Amid rising political tensions, growing environmental concerns and skyrocketing living costs, many people nationwide – and in La Plata County – are choosing to remain childless.
While population declines can bring some benefits, they also raise concerns – including potential economic strain.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just under 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2023 – 76,000 fewer than in 2022 and the lowest one-year total since 1979.
The U.S. fertility rate has dropped to 1.6 children per woman – a record low, the CDC reports.
While national data show a consistent decline, La Plata County data paint a more complicated picture.
Births at Mercy Hospital in Durango increased 5.5% since 2022, according to a hospital spokesperson. However, U.S. Census Bureau data show the number of children younger than 5 in La Plata County declined by about 300 between 2020 and 2024.
Lower birth rates can mean more financial flexibility for individuals and couples, and less strain on resources. But a smaller population can also mean fewer students in schools, slower economic growth, reduced tax revenue and potential labor shortages.
In a small city like Durango, those impacts can hit even harder, local economists say.
A nonscientific survey conducted by The Durango Herald found that 59% of 183 respondents cited the high cost of living in La Plata County as a reason for not having children.
According to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, the livable wage for a couple in La Plata County increases by about $7.42 per hour for each partner – a combined increase of $31,000 annually – when one child is added to a household.
Though costs can vary slightly by area, parents in La Plata County can expect to spend more than $100 per month on diapers and other supplies, several thousand dollars per month on child care, $1,900 to $2,500 in monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment and several hundred or more per month on groceries, depending on family size.
“As it stands right now, what I have just has to go toward paying the bills and supporting myself,” one survey respondent, Lizz Mueller, told the Herald.
Mueller, who is in her early 40s, cited concerns about the state of the world as one reason she does not plan to have children, even though she wants them.
“With the way there’s wars and conflict going on around the world, it’s just not a very kind place, and in a lot of ways it’s not very safe,” she said. “I just feel like it would be negligent to bring an innocent new little life into that, and have to raise it with that kind of reality.”
According to the Herald’s survey, concerns about politics or the state of the world were the second most selected reason for not having children, followed by environmental concerns, simply not wanting children and medical reasons – including infertility.
As of 2024, infertility affected about 20% of Americans who wanted children but were unable to have them, according to the CDC.
Additional reasons cited included feeling too old to have children, difficulty finding a partner, being in a same-sex relationship with alternative routes to childbearing being too expensive, concerns about past trauma affecting parenting and plans to delay childbearing until later in life.
Several respondents said they already have children and want more, but don’t plan to expand their families because of financial constraints and global concerns.
Fort Lewis College economics professor Nate Peach said that while a declining population could bring some positive outcomes, it may also create challenges, because certain systems – including federal institutions – rely on steady population growth.
“A lot of areas of government need and rely on tax revenues, right? So, if we need income taxes to pay for X, Y and Z, and fewer people are working ... that means (fewer) tax dollars,” he said. “... The assumption is there’s going to be enough people working to support (structures like Social Security). With something like Social Security, as population growth rates go down, that is then putting a greater burden on that next generation.”
With the rise of affluence and growing concerns about the environment, economy and politics, the lower birth rate is likely a new normal, Peach said.
The key, he said, is adapting – not attempting to restore higher birth rates.
Peach said he has noticed declining enrollment in his daughter’s eighth grade class at Escalante Middle School and across Durango schools.
“My daughter is kind of on the cusp of some of these issues in Durango, where the schools don’t necessarily have enough students at each grade to support those students in ways that they used to,” he said. “So, they might combine the class or they might have teachers teach multiple sections because they can’t staff it like they used to. And there’s pros and cons with that, but I know that that’s created a lot of challenges in K-12.”
Durango School District has seen roughly a 16% decline in kindergarten through third grade enrollment since 2021, according to district spokeswoman Karla Sluis, with 1,089 students enrolled in those grades during the 2025-26 year compared with 1,296 in 2021-22.
In an email to the Herald, Sluis said that while the enrollment shift coincides with declining birth rates and increasing housing pressures locally and nationally, enrollment patterns are influenced by multiple factors and “shouldn’t be attributed to any single cause.”
Last month, Superintendent Karen Cheser said the district has lost 160 students so far this year. “Many decided to leave the country – I’ll leave it there,” she said during an Economic Development Alliance meeting.
Durango’s small size could make the impacts of a declining birth rate and fewer children more severe, Peach said.
“It can potentially be a matter of degrees,” he said. “If Durango has one or two less plumbers, as an example, that could be a pretty sizable hit to that industry in this area versus if Denver has one or two fewer plumbers – that’s not a big deal, right? It’s not going to move the needle at all.
“... You could project that into health care, with nurses and aides,” he said. “I mean, you could project that into a lot of industries (around here).”
epond@durangoherald.com
