.

“If you got pregnant, you just had to have the child,” she said.

Golden said she is grateful to have reproductive autonomy living in Illinois, but noted that many people nationwide remain underserved both before and after childbirth.

“Overall, there’s not enough support for families, especially those that are less privileged or from lower-income communities,” Golden said.

Marcel Hondras, a sophomore undeclared major in the School of Audio and Music, said he may want children in the future “with the right person,” but he is unsure what that will look like.

He said modern dating culture, including the rise of dating apps and social media communication, has decreased opportunities for organic, in-person connections.

Hondras said those types of interactions are an integral first step in building a strong relationship and that without them “there is no type of opportunity to have kids.”

He added that he does not feel ready to have a child while pursuing a degree and working toward a professional career.

Hondras also said he has seen his own family struggle to provide for his siblings and cannot imagine facing similar pressures at his age.

“I think America has such a twisted way of going about things that doesn’t really support the bigger issue,” he said. “The money is always going somewhere else instead of to us.”

Copy edited by Katie Peters

Resumen en español

En Estados Unidos, las generaciones jóvenes tienen más dudas por tener hijos, a pesar de desearlos. En el 2024, las tasas de natalidad en Estados Unidos han llegado a un mínimo histórico. Expertos dicen que las razones incluyen el aumento del costo de vida, sistemas limitados de apoyo parental y la incertidumbre económica en adultos jóvenes. 

“En el mundo, especialmente con el gobierno de Estados Unidos, se siente que si tienes un útero, necesitas tener hijos”, dijo Rosa Weindad. “Si quieren que tengamos hijos, deben hacer que sea posible vivir después de tener hijos”.

Resumen en español por Guadalupe Loza-Sanchez

Editado por Brandon Anaya