Birth Rates and the Future Of American Religion

Just last month, a team of economists from Wellesley College and the University of Maryland published a working paper that focused on a peculiar puzzle facing the United States: declining birth rates. More particularly, the team of researchers was trying to understand why birth rates continued to fall even after the economy was recovering from the Great Recession of 2007. Those economists concluded that one of the biggest factors was shifting priorities among younger Americans -- away from raising children and toward career and travel aspirations.