Why are Americans having fewer babies? At Bloomberg Opinion, I go into some of the competing explanations:

Social conservatives tend to emphasize the economic causes for the decline, saying wage stagnation has made men less attractive as marriage partners and made raising a family harder. . . .
More market-oriented conservatives say that people’s preferences have simply changed.

Each point of view fits well with some bits of the evidence we have and poorly with others. I suggest another way to think about the falling birthrate, and how government policy affects it.