Is the US Ready for a Baby Boomlet?

“When you ask women ‘how many children do you want to have over your lifetime’, that hasn’t changed much despite this big downturn in the economy,” explained Samuel Sturgeon, president of Demographic Intelligence, a firm that forecasts birth rates for companies such as Disney, Fisher-Price, Gerber and P&G.

At the same time, the number of women entering their childbearing years is surging. This segment of the population fell all through the 1990s, but is now back at an all-time high and continuing to rise, according to experts. Called the “Echo Boom,” these women are the children of the Baby Boomers and fall between the ages of 20 and 35—the years considered “prime childbearing age” by the government. Normally, these trends would result in a gradual pick-up in births, but because of the recession, that effect has been postponed. If the recovery were to speed up, it’s possible the US could see a spike in births over the next few years.

About 22% of 18- to 34-year-olds surveyed by the Pew Research Center said they have postponed having a baby because of recent economic conditions. But as the economy improves, that trend will eventually have to reverse itself. That’s because most young people still want to have children. The typical American woman wants an average of 2.3 children over her lifetime. According to surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that’s been roughly consistent for 50 years.