There's never a perfect time to have a baby — but 2025 is looking pretty tough
Tariffs are raising the costs of everything from strollers to cribs.
Worries of a recession might make some prospective parents want to hold off on having kids.
If you already feel like you're in a financial tight spot, it might be good to wait — if you can.
Carolyn Bolton and her husband have wanted kids since they met five years ago. The timing, however, has never been ideal.
During the housing crisis in 2021, the couple struggled to afford a home near Washington, DC, where they now rent. At the time, Bolton also wanted to move up in her career, "waiting for that next level that would ease the financial burden a little bit," Bolton, 37, an advocacy manager at the National Council for Adoption, told Business Insider.
Even though they felt ready for kids last year, they hit some roadblocks to parenthood. After a couple of miscarriages, they consulted a fertility doctor and may need to consider IVF, which ranges in cost from $15,000 to $30,000. They also have concerns around how AI may impact the job market, as Bolton's husband is a tech editor for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"That's definitely worrying us a little bit, financially," Bolton said. "But I'm also 37, so now's the time, especially if we want more than one child."
They're not alone.
At a time of economic uncertainty, prospective parents understandably feel stuck on whether — or when — they should start trying. It will undoubtedly be harder to financially prepare for a baby when essentials like strollers can cost $300 more. Tariffs are already making basic household items more expensive.
Recessions, or worries of them, tend to lower birth rates. "Historically, fertility has moved with the economy," Melanie Guldi, an associate professor of economics at the University of Central Florida, told Business Insider. "When times are good, people have more babies; when times are bad, people have fewer babies."
Beyond day-to-day costs and general stability, "parents are also really concerned about the costs of what it would take to give their would-be children a good life," Karen Benjamin Guzzo, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina and director of the Carolina Population Center, told BI.
On top of groceries, they want to be able to financially swing birthday parties, extracurriculars, and quality day care services.
"You want the American dream, and it seems like the American dream is different now than when we were kids," Bolton said.
Ultimately, deciding on when to have kids is highly personal, and not everyone is comfortable delaying the process. Still, if you have the flexibility and want to be on more solid financial ground first, experts say it might behoove you to wait.
The costs of having a kid were already rising in pre-tariff times.
Delivery, on average, is around $2,800 after insurance. Then, there are astronomical childcare costs. In states like California, Hawaii, and Massachusetts, parents spend over $30,000 on average annually to raise one child, with more than half going to day care services. Because day cares typically charge higher rates for infants than toddlers, having two children in day care at the same time can cost families $60,000 a year in areas like Washington, DC.
Tariffs tack on extra financial strain. More than 70% of baby gear is made in China, the target of the largest tariffs. "Cribs, car seats, strollers, toys — everything is going to be more expensive if tariffs are applied," Guzzo said. (As of now, the tariffs are under a 90-day pause until mid-August).
Zooming out, the bigger economic picture also doesn't spell stability. It's not a great time to buy a house or switch to a higher-paying job. It's also not ideal to retire right now — something to consider if you plan on relying on grandparental care.
"There are a lot of things that are going to make raising families much harder and more expensive," Guzzo said. "I think that will weigh negatively on people's decisions to have kids."
The good news for people hoping to conceive soon is that politicians, from the Trump administration to New York City's mayoral candidates, are promising to institute policies that would make parenthood more attainable in an effort to raise the US's record-low birth rate and keep their working parent voters.
Bolton hoped Trump, who ran on a campaign promise to drastically reduce IVF costs, would have announced some new guidance by now.
One Trump administration proposal shared with aides was to give families a $5,000 cash "baby bonus" for giving birth.
Still, it will unlikely ease the financial burdens parents face, based on evidence from other countries that have tried similar incentives. Japan brought in four-day workweeks, but that didn't change the fertility trajectory. Sweden, with some of the best financial support for parents in the world, has a dwindling birth rate.
What pushes people to have more babies — or delay them — is tricky to study. Guldi said we have a breadth of economic and demographic research into fertility patterns around the Great Depression and post-World War II, two hugely destabilizing periods in the 20th century. Even still, there's no one factor researchers can point to that would encourage another baby boom.
Guldi said that if politicians want to encourage people to have more kids (and meaningfully help parents), they will have to adopt a multi-pronged approach, with more than one policy at play.
For starters, Guzzo said, politicians need to focus on policies that would bring the US in line with most industrialized countries. The US doesn't offer national parental leave, and has the second-most expensive childcare system in the world. Policies targeting these two issues could make having kids more feasible and affordable.
However, Guldi pointed out that even European nations like Finland and Spain with more robust parental support are dealing with record-low birth rates. "While these policies might nudge people to have a child, you're not going to have people that weren't going to have kids all of a sudden have two kids," she added.
Timing when you have kids is as much a personal decision as having them in the first place. Guldi said it all boils down to how precarious your financial situation feels and how prepared you are for the future. "It will depend on the individual, how they evaluate that uncertainty," she said.
For some, feeling secure in their industries and having family to help out might be enough to weather higher costs. Meanwhile, parents who already have a child might want to wait to have a second to save on day care costs.
Beyond immediate finances, Guzzo said people who want to have a child with another person often need to feel secure in their partnerships before considering kids. Not only do dual-parent households usually have more money to spend, but divorced or single parents can accrue additional financial strain, especially in a potential recession.
Having more control over when you have kids is also why parents are having them later or not at all, Guzzo said. "I don't think it's that people are really deciding not to have kids," she said. "I think people are deciding, over and over again, not right now."
For people who feel they can't wait any longer to try for kids, their past experiences navigating a rocky economy can strangely reassure them.
"I'm an elder millennial, I feel like we've lived through so many economic downturns," Bolton said. " There's never going to be a good time to have or not have a kid."
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