Utah has long been famous for its large families. From the Osmond singers to “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” the picture has been one of young people marrying and having a lot of babies.
But Utah is now experiencing the biggest fertility rate drop in its modern history. After a peak in 2007, Utah’s rate has plummeted by more than 37 percent, the largest decline of any state in the country. Utah, which was No. 1 in the nation for fertility rates for years, is now ranked sixth.
Utah is a leading example of a demographic transformation that is sweeping the United States and other rich countries, as young women increasingly delay childbearing. As the trend deepens, the worry is that more women would forgo having children altogether, a choice that could have serious consequences for the country, economically and politically. For the first time, about half of all 30-year-old women are childless.
Adriana Guzman-Sierra, of Salt Lake City, is one. Her childhood, she said, was chaotic and stressful, with parents who she says were not ready to raise kids. Ms. Guzman-Sierra, who is 33 and has worked as a teacher and in child welfare, said she was happy to have grown up in an era where childbearing is a choice.
“I’ve always loved kids,” she said. “I just never wanted to have them.”
Whether this is a profound transformation in American life or a temporary dip is still an open question. The drop in the fertility rate captures women having fewer or no children, but also women simply waiting to have them. However, the duration of the drop has led some demographers to predict that something deep is going on.
The factors are many. One reason Utah’s decline is so sharp is that it had so far to fall. The state’s annual fertility rate — the number of children born in a year divided by the number of women ages 15 to 44 — is still higher than the national rate. That’s in part the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which encourages large families. Its members, polls suggest, make up about half of Utah’s population.
An influx of new residents, drawn to the booming economy, have also made Utah less like the white, church enclave it once was, and more like the rest of the country.
But the decline also reflects the power of the broad social dynamics pushing down fertility rates: Despite hand-wringing among conservatives, women in one of the country’s most socially conservative states are now making very different choices about childbearing.
Many women interviewed for this article said they were waiting until they had finished their educations and were financially stable. They say two incomes are required to afford a middle-class life in Utah’s exploding housing market, which is the 10th most expensive in the nation, according to the University of Utah.
More than 39 percent of babies in Utah were born to mothers with a college degree in 2024, compared with about 27.5 percent in 2009, The Times found.
“It’s really amazing to me how much things have changed,” said Holly Garcia, the director of child care and family services at Salt Lake Community College. “Having a kid at 35, it used to be almost unheard of. Now it’s more and more of the moms coming in.”
Her sister Heidi Spence is an example. She had her first child at 38. Despite growing up as one of eight children in a church family, she wasn’t drawn to being a mother. “I wasn’t a little girl who liked playing mommy,” she said.
After graduating from high school, she went to work — at a fabric store, as a cashier at Lowe’s, as a waitress.
Eventually, she enrolled in community college, then obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Along the way, she met her husband, who was completing a Ph.D. in pharmacy. They lived in a tiny apartment, studying full time and working long hours. Having children seemed too overwhelming, she said.
Now 44, Mrs. Spence is a financial director for a nonprofit in Salt Lake City. She and her husband have three young children. They own a house with a large yard and three cars. After her second child, she said she began to yearn for more children and thought, “Maybe I should have started this earlier.”
But there were advantages to having children later.
“I’m really glad that my kids did not have to deal with me in an earlier, less mature and less stable time,” she said. “The downside is I’m going to spend less time with them in their lifetimes.”
Change within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is another driver of Utah’s plunging birthrate.
A 2025 comprehensive study by researchers at Brigham Young University found that, while a majority of older women stayed in the church, less than 40 percent of 18-year-old women did. (Men, on the other hand, stayed in the church at high rates with little generational difference, said Justin Dyer, the lead researcher.)
That can affect decisions around childbearing. Savanna Sanborn grew up in the church. As a child, she threw herself into its teachings. At 10, she wrote and stored a letter to her future husband.
“I had this intense need for perfectionism,” she said. “I really thrived within the structure of the church.”
But she began questioning the culture. At 19, she admired a young pastor, who ended up running afoul of the church because he came out as gay. She married at 20, but quickly realized she did not want the life that came next: having children and running the household.
“The pressure of completing the perfect Mormon picture started to crack me open,” she said.
Now 29, she is divorced and studying for a bachelor’s degree in math, while working. She said she doesn’t feel particularly career-driven: After her experience in the church, she is wary of external forces determining the direction of her life.
As for children, she thinks she might want them someday, but not now.
“It would halt a lot of my hobbies, the time I can spend just wandering in libraries all day, which is my love,” she said. “I’m not ready to give that life up yet.”
The church itself has expressed concern over falling fertility rates. Last year, in a major sermon, Dallin Oaks, the president of the church, urged members not to lose sight of “the value of children.”
Utah is still the state with the largest family size in the country. But that may be changing, too: The women interviewed for this article came from families of as many as eight children, but they themselves tended to have fewer.
Chrissy Bryner grew up as one of five and always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. She was married at 19 and had her first child at 22, after graduating from Brigham Young University. Now 31, she has three children and said she and her husband might want a fourth.
But her older sister did things differently. She married after college but waited 12 years to have her first child, to establish her music career. Now, she is a thriving jazz musician who takes intense joy from parenting. She is pregnant with her second.
“I see my sister and other women I know,” Mrs. Bryner said, “and that shows me that my way is not the only way.”
Nina Feldman contributed reporting.
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