Birth rates continue to fall. We must plan for an older America with fewer children.

Let’s face it: Another baby boom isn’t coming anytime soon.

The latest round of US birth data, released earlier this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows the general fertility rate has fell to a new record low of 53.1 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 – a 23 percent decrease since the most recent peak in 2007.

This is the latest data point in a long global trend towards fewer children, meaning our already aging population will grow even older over time, with fewer young workers to handle the economy and care for the elderly in their twilight years. Over one in eight Americans were over the age of 65 at the turn of the millennium; by 2040 it will almost be one in five.

The figures set off a predictable round of hand-wringing over who to blame. Commentators on the right complained “Girl boss feminism,” with some even wishing for a return to more teenage pregnancieswhile those on the left pointed the finger squarely on America’s poor family policy such as the lack of paid family leave and affordable childcare.

The fact is, however, that the trend lines are unlikely to reverse, regardless of one’s preferred explanation.

No low-birth country in the world, from the most repressive misogynistic regimes to the most progressive governments offering generous leave and free childcare, could place their society on a path back to “replacement level” fertility. Establishing the enabling conditions so that people can form the families they desire is a worthy goal deserves attention, but the hour is getting late and it’s time to start talking seriously about how to adapt for an aging, low-birthrate society.

We cannot get younger as a society, but we can try to get wiser with age. With a little foresight, it is possible to prepare for a nation – and a world – with fewer children that is both functional and pleasant to live in.

However, this will not happen by itself. America needs a national-level effort to future-proof the country against demographic changes, with all the physical, economic, political, and cultural shifts that will bring.

Such an effort would need to come not only from the federal government (which is currently hardly a paragon of forward-thinking functionality), but would need to be led by government at every level along with the private sector, religious institutions, community groups and individuals. And it starts with a difficult admission: We are not going to avoid this coming crisis.

How much older are we going to get?

Demographics, importantly, are shaped by more than just the birth rate. Understanding the exact country we are heading to will help us better understand the solutions.

In general, a country’s population profile has three components: births, deaths and how many people are in each age group. As America heads into the 2030s and beyond, its outlook is marked by the combination of record low births, a record-sized cohort of older citizensand those older people with record-long lifespans.

It is, of course, good news that people are living longer, healthier lives thanks to advances in medical science and improved lifestyle habits. But it means the older people who do our population will increasingly be out of the workforce and require more acute care. By 2040, the number of Americans 85 or older will have more than tripled since 2000. In 2055, Americans over 85 are projected to outnumber children under the age of five.

One option is to simply add more young people through immigration to work and raise families here, which has helped America dodge this demographic cliff for decades. But immigration has stagnated under the Trump administration, and it is not clear that these political restrictions will disappear anytime soon. Even if immigration can act as a short-term saving, it is not a long-term solution in a world where more than three-quarters of countries is projected to have fertility rates below replacement level by 2050.

There are ways to age gracefully

To see what demographic adjustment might look like, consider schools. Schools face a confluence of challenges: Shrinking enrollments means less income, even if fixed costs such as building maintenance remain the same. At the same time, shrinking tax bases (seniors in most states, for example, get property tax exemptionsand property taxes are a key source of school funding) increase budget pressures.

When schools close without a plan, they can become a drain on municipal resources and hubs for crime, similar to the abandoned houses and buildings in post-industrial neighborhoods that segregated populations in previous generations. In Gary, Indiana, a 2025 study found that 28 abandoned school facilities drew more than 1,800 calls to 911 over a five-year period. Several were the scenes of murders.

Yet the United States need not simply march into a future with scores of empty, crime-ridden school buildings. School funding formulas could be revised so that they rely less on per-pupil funding and take into account a broader set of operational needs. Younger children can be folded in, eliminating the divide between “childcare” and “education”. And as school consolidation becomes a necessity, the closing facilities could be converted to other uses, such as helping America’s elderly care needs by offering more mature daytime programs.

In Japan, where thousands of schools have closed in recent decades due to demographic changes, in 2018 the country successfully repurposed 75 percent of them for uses ranging from art galleries to residences to community cafes.

The key is that adaptation efforts must begin now. Almost every state has some form of a “climate action plan” that direct their response to environmental changes; they would be wise to develop “demographic action plans” that do the same for population changes. For example, renovating old school buildings is not an easy or quick feat. When a wing of Cold Springs Elementary School in Missoula, Montana, was converted to house community day care programs with a $414,000 grant for project funds. had to increase another $200,000 to get the process going.

Schools are just one example of demographic adjustment. America’s housing stock is ill-prepared for an aging population which will be difficult to get by in the many inaccessible houses on the market. One could imagine a national service corps dedicated to upgrading homes with accessibility items like ramps and bathroom rods that allow more seniors to age in place. Relief regulations around accessory dwelling units can empower more families to embrace multigenerational living, if that is their desired course. This is a space ripe for innovation.

Neighborhoods themselves will have to evolve as a much larger portion of the population crosses 80 and even 90 years of age while parents find themselves increasingly isolatedmeaning that care needs often do not match existing social and built environments.

More and more countries, for example, are experimenting with “care blocks.” Pioneered in Colombia, these are regions of neighborhoods that provide centralized services specially designed to help mothers: educational programs, health and fitness classes such as yoga, child care, legal aid, laundries, and so on. The model can be scaled and extended to include elderly care. Likewise, community-oriented food halls — like Berlin’s Markthalle Nuen — can be assumed to centralize food production and create a convenient space for those who cannot cook much for themselves.

We need to rethink how we care for each other

Cultural adaptation will be necessary in addition to physical adaptation. Currently, Americans are burdening family members to help with both child care and elder care. As family networks shrink – the decline in births means not only fewer children and grandchildren, but fewer aunts, uncles and cousins — there will be less available to help. It will be especially difficult for those in the “sandwich generation,” caring for children and elderly parents at the same time.

Solving this means going to the core of our increasingly isolated and atomized society and reviving a sense of community beyond our immediate families. Americans would do well to rediscover “alloparenting,” the idea that people other than parents can be actively involved in raising children.

However, co-parenting is not going to emerge widely without cultural means to normalize it. As author Anne Helen Petersen has explored, bonds build between those with and without children requires intentionality. We need to provide visible examples of neighbors helping neighbors make this kind of behavior a new norm or expectation. Establishing new rituals will be important: for example, “bring a family friend to school day.” The benefits don’t just flow to parents and children—a wider web of caregiving relationships has the potential to be an antidote to America’s growing epidemic of loneliness and depersonalization.

The days of large families may not be coming back, but steps to adapt to a low-birth, high-age era may not only have generally positive effects, they may, ironically, help stem the decline in birth rates. A society that is hospitable to parents and childrenhelp individuals to pursue meaningful livesand emphasized bonds of interdependence and care because an aging population may well be one in which more people want to grow their families.