America is running low on children, and its big cities are running low the fastest. With the fertility rate at record lows, a Journal analysis of census data from 2015 through 2024 found the decline is far sharper downtown than anywhere else.
The numbers
The number of children under 18 in big U.S. cities is down 6% in the past decade. Nationwide, the decline is just 1%. Cities are losing kids far faster than the rest of the country.
Among the youngest, the gap widens. Children under age 5 in big cities fell 15%, against 7% nationally. The number of children declined in about two-thirds of the 38 U.S. cities with more than 500,000 residents.
San Jose leads the slide. Its count of kids under 5 dropped 34% in a decade, more than any other large city — and that is with a median household income nearly twice the national level. Money alone is not keeping families in town.
The list runs on. Children are down 15% in Albuquerque, 11% in Milwaukee, 9% in Denver and El Paso, 8% in New York and 6% in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, thirteen relatively affordable cities, many in the Sunbelt, grew their child count 7% while their populations grew 12%. Seventeen more cities gained people while losing kids.
Why families leave
Parents cite costs, safety and quality of life. The costs are easiest to measure, and they are eye-watering.
In New York, parents have to earn $334,000 to comfortably afford child care for a two-year-old, according to the city comptroller. The median rent for an apartment with three or more bedrooms is $5,495 citywide. That is not a budget; that is a ransom.
So the middle moves out. Since 2000, New York has lost a net 80,000 households aged 30 to 54 who are married or have a child under 18, said Melissa Pumphrey, chief economist of the city’s Economic Development Corporation. Over the same period the city gained a net 670,000 households of singles or families without kids.
The pipeline is thinning too. Births nationally are down 9% in a decade. Birthrates in large urban counties fell 18% between 2010 and 2024, the biggest drop of any county type, according to Connor O’Brien of the Institute for Progress.
What it costs the city
Families matter to a city’s tax base — the pool of income and property a city taxes to pay its bills. Middle-class families in particular drive demand for the affordable goods and services that benefit everyone.
The consequences are already visible. With enrollment down, the El Paso Independent School District is closing elementary schools to save money. Some cities have pared school spending; others have struggled to, leaving bloated per-student costs, said Jeff Clemens of the University of California, San Diego.
The bigger risk, economists warn, is that losing families is the first chapter of losing everyone — a broader population decline that erodes the tax base. So far, the places replacing families with affluent childless adults have dodged that fate. So far.