According to experts, the decline in U.S. birthrates may be linked to the absence of well-paying jobs available to young American men. According to provisional data published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the U.S. birthrate hit a low in 2023 (the most recent year for which data is available) not seen in over a century.

The U.S. saw a 2% decrease in births and a 3% decrease in general fertility rate from 2022 to 2023, while the total fertility rate fell to 1.62 births per woman, the lowest point in over a century. The CDC noted that the U.S. fertility rate has generally fallen below replacement level since 1971 and has consistently remained below replacement level since 2007. A subsequent CDC publication confirmed the provisional numbers and noted that there has been a 17% decrease in the number of births and a 21% decrease in the general fertility rate since 2007. Economists have suggested in recent weeks that there may be a link between declining birth rates and the outsourcing of U.S. jobs, especially in the manufacturing sector.

In an interview Thursday, Breitbart News Economics Editor John Carney explained the connection between low birth rates and the outsourcing of U.S. jobs. Carney posited that because there are not enough white-collar jobs for all Americans, young Americans in particular have to “work in servile, service-sector jobs that don’t promote a future.” He added, “I actually think it’s … very related to the declining fertility we see in the United States. People don’t have a lot of hope in their own future, much less the future of any children they might have.”

On last Thursday episode of “Washington Watch,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.), a fourth-generation farmer who owns a farming and trucking company in his home state, discussed the large scale at which U.S. manufacturing jobs have been outsourced to other countries. “There was a lot of discussion about free trade over the past several decades. Well, what that’s done, a lot of the manufacturing has left the country, has gone to places like China, Mexico, and other parts of the world,” the congressman said. He continued, “At the time, it made sense, because you could buy a lot of product material at a cheaper price from China and ship it here to the United States and build RVs and ship them down the road. And it was good for the consumer.” However, Stutzman warned, “But what’s happened is we’ve hollowed out our manufacturing, our factories. We don’t have the same ability and capability that we used to. And now we’ve built up China’s economy over the past several decades, and it’s now coming back to haunt us.”

Economist Spencer Morrison, author of “Reshore: How Tariffs Will Bring Our Jobs Home and Revive the American Dream,” made a similar point about the outsourcing of American manufacturing jobs. “Think about back to World War I and World War II. Those wars were won on the backs of American industry at the time: we made all of the firearms, the syringes, all of the medical equipment. At the conclusion of World War II, America produced 50% of everything that was made on Earth,” Morrison observed. He added, “America was the world’s factory. And today, that couldn’t be further from the truth. America barely makes anything. If you go to the store, try to find a fork that’s made in America. You can’t. You’re not going to be able to find it.”

Chris Gacek, senior fellow for Regulatory Affairs at Family Research Council, explained the situation to The Washington Stand, clarifying the link between the economy and the family. “The system as it exists couldn’t continue to exist, because we had $1.2 trillion in, basically, trade deficit, and the system never balanced. The trade system is supposed to balance out, if you have some deficits and some surpluses, then over time you’ll roughly be even,” Gacek said. He continued, “So a system where a country is increasingly, increasingly, increasingly in deficit is a system that isn’t working, especially when the country has, basically, deficits against the world, whereas almost all of these countries have surpluses with the U.S.” He added, “The big issue here is the system couldn’t continue the way it was going, it’s just totally structurally imbalanced.”

“Going back to the family, people who don’t have jobs — or poor jobs, which is what’s happened,” don’t have families, explained Gacek, who holds a degree in economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He continued, “The manufacturing jobs are ‘value added,’ they earn more, they allow you to have health insurance and these kinds of things… The way I put it is, the United States has this open border, open trade, open capital accounts where everything just flows in and out, and it can’t continue.”

Gacek explained further, “All of this filters down to a situation where you essentially have a hollowed-out job sector for the vast majority of people, and you have a situation where just to subsist you have to work two or three jobs or you have something like 10 million young men who have dropped out of the work force — some guy who is in that category is not looking for a wife. Some guy who’s been denied decent employment and jobs is not looking for a wife. Young women don’t have any men because the young men don’t have any jobs, and if you can’t get a job you can’t support a family, so what’s the point? It’s really pretty brutal.”

“This set of globalist policies — if you are under the age of 40, you are out of luck,” Gacek quipped. “This is the ultimate problem, and Trump and the people around him are the only people even trying to address this thing,” he said, pointing to the benefits that some experts say will eventually come from the tariffs the president has imposed on foreign nations.

Stutzman and Morrison also pointed to Trump’s recently-announced tariffs as a key part of the solution to America’s economic and even social crisis. “What President Trump is simply doing is that he’s going to level the playing field. … We’ve got to make sure that we look out for the American manufacturer and the American economy by having a level playing field that’s good for Americans and is fair with our partners around the world,” Stutzman said.

“I think everybody … stands to benefit enormously from this tariff package,” Morrison said. He explained, “What these tariffs are going to do is they’re realigning the global trade networks away from the capital interests that benefit from offshoring and in favor of the American workers. So this is going to reshore factories to our country and all of the jobs that come with them.” Morrison anticipated, “We’re probably looking at a potential of about 10 to 15 million brand new jobs. And these are going to be jobs that are concentrated in lucrative industries, jobs with health benefits, the sort of jobs that we can support families on just like we used to.”

“These tariffs are about so much more than economics. This is a statement to the world, and it’s a statement to the American people that America is no longer going to be worshiping the golden calf of free trade,” Morrison added. “America has value beyond cheap goods and the pursuit of luxury and reckless consumption. Tariffs are going to do amazing things to reshore our industrial base so that we can defend this country. They’re going to provide jobs to ordinary people who didn’t go to college that they can support and build families on,” he continued. The economist emphasized, “It’s going to be great for our society and great for our people.”