In recent years, the United States’ total fertility rate – the average number of children a woman will have over her childbearing years – has hovered at historic lows. The ongoing decline has bolstered fears about the nation’s ability to manage its vast economy – and maintain its ever-so fragile position as a global superpower. While America’s fertility dip isn’t unique – after all, about half of countries worldwide have fertility rates well below replacement levels (the minimum fertility amount needed to sustain a population) – its situation is becoming uniquely intricate, maybe even irreversible. To understand why, you need only look at the case of America’s Black population.
Historically, Black and other non-white women have had higher fertility rates than white women, but in recent years, to the bewilderment of researchers like me, these gaps have rapidly shrunk due primarily to Black people forgoing children. In a poll conducted in March by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School, only 37% of Black respondents said that having kids was important, compared with 51% of white people and 46% of Hispanics. Why? One contentious explanation is that Black people may be both consciously and unconsciously deciding not to have children over fears about increasing racism in America.
These days, Black people, and Black youth in particular, are deeply and intimately attuned to the sheer scale, ubiquity and persistence of racial animus and discrimination in America. Beyond their direct personal experiences, they’re now frequently vicariously exposed to overt and subtle forms of racism through 24/7 news cycles and social media that didn’t exist before the new millennium. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that 47% of Black people from 18 to 29, and 43% of Black people from 30 to 39, felt that racism in America would get worse over the rest of their lives. The consequences of this – for Black people and America – couldn’t be more stark.
As an epidemiologist who studies the intricate ways that populations’ health behaviors shift, I’ve seen first-hand how my field’s conventional explanations for societal problems often come up short. Traditionally, researchers have argued that declining fertility in Black populations is due to Black women typically having a smaller pool of men whom they feel are “marriageable” – namely, men of their own race who are educated and have stable jobs. This hypothesis could indeed explain why Black college-educated women, for example, have lower overall fertility rates than their white and Hispanic counterparts. But with Black college-educated women and now also Black women without college educations increasingly forgoing bearing children, one factor, racism, provides a much clearer explanation. And there’s historic precedent for it.
Black fertility is a grim, albeit paradigmatic, sociopolitical issue in the US. It carries complex cultural and economic stakes that date back to chattel slavery. Slave owners ruthlessly maneuvered to increase plantation production by forcing Black female slaves to reproduce with male slaves (and often the slave owners themselves). Enslaved Black women (and their Black mates) lamented the idea of bringing children into an overtly hostile, racist world where those children, too, would likely be enslaved and exploited.
The idea that racism in 2025 could deter parenthood is undoubtedly a thorny one. It’s even thornier when you introduce politics into the equation. And yet, a peek at how fertility patterns often change depending on the political party that’s in office lays bare what is perhaps the most critical part of the nation’s ongoing racial reckoning–while also adding texture to our understanding of America’s deepening fertility crisis.
Black fertility rates decelerated more than twice as much during Donald Trump’s first term as compared with Obama’s second term, while the decline slowed over the same span among white and Latino Americans; and Black women experienced more adverse birth outcomes after the 2016 election than during Obama’s presidency. Without a doubt, though, these types of outcomes aren’t just associated with Trump’s politics, but with Republican politics more broadly. For instance, one study of infant outcomes from 1965 to 2010 found that roughly half of the white-black infant mortality gap, approximately 20,000 additional infant deaths, was attributable to the 28 years of Republican presidential administrations in this period.
Black Americans’ recognition of Trump’s overt racism during his first term was pronounced. In a 2019 poll conducted by Quinnipiac, 80% of Black voters said that Trump was racist. And 73% of Black adults in a Pew Research Center poll felt Trump had made race relations worse. No similar polls have been carried out in recent years. However, as of last week, 82.7% of Black Americans – roughly the exact amount that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 – disapprove of Trump, compared with 48.1% of white people.
All things considered, racial sentiment in Trump’s second term is poised to worsen. Over the last year, there has been increasing political and social acceptability of overt racism, typified in no small part by Republicans’ constant castigation of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), including for any-and-all public catastrophes, such as the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles and Potomac River plane collision that occurred earlier this year.
After his inauguration, Trump wasted no time in spearheading broad cuts to DEI-focused research and programs aimed at rectifying racial injustices, which naturally ensnares all kinds of valuable programming on disparities, including initiatives focused on reproductive health in Black communities. The consequences of these cuts will be resounding.
Already, compared with women of other races, Black women have higher rates of infertility, the biological inability to conceive after a year or more of regular unprotected intercourse; are significantly more likely to die during pregnancy; and are more likely to experience adverse birth outcomes, including offspring being born prematurely and with a greater likelihood of neurological and developmental issues. And federal and red-state policies that reduce access to healthcare and reproductive services such as abortion are now effectively being transposed into purple and blue states.
To be sure, there are many reasons why people – irrespective of race – choose not to have kids. There are technical reasons, like simply not having the biological ability to bear a child. Approximately 11% of women and 9% of men in the US have fertility challenges. Then there are practical reasons – such as concerns about not having the financial means or support needed to successfully raise the child. And some people simply don’t believe having a child is all that pleasurable or noble, like many do. And then there is the third domain: the philosophical. This is where racism comes in. The philosophical relates to concerns prospective parents have about the kind of world that they’ll be bringing kids into. Consider the “BirthStrikers” movement, a viral campaign launched in the United Kingdom in 2018 that was led by people opting out of childbearing over climate change concerns.
On discussion forums and subreddits for “childfree” people, Black posters, both men and women, routinely discuss the growing allure of eschewing parenthood, connecting their anxieties about the economy, housing and the like with their existential fear of accelerating racism. According to a 2024 poll from Gallup, 59% of Black parents indicated that they talk with their kids about the challenges they may face because of their race. Parents rightfully lament “the talk”, especially the part about the high-profile murders of Black people – like Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown – and the need to tread lightly in white spaces. In a 2020 interview, actor and comedian Tiffany Haddish memorably made the following statement: “I would hate to give birth to someone that looks like me knowing that they’re gonna be hunted or killed,” adding: “Why would I put someone through that?”
But there are many consequences to Black populations foregoing parenthood. There’s the issue of weakened political capital and clout for Black Americans, each already punctured by GOP-led gerrymandering practices and rollback of state-level voting rights. There’s also the matter of ensuring there are sufficient family caretakers available for the rapidly growing elderly Black population, with lowered fertility poised to widen the support gap.
Black Americans are a vital part of America’s future and can play a big role in addressing the nation’s fertility crisis. Trump and congressional Republicans have arguably experienced deeper concerns about the fertility problem than Democrats have, yet their embrace of anti-Black rhetoric and policy is precisely the kind of adversarial grandstanding that imperils the broader effort to undo the crisis. The solutions to addressing our current and forthcoming fertility challenges have to start with addressing racism and the factors that drive it. To begin that process, we’ll have to do two things the country hasn’t shown the moral clarity or political will to do: depoliticize racial equity and treat fertility like a social good rather than an economic commodity to be bought and sold.
