How cheaper mortgages gave us the baby boomers - and what it means for today's baby bust

"If you want Americans to have more babies, it helps if it's cheap and easy to buy a house."

"The researchers found that two mortgage insurance programs led to 3 million additional births between 1935 and 1957, accounting for about 10% of the spike in births associated with the baby boom."

A 2025 working paper by economists Lisa Dettling and Melissa Schettini Kearney indicates that low-cost mortgages initiated in the 1930s contributed significantly to the US baby boom. Federal programs like FHA and VA-backed loans facilitated homeownership, resulting in approximately 3 million additional births from 1935 to 1957, accounting for about 10% of the baby boom. These programs reduced marriage age and increased family sizes, highlighting a connection between housing affordability and birth rates, which may have implications for today's declining global birth rates.

Read at Business Insider