Fuller house
They say two’s company, three’s a crowd… yet America’s preference for families with 3+ children is currently at its highest level since 1971. New data from a 2023 Gallup poll finds that 44% of US adults think having 2 children is ideal and 3% favor a single-child household, while 47% say that the ideal number of children for a family is 3 or more — substantially up on the 33% who felt the same in 2011.
Interestingly, the yearning for a bigger family is particularly pronounced in younger generations, with 52% of those aged 18-29 years idealizing a family of 3 or more kids, despite most not having any children (yet).
Family devalues
Of course, survey data always has to be taken with a pinch of salt — and actual birth rates in the US show little evidence of this “big family preference” coming to fruition. As we’ve charted before, America's birth rate has stagnated, contributing to the slowest US population growth in 2021 (just 0.1%) since the nation’s founding.
Historically speaking, an earth-altering event like the pandemic could have spurred on child-rearing: preferences for larger families peaked in 1945 following WW2, and a baby boom followed in due course. Support for big families, however, soon began to plummet in the late 1960s.
Taken together, the declining birth rate may have less to do with Americans not wanting children than them not feeling equipped for them: young people are generally waiting longer to start families, citing financial concerns and career goals as reasons for not settling down sooner.
