Demographers say it's too early to tell what effect that anxiety will have on the U.S. birthrate, which is already difficult to forecast with so many factors in play, including immigration and birth control. They don't expect the current recession to lower the rate below the so-called replacement level, at which each couple reproduces itself.
But they do say that the rate could drop if the economic slump is deep and protracted. "We'll know in about nine months," said Carl Haub, a demographer for the Population Research Bureau, a private company in Washington. "It depends on how low it goes."
For now at least, childbearing is a family issue, not a national one.
Melanie and Phil Sheridan, both 35, were high school sweethearts who recently celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary. They have a 6-year-old son, Tyler, and Melanie has yearned for a second child for some time. The Sheridans took a step in that direction in March 2007, when they bought a three-bedroom house in Carlsbad, Calif.
But eight months later, Melanie was laid off from her job as a marketing assistant for a home builder. The economic outlook is gloomy and their household budget is strained, relying on a single income from Phil's job as a project planner with San Diego Gas & Electric Co. So they have decided to hold off on having another child.
"People tell me not to let money stop us from having a baby, that everything works itself out in the end," Melanie said. "That may be true, but right now having another baby feels more like a strain than the blessing it's supposed to be."
Childbearing is taking a back seat to financial discipline for Brandon and Amanda Mendelson, an Albany, N.Y., couple who wed in June planning to soon start a family. But Brandon, a 25-year-old graduate student, and Amanda, a 24-year-old certified math instructor, are barely scraping by as substitute teachers.
Saddled with mounting bills but having no steady source of income, they are giving up their apartment to move in with Amanda's parents 40 minutes away in Glen Falls, N.Y. It's a tight squeeze. Amanda's brother and his wife have already moved back in to the three-bedroom, single-story house where Amanda grew up.
The Mendelsons are keeping their two cats, but they had to give away their two guinea pigs and put their family plans on hold.
"We can't even take care of ourselves," Brandon said. "We're both disappointed and upset about this, as we want to have children while we're young and able to play with them."
