Key Takeaways

• A new Institute for Family Studies survey of 7,000 Americans found a significant fertility gap tied to worldview and religious practice: more religious Americans are having more children, and the data points to faith as a primary driver.

• J.P. De Gance, quoted in the Daily Signal and syndicated through LifeNews, argued that having children is fundamentally an act of hope, and that religious parents are more likely to be grounded in a sense of purpose found outside themselves.

• America’s overall fertility rate has fallen by more than half over the last century, from 110.9 births per 1,000 women in 1924 to 53.8 in 2024, well below the 2.1 replacement rate.

• The fertility crisis is not primarily an economic problem. It is a spiritual one — rooted in how people understand meaning, purpose, and the future.

• The local church is uniquely positioned to cultivate the kind of hope, stability, and family culture that leads people to welcome children. Communio helps churches build exactly that environment.

The Story: A Fertility Gap That Points Straight to Faith

A new report from the Institute for Family Studies, based on a survey of 7,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 54, has found a significant gap in fertility rates that tracks closely with religious practice and worldview. The story, reported by Kevin Stocklin for the Daily Signal and syndicated through LifeNews on June 22, 2026, includes a direct quote from Communio’s J.P. De Gance that cuts to the heart of what the data is actually showing.

More religious Americans tend to have more children. Less religious Americans tend to have fewer. And the reasons behind that gap, according to De Gance and several other researchers quoted in the piece, are not primarily economic. They are spiritual.

America’s fertility rate has fallen by more than half over the last century, from 110.9 births per 1,000 women in 1924 to 53.8 in 2024. A birth rate of 2.1 children per woman is the minimum required to sustain a population. The United States is well below that threshold and has been for some time. The societal consequences of that decline, from an aging workforce to strained public systems to the long-term vitality of communities, are significant and well-documented.

What the IFS survey adds to this picture is a sharper understanding of why.

The Core Finding: Purpose Shapes Fertility — and Faith Shapes Purpose

Brad Wilcox, senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, offered a clear framing in the Daily Signal piece: more religious Americans are more likely to see marriage, parenthood, and family life as core parts of their identity, not merely options to consider alongside career and other pursuits.

Tom Vogl, an economics professor at the University of California San Diego, added the broader pattern: in the United States and around the world, more religious people tend to have more children. Religious faith appears to provide a framework in which family formation is not just permitted but actively embraced as meaningful.

J.P. De Gance’s comment goes deeper than the sociological observation. “The act of having children,” he told the Daily Signal, “is fundamentally an act of hope.” Religious parents, he argues, are more likely to be grounded in a sense of purpose that is found outside themselves, a purpose that is not threatened by the arrival of a child but enlarged by it.

That framing matters because it locates the fertility question where it actually lives: not in tax policy or housing costs, though those factors are real, but in the spiritual architecture of a person’s life. How do they understand their own existence? What do they believe the future holds? Do they see a new human life as a gift or a burden? The answers to those questions are shaped profoundly by faith, or by its absence.

The Counterintuitive Angle: The Fertility Crisis Is Not an Economic Problem. It Is a Hope Problem.

Here is the reframe that J.P.’s quote in the Daily Signal points to, and that the broader data in the IFS report confirms.

The standard policy response to falling fertility rates focuses on economics: housing costs, childcare subsidies, parental leave mandates, child tax credits. These interventions are not without value. But they consistently fail to produce the fertility outcomes they promise, because they are addressing the wrong root cause.

When the IFS survey asked respondents about barriers to having children, the answers that stood out were not primarily economic. Among less religious respondents, 18% doubted whether they would be good parents, compared to 9% of more religious respondents. Nineteen percent cited mental health as a barrier, compared to 10%. Eighteen percent worried about passing down unhealthy traits, compared to 10%.

These are not financial anxieties. They are existential ones. They reflect a deep uncertainty about human goodness, about the future, about whether bringing a child into the world is a responsible act. As Timothy Carney, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, put it in the piece: “If you want to understand why the birth rate is collapsing, you can’t just look at economics or politics. You have to look at spiritual questions.”

The Christian answer to those questions is distinct and powerful: human beings are made in the image of God, the future is held in his hands, and new life is a gift to be welcomed rather than a risk to be avoided. That worldview does not eliminate the difficulty of parenthood. It reframes it. And it produces, in people who genuinely hold it, the kind of hope that makes family formation not just possible but desirable.

The fertility crisis, in this light, is not waiting for a government solution. It is waiting for a spiritual one. And the local church is the institution best equipped to provide it.

What This Means for Your Church

At Communio, J.P.’s comment in the Daily Signal points to something we see confirmed in every church partnership we build: when a congregation cultivates a genuine culture of marriage, family, and faith, it becomes a place where people are oriented toward hope rather than fear about the future.

That orientation matters for fertility. It matters for marriage formation. It matters for the willingness of young adults to commit, to build, and to welcome new life. And it matters for the long-term vitality of the congregation itself — because churches that are full of strong, faith-anchored families are churches that grow, that retain the next generation, and that become trusted anchors in their communities.

Think about the young adults and young couples in your congregation right now. The ones navigating a culture that has made family formation feel complicated, expensive, and uncertain. They are not primarily lacking financial resources. They are often lacking the spiritual framework and the community support that makes the leap toward marriage and parenthood feel like hope rather than risk.

The church is uniquely positioned to offer both. A theological vision of family life as vocation, not just lifestyle choice. A community of people who are doing the demanding, joyful work of building marriages and raising children together. And the practical tools and formation that Communio helps churches provide, equipping couples at every stage to build the kind of faith-anchored family life that the data shows produces flourishing.

The fertility gap is real. But its solution is not primarily political or economic. It begins in the local church, with pastors who take seriously their role in cultivating hope, and with congregations that become the kind of communities where family formation is celebrated, supported, and sustained.

Take the Next Step

Communio partners with churches to build marriage and family ministry that cultivates the hope, stability, and relational culture where family formation flourishes.

► Read the full LifeNews article → lifenews.com

► Explore Communio’s resources for churches → communio.org

Frequently Asked Questions

What is driving America’s fertility decline? America’s fertility rate has fallen by more than half over the last century, now sitting at 53.8 births per 1,000 women in 2024, well below the 2.1 replacement rate. While economic factors like housing costs play a role, research increasingly points to spiritual and existential factors as primary drivers: uncertainty about the future, doubts about human goodness, and a loss of the sense of purpose and hope that historically oriented people toward family formation.

Why do more religious Americans tend to have more children? According to the Institute for Family Studies survey and researchers quoted in the Daily Signal, more religious Americans are more likely to see marriage and parenthood as core parts of their identity and vocation, rather than optional lifestyle choices. Religious faith provides a framework in which new life is welcomed as a gift and the future is approached with hope rather than fear. J.P. De Gance argued that having children is fundamentally an act of hope, and that religious parents are more likely to be grounded in a sense of purpose found outside themselves.

Is the fertility crisis primarily an economic problem? Not primarily. When the IFS survey examined barriers to having children, the most telling responses were not financial but existential: doubts about being a good parent, mental health concerns, and worry about passing down unhealthy traits. These reflect spiritual and psychological anxieties that economic policy cannot address. As Timothy Carney noted, understanding the birth rate collapse requires looking at spiritual questions, not just economic ones.

What is the church’s role in addressing the fertility crisis? The local church is uniquely positioned to address the spiritual root causes of the fertility decline by cultivating a genuine culture of hope, marriage, and family formation. When congregations take marriage and family ministry seriously, they become communities that reframe parenthood as vocation rather than risk, provide the relational support that makes family formation sustainable, and produce the kind of faith-anchored environment where welcoming new life feels natural rather than frightening.

How does Communio help churches build a family-formation culture? Communio partners with churches across Evangelical, Protestant, and Catholic contexts to build data-informed relationship ministry that equips couples at every stage of life, from singles and engaged couples to newlyweds and long-married families. By helping churches strengthen marriages and build relational cultures rooted in covenant love, Communio helps create the conditions in which family formation flourishes as a natural expression of faith and hope.

Credit: This post draws on reporting by Kevin Stocklin for the Daily Signal, syndicated through LifeNews on June 22, 2026, and data from the Institute for Family Studies’ ideological fertility divide report. Read the original LifeNews article here.