Young Kids Are Vanishing From America's Big Cities, Down 15% Since 2015

America's big cities are running out of kids.

The number of children under age 5 living in the nation's 38 largest cities fell 15% between 2015 and 2024, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of demographic data. That's more than double the 7% decline recorded nationwide over the same period.

It's not just toddlers. The under-18 population in those same cities dropped 6%, compared to a 1% decline nationally. Roughly two-thirds of the 38 cities analyzed lost children even in years when their overall population grew.

The Worst-Hit Cities

San Jose, California, saw the steepest collapse. The under-5 population there dropped 34%, more than a third, in a decade. Median household income in San Jose runs nearly double the national average, according to the Journal, which prices out middle-class families trying to raise kids anywhere near Silicon Valley.

Los Angeles wasn't far behind, losing 16% of its under-18 population, the second-biggest drop of any major city measured.

Albuquerque, New Mexico, a city with a far lower cost of living than the coasts, still lost 15% of its child population. Milwaukee lost 11%. New York City, whose population of children has reportedly been shrinking since 2000, saw an 8% drop between 2015 and 2024, which puts it toward the lower end of the list but still firmly in decline.

Why Families Are Leaving

Ernie Solis, a firefighter, told the Wall Street Journal he left San Jose in 2021 with his wife, a teacher, and their two young sons. Daycare for each boy ran about $25,000 a year. Solis now commutes weekly from just outside Boise, Idaho, flying into San Jose on Mondays and sleeping in free firefighter dorms during the week before flying home Fridays.

Solis said he's met other blue-collar workers, electricians, HVAC techs, auto body shop owners, making the same commute rather than raise their families in the city where they work.

Parents who left cities cited cost of living, safety, and quality of life as their reasons, according to the Journal's reporting. People without kids who were surveyed raised similar financial and lifestyle concerns about starting a family in expensive urban cores.

Two Different Problems Tangled Together

There are really two forces at work here. One is the country's record-low fertility rate, a trend that's been building for years and shows up in birth data nationwide, not just in cities. The other is migration: parents who already have kids deciding a $25,000-a-year daycare bill and a two-hour round-trip commute isn't worth staying for.

The Journal's analysis suggests the urban child exodus is being driven by both at once, and that big cities are getting hit harder than the national average on each front. Cities with sky-high housing costs and childcare expenses are logically going to see more parents leave than a national figure would capture, since the national figure averages in cheaper suburbs and rural areas where the cost pressure is lower.

What's Left Unanswered

The data doesn't settle how much of this is unique to expensive coastal metros versus a broader pattern hitting mid-cost cities too. Albuquerque's 15% drop, nearly identical to San Jose's overall under-18 decline, suggests high housing costs alone don't explain everything. Something else, maybe school quality perceptions, crime rates, or simple lifestyle preference for more space, is pulling families toward suburbs and smaller metros regardless of regional cost of living.

Local governments in cities losing kids at this rate face a real fiscal problem down the line. Fewer children now means fewer future taxpayers, shrinking school enrollments, and eventually a smaller working-age population replacing retirees. San Jose and Los Angeles school districts have already been closing schools due to declining enrollment in recent years, a trend that lines up with the Journal's population numbers.

No federal policy response has been announced specifically targeting urban childcare costs as of today. Whether cities like San Jose adjust housing and childcare policy to reverse the trend, or whether families like the Solis household keep voting with their moving trucks, remains an open question with real consequences for how these cities are staffed, taxed, and run a decade from now.