When writer and historian James Truslow Adams coined the phrase ‘American Dream’ in his best-selling 1931 book Epic of America, he described it as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”
Since then, the American Dream has had many iterations. From the post-war period in the the1950s when nuclear families comprising of mom, dad and at least two kids, living in suburban utopia with at least one car was the ideal, to the mass materialism and consumerism of the 1980s, bolstered by Reagan’s economic policy which promoted free-market capitalism and tax cuts for the rich.
But what does the American Dream represent in 2024?
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Moving the goalposts
For many millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, the ultimate symbol of financial and personal prosperity revolves around being one half of a DINK—dual income, no kids—couple.
That’s according to new research, which has identified that 45 percent of millennial women aren’t getting married, buying a home or having kids, in that order.
This correlates with separate data which has identified that in 2022, more than half of American households didn’t have children (29 percent were married households without children, and 28.9 percent were single households without children). Comparatively, in 1960, 44% of households consisted of married parents.
Instead, 26 percent of this cohort of women are pushing pause on starting a family so they can focus on their careers and personal finances, with 10 percent actively prioritizing saving so they can have children in the future.
When you look at the declining birth rate—U.S. births fell to their lowest since 1979 in 2023—this shift in attitude is already apparent.
The cost of raising a child is soaring. It’s estimated that it costs roughly $300,000 to raise a child born in 2023 due to housing, food, childcare and education, transportation, healthcare and clothing costs during their formative years. It’s hardly surprising that women, whether they are in a couple or not, are considering financial factors before having a child.
Added to that are company policies that are rowing back on flexibility by enforcing strict RTO (return to office) mandates, backtracking on paid parental leave and falling salaries, and it’s clear that the issue is nuanced and doesn’t simply pertain to paying people more.
“The past few decades have shown that societal norms don’t look the same as they used to, and millennial women played a major role in that shift,” says Courtney Alev, consumer financial advocate at Intuit Credit Karma.
“As a result, women today aren’t tethered to the timelines set by those before them, as many choose to prioritize their careers above being young mothers. In some cases, that means prolonging family planning until they become more established in their careers, while others don’t see children in their future at all. Regardless, both camps are highly influenced by money and the high costs associated with conceiving and raising children.
“Luckily, we’re seeing women take control of their finances, focusing on saving money and paying off debt, which should put them in a better position to welcome a child into the world if that’s the path they choose to take.”
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Redefining family life
But aside from money, there is also a cohort of millennial and Gen Z women who have decided they don’t want to have children, even though they can afford them.
It is the antithesis to the #tradwife trend that has been gaining traction on TikTok in recent months, which highlights stay-at-home mothers who have multiple children, create multiple elaborate home cooked meals per day from scratch—and crucially—don’t let their husband do any domestic chores. The reality is that an increasing number of Americans are deciding that they don’t want kids. Period.
A Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2021 found that 44 percent of non-parents aged 18 to 49 said they were unlikely to have children, an increase of 7 percent from 2018.
Additionally, 56 percent of those who said they were unlikely to have children shared that their main reason was that they simply did not want to. Financial reasons only amounted to 17 percent.