The gap between America’s notion of the ideal family size and the actual reality is getting wider

While much is written (and charted) about declining birth rates in the US, Asia, and around the world more broadly, over two-thirds of Americans are still envisioning a dream family with between two and three children, according to recent Gallup data. 

Since 1936, the American polling and analytics company has asked US adults what they think is the “ideal number of children” for a family. Back then, the average response was 3.6 children, before dropping slightly during World War II. In July of this year, when Gallup asked the same question, the average ideal number of children came out to be 2.7 — after 40% of respondents said two, 27% said three, and 15% said four or more children was their “ideal.” 

Unsurprisingly, though, none of those answers line up with the current birth rate.

Even as the American fertility rate dropped to 1.6 births per woman last year — the lowest on record, and falling below the generally accepted replacement rate of 2.1 — the ideal family in the collective American consciousness has still risen modestly from 2.4 in the late 1990s. As Gallup suggested, the data indicates that the nation’s falling fertility rate has more to do with practical issues that would-be parents face rather than shifting attitudes toward having children or the traditional family unit.

Parental guidance

Since 2007, when the fertility rate last sat at that 2.1 replacement level, there have been a lot of external influences on potential parents that may have swayed their decision to have kids one way or another. Costs associated with child rearing, such as the rising price of childcare; the economic hardship that current parents increasingly say they’re facing; and the financial toll pregnancy and motherhood could take on the ever-growing female working population are all factors.