The increasingly high costs of raising children are making millennials reconsider their desire to have children.
A middle-class family, according to a U.S Department of Agriculture report, needs an estimated $245,340 to raise a child to the age of 18.
With soaring rates of student loans and low-paying early careers, millennials find the idea of supporting a child daunting. Millennials have become the largest generation by surpassing baby boomers; if they’re shying away from childrearing, that could slow future economic growth.
Working women, although often desiring to have children of their own, are hesitant to take time off to have kids. Sixty-seven percent of millennial women are in the workforce, and they have considered how maternity leave can impact their careers, Jim Kim wrote for Collegiate Times.
“A reduced income can be devastating to a family working to pay student loans and other expenses of life. Twenty-two percent of millennial women are living in poverty and single mothers contribute heavily to these statistics,” Kim said.
Millennials are having children at a much slower rate than that of their precursors as they balance student loan debt, low-wage jobs, and wage losses. Kim noted that “the New York City Comptroller found that millennials in 2014 were making 20 percent less than the generation before them, even with 72 percent of all 23- to 29-year-olds having college degrees.”
Those statistics point to other trends associated with this dominate generation: their inclination to live at home longer, choose meaningful work instead of a bigger paycheck, and a greater interest in moving abroad for an international experience.
Yet with the odds against them, the slow rate of having children does not mean millennials do not desire to have children in the future. Kim announced that “the younger generation wants larger families than previous generations, at an average of 2.7 children, according to Gallup.”
With the 2016 presidential election looming in the near future, the problem of low-paying jobs and student debt has been an issue ignored during the campaign. It could use another look by the GOP, specifically.
The continued speculations into the absurdity of student debt and the pressure to find high-income jobs returns full circle. The question becomes: Will the economy push the largest generation to shy away from having children, even with its strong desire for family life?
