Associated Press, Dec 21, 2021 –
“I was expecting low growth but nothing this low,” said William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s metropolitan policy program, Brookings Metro. “We have an aging population and that means fewer women in child-bearing ages. We see younger people putting off having children and they’re going to have fewer children.”

The decision not to have children by young families may be driven by financial worries as much, if not more, than health concerns, said Linda Kahn, a professor at New York University… “COVID really was a stress test of our whole system and how it fails to support women and families,” Kahn said. “Women were much harder hit in the pandemic. They lost their jobs at greater rates and had to give up their jobs, often to do home-schooling. The pressures on women were enormous and there’s really no safety net in the U.S.”