The moment Jordan Alvillar learned about two years into their marriage that her wife no longer wanted to have kids, her life and the future she had long imagined came to a screeching halt.
“It was like you were driving a car full speed toward what you think is going to be your final destination,” Alvillar, 37, said. “All of a sudden someone who’s not you just slams on the brakes. I felt very devastated and it took me a long time to process those feelings.”
Over the next year, as the pair dissected their differences in weekly therapy sessions, that devastation slowly disintegrated. In its place, Alvillar — who discovered she also wanted to live childfree — found a sense of relief.
Freedom, even.
The Denver couple’s decision to pass on having children is one story feeding into a trend of declining birth rates in metro Denver — where the impacts of slowing births have already trickled into classrooms, with smaller numbers of kids showing up to elementary schools.
Denver County experienced the second-largest decline in births among the 100 most populous counties in the country from 2021 to 2022 — the most recent year of county-by-county data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of babies born dropped 6.3%, to 8,649 from 9,232.
Meanwhile, Colorado’s total fertility rate is down, with fewer babies born per woman over her lifetime. Data shows an average of 1.5 births among Colorado women and an average of 1.6 births among women nationally. To fully replace Colorado’s population, the average total fertility rate would have to jump to 2.1, according to Colorado State Demographer Elizabeth Garner.
The freefall in births marks a generational shift and follows birth trajectories of both the U.S. and other developed nations as more millennials choose to have fewer — or no — kids.
Last year, the country’s total fertility rate dropped to 1,616.5 births per 1,000 women, The New York Times reported last week, calling it “a historic low” that is well below the rate needed to maintain the U.S. population. The New York Times also reported in July on the rising number of U.S. adults who say they expect to remain childfree, citing a Pew Research Center study from 2023. Among the results, 47% of adults younger than 50 without kids indicated “they were unlikely ever to have children,” up 10 percentage points since 2018.
Climate anxiety, finances, ratchet anxiety about parenting
Why are adults at a ripe reproduction age opting for childfree households or fewer children than previous generations?
Their answers differ, often driven by deeply personal reasons.
In some cases, distress outside the home alters decisions made inside it. That was especially true during the housing crisis of the Great Recession and the pandemic’s health and economic challenges. Both moments of history spawned a decline in birth rates.
“That instability, that lack of certainty made people feel that they wanted to have fewer children,” Jennifer Reich, a professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Denver, told The Colorado Sun.
The kinds of social support people have access to, including parental leave policies and health insurance, also affect whether they see kids in their future, Reich said, noting that as governments scale back social safety nets, birth rates tend to go down.
At the same time, pressure on parents has been mounting, with parents feeling greater anxiety about their children’s success and an overwhelming sense of responsibility to enroll in high-quality day care, pick the right school and sign up for traveling sports teams.
“Our cultural expectations of what it means to be a good parent keep ratcheting up,” Reich said. The expectation that parents, particularly mothers, invest more in each child “can make parenting feel like more work.”
Other adults want to focus on their education and careers or find meaning in ways besides having kids. Some feel strapped by student debt, stressed about the worsening effects of climate change or worried about what the country’s future looks like amid sharp political divides, Reich said.
“They’re personal choices,” she said, “but they’re drawing on cultural and social information that help them shape their priorities for their family.”
Much of the overall drop in births has been driven by significant declines in babies born to women under 35, particularly under the age of 25, largely thanks to better access to effective contraceptives, according to Sara Yeatman, a professor of health and behavioral sciences at CU Denver.
Young adults on average still want to have two kids, but that desire often starts to wane in their 30s, Yeatman said, in part because of the escalating price of child care and housing.
“It’s really, really expensive,” said Yeatman, who also runs the CU Population Center. “And so even if people might have one, they then revise their desires down to not have that second child because of how expensive it is.”
“The threat of regret”
Alvillar, who changed her mind about kids after years of anticipating having a family, has found happiness in her own rhythm with her wife, which includes room for their shared love of travel along with more ease to plot out how they want to spend their time and ever-growing bonds with their nieces, nephews and friends’ kids.
Alvillar said that while growing up she never had a role model who chose to be childfree. That meant that having kids seemed “inevitable,” she said.
“It just felt like a societal expectation that was ingrained in me and it was portrayed both in real life and in movies as a crucial life milestone that I was advised not to overlook,” Alvillar said. “I like to call it ‘the threat of regret.’ People saying, ‘you’re never going to know a love like this and if you don’t (have kids), one day you’re going to be on your deathbed wishing you did.’ That can really get people, and I think that for a long time, it really convinced me that it was just an experience I shouldn’t miss out on, and therefore I was just chasing a feeling.”
Through regular therapy with her wife, Alvillar came to realize that her long-held reasons for wanting kids were the wrong ones.
Other forces have also factored into her decision to plow forward without children, including her mental health — she has struggled with anxiety and depression since childhood — along with the uncertainty of the world.
“I think that even just looking at the state of the world, whether it be world wars that are happening, whether it be climate change, there’s no guarantee of how our world is going to look in the next 20 years and that children and families are going to be thriving,” Alvillar said. “They’re not necessarily thriving now, so it feels like an ultimate gamble to just put all this faith into the powers that be in our country or in the world that the world is going to be in a pristine state to where any child we would have would just have the greatest opportunities possible when that currently doesn’t exist.”
Reich, of the University of Colorado Denver, noted that public judgment often rears up in conversations about childbearing — deeming people who don’t want to have children as selfish or condemning parents who have more children than they can afford.
The better question, she said, is “how can we set up better opportunities where people who are parenting have the resources they need to be successful?”
Susan Ahmad, who lives in Commerce City, felt a pull to have kids in her early 20s as someone who has been close with her family and grew up devoted to family traditions and expectations, even helping raise her younger siblings.
By the time she turned 30, she began branching out in her own direction.
“I started living my life for myself and not for others and the expectations of what was thought to be for me,” said Ahmad, now 38.
Ahmad climbed up in her career and leaned into traveling, aiming to visit one new destination a year.
In 2022, however, she unexpectedly stepped into the role of parent after adopting her nephew when her older sister died. He still considers her his aunt, but she has taken on all the responsibilities of a mother, sorting out issues at school and cuddling with him at night during his first year of living with her.
She said adopting her nephew only reinforced her decision to not have her own children. Her family has battled challenges with addiction and mental health. Ahmad has faced struggles with mental health and has feared passing them down to kids of her own. She knows guilt would follow.
She also has seen firsthand how many children in foster care need a home while navigating the adoption process for her nephew. If she had her own kids, she said she might not have had the finances or bandwidth to bring her nephew, now 11, under her roof.
“Where would he be?” she wonders.
With dwindling birth rates eventually comes the prospect of school closures
Colorado’s population demographics make it one of the youngest states in the country with its long history of luring 20- to 40-year-olds seeking good jobs and access to the outdoors, said Garner, the state demographer.
“If we didn’t migrate people to the state, we would age really fast,” Garner said.
Her office is forecasting the birth rate to taper and hold steady, though she anticipates that the state’s share of women of childbearing age will grow, meaning the state could see a modest increase in the number of babies born until sometime around 2040. That increase will likely result in birth numbers that are slightly higher than birth figures in 2007.
However, those births will play out differently county by county. For example, Adams County is a younger county than its neighbors and will therefore likely see a greater uptick in births. Jefferson County is on the opposite end of the spectrum, with older residents, Garner said.
Among the most immediate consequences of declining births and birth rates: Fewer kids showing up to elementary schools in recent school years.
Metro area school districts have had to wrestle with hard decisions in recent years while seeing smaller cohorts of students. Other district leaders in the metro area know that tough decisions loom ahead.
Closing 21 schools over the past three years — largely because of dwindling enrollment — has been among the most difficult work Jeffco Public Schools has faced, Superintendent Tracy Dorland told The Sun.
The district educated 76,172 students in preschool through high school last year after steady enrollment declines since the 2015-16 school year, when 86,708 students attended the district, state data shows.
Meanwhile, Jefferson County’s birth rate has also fallen — from 61 babies born per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 in 2007 to 50 babies born per 1,000 women in that age range in 2022. The number of babies born dropped from 6,194 in 2007 to 5,521 in 2022.
The arduous process of closing schools has revised the way the district is planning for its future. Dorland said the district worked with an outside expert to complete a boundary study, which “confirmed that just changing school boundaries and shifting students around will not change the challenge of declining enrollment.”
If the expected trends from the boundary study hold, Jeffco Public Schools will likely have to consider more school consolidations in the 2028-29 school year, Dorland said.
With the study as a road map, the district is also redesigning the way it assembles plans for buildings, analyzing enrollment trends and projections as well as locations when figuring out infrastructure needs.
“It’s really important to me that given our recent history,” Dorland said, “significant financial investments are made in facilities that we are confident will serve our students far into the future.”
In Denver Public Schools, Colorado’s largest school district, leaders continue to plan for student population declines, according to Deputy Superintendent Tony Smith.
Last year, DPS educated 88,235 students in preschool through high school, state data shows. Enrollment has fluctuated throughout the past few years — partly due to migrants arriving in Denver — but overall remains down. The district saw its highest enrollment in the past decade during the 2019-20 school year, when 92,112 kids attended its schools.
Denver County’s birth rate has also continued to dip. In 2007, 75 babies were born per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, compared with 44 per 1,000 women in that age group in 2022. The number of births decreased to 8,140 in 2022 from 10,084 in 2007.
District and board leaders have hemmed and hawed over school consolidations in recent years because of enrollment being down. The board, however, did approve closure of two elementary schools and one middle school in 2023.
More are likely on the way after the board in June adopted a policy that directs Superintendent Alex Marrero on how to go about proposing school closures.
Smith told The Sun that the district is contemplating new consolidation conversations and said leaders must develop a possible timeline and better understand how potential closures would affect communities.
“No one wants to shut down a school,” Smith said. “We are faced with the reality of declining enrollment that may present us with the choices that will include consolidation and closure of schools.”
Douglas County School District is also eyeing potential school consolidations, likely beginning in 2026 in Highlands Ranch. Like some of its peer districts, Douglas County School District is hammered by both declining births and an aging population, Superintendent Erin Kane said.
District enrollment has wobbled up and down in the past few years but was significantly down last year to 61,964 students in preschool through high school from its decade high of 67,597 students during the 2017-18 school year, according to state data.
Douglas County’s birth rate has also plunged from 72 babies born per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 in 2007 to 54 babies born per 1,000 women in that age bracket in 2022. The number of births fell to 3,849 in 2022 from 4,205 in 2007.
And yet pockets of the district are experiencing growth, including Sterling Ranch west of Highlands Ranch. The community doesn’t have its own elementary school, even as it will encompass about 18,000 homes, Kane said.
Douglas County School District’s board later this month plans to vote on running a bond election in November, in part to fund a few new community schools where they’re needed.
“We want to make sure we’re investing in all of our schools, including in our schools where we do need to do consolidations,” Kane said. “Investing in those schools and opportunities for kids is important everywhere.”