The birth rate in the United States, along with many other industrialized nations, has been cratering for well over a decade and it’s not expected to turn around any time soon. For proof, look no further than the rapidly shrinking number of students enrolled in public elementary schools around the country. This is bad news on a number of levels and portends some significant economic and societal upheavals in the not-so-distant future. But before you can work out any solutions for a problem, you need to understand the underlying causes. At The Atlantic, Derek Thompson gamely takes a stab at figuring out why America’s population growth has almost disappeared and what, if anything, can be done about it. But one of the suspects on the list may come as a surprise to even the most hardened partisans in the political world.
