Millennials choosing to be DINKs could push GDP down by as much as 4%

The crude birth rate in the U.S. has dropped by more than half since the 1960s. Per the St Louis Fed, sixty years ago approximately 24 babies were born per 1,000 people, in 2022 that figure stood at 11.

This drop—combined with the fact that the nation’s population is living longer—is a serious concern for economists who question how economies will function with fewer people available to do the work.

Melinda Mills is a professor of demography and population health at Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Population Health. Professor Mills explains: “Sustained low fertility combined with longer life expectancy results in aging populations.

“This causes strains in the labor market such as health care for older populations, the closing of schools, rethinking housing and infrastructure and rethinking pension systems and age of retirement.”

The resulting drop in GDP from this aging population could be as much as 4%, James Pomeroy HSBC’s global economist previously told Business Insider.

Previously experts believed that economies would see a post-Covid “baby bump”, spurred by a brief uptick in births in 2021.

But data from 2022 and 2023 made it clear births were reverting back to their pre-pandemic trend with couples increasingly choosing a dual-income-no-kids (DINK) lifestyle, as the CDC reported last year that U.S. fertility rates fell to a historic low of about 55 births for every 1,000 females ages 15 to 44.

“In a low-fertility scenario, the number of people of the traditional working age could start falling within 20 years,” Pomeroy wrote in his latest note on the subject, though Professor Mills warned the tension between fewer births and an older population is already being felt.

She explained many countries are already struggling to fill healthcare positions, which previously had relied on migrant workers to fill.

“This has happened in the UK, for instance where in 2022 around 33% of migrants were to work in the healthcare system,” Professor Mills, director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, tells Fortune.

“This has also caused political tensions, with countries increasingly facing choices related to sustaining the labor force and pension systems while also thinking about…