The gap between America’s notion of the ideal family size and the actual reality is getting wider

While much is written (and charted) about declining birth rates in the US, Asia, and around the world more broadly, over two-thirds of Americans are still envisioning a dream family with between two and three children, according to recent Gallup data. 

Since 1936, the American polling and analytics company has asked US adults what they think is the “ideal number of children” for a family. Back then, the average response was 3.6 children, before dropping slightly during the Second World War. In July of this year, when Gallup asked the same question, the average ideal number of children worked out as 2.7 — after 40% of respondents said two, 27% said three, and 15% said 4+ children was their “ideal.” 

Unsurprisingly, though, none of those answers line up with the current birthrate.

Even as the American fertility rate dropped to 1.6 births per woman last year — the lowest on record, and falling below the generally accepted replacement rate of 2.1 — the ideal family in the collective American consciousness has still risen modestly from 2.4 in the late 1990s. As Gallup pointed out, the data suggests that the nation’s falling fertility rate is more to do with practical issues that would-be parents face, rather than shifting attitudes towards having children or the traditional family unit.

Parental guidance

Since 2007, when the fertility rate last sat at that 2.1 replacement level, there have been a lot of external influences playing on potential parents which may have swayed their decision to have kids one way or another. Costs associated with child rearing, such as the rising price of child care; the economic hardship that current parents increasingly say they’re facing; and the financial toll pregnancy and motherhood could take on the ever-growing female working population are all factors.