America’s Faith Decline Tied to Plummeting Birth Rate

The growing secularism in the United States and numerous other countries seems to be contributing to a decline in birth rates.

According to the 2024 Religious Landscape Study by Pew, individuals identifying as “religiously unaffiliated,” which is defined as atheists, agnostics, or subscribing to “nothing in particular,” now account for 29% of the U.S. populace. This represents a significant increase of 13% from 2007.

William B Wilcox, Director of the National Marriage Project and a Sociology Professor at the University of Virginia, has stated to Newsweek that “there’s no question that growing secularization is another factor in falling fertility, both here in the United States and across much of the globe.”

The average number of children a woman births in her lifetime is now projected to be 1.6 over the next three decades, as per the Congressional Budget Office’s latest forecast from January. This average is below the 2.1 births per woman required to maintain a stable population without immigration.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last month that the fertility rate in the U.S. dropped to an all-time low in 2024, with less than 1.6 children per woman. However, fertility rates among weekly-attending religious Americans have remained generally consistent, never dropping much below 2 children per woman, according to the Institute for Family Studies.

“One thing that faith communities do for their members is provide support systems that make it easier to raise children,” says economist Kasey Buckles in her discussion with Newsweek on the economics of families. “If young people are less likely to be a part of faith communities for whatever reason, then they may also find it too costly to have children without that support, especially if other institutions like neighborhoods or public education are also weak.”

Family sociologist Nicholas H. Wolfinger echoes this sentiment, stating that people need to “walk the walk” for religion to positively affect birth rates. “Families and fertility are featured in the doctrine of all Abrahamic faiths [which include Christianity, Judaism, and Islam],” Wolfinger said. “But for religion to affect family behavior, you have to participate regularly in your faith.”

Demographer Lyman Stone, director of the Institute of Family Studies’ Pronatalism Initiative, offers another perspective on how religion plays into the fertility rate. “Religious people marry earlier and sort into relatively high-quality matches,” Stone told Newsweek. “Marriage, in turn, generates higher odds of births. Beyond this, religious people also get a lot more help with their kids: from family, friends, coreligionists.”

The significance of this should not be overlooked. As religion declines in the developed world, so too has fertility dropped below replacement levels.