Children’s laughter is becoming less common all across the country — after the number of kids in the US shrank by 1.8 million since 2020.
All except for one region, where school classes are still growing: The South.
The portion of Americans under 18 grew by 1.1% between 2020 and 2025, amounting to 303,969 being born or moving to region during that time.
It’s a relatively small number of children, but significant compared to trends across the country — with the national child population dropping by 2.4% during the same time, US Census Bureau data from Axios found.
The drop was more dramatic in some regions.
Western states lost 1,015,068 kids — a 5.7% decline — while the northeast’s child population declined by 4.1%.
And the Midwest’s child population dropped by 3.9%.
Population changes do not necessarily or exclusively mean more or fewer kids are being born — that plays a part, but changes also coming from people moving to and from certain regions.
But the trends follow American migration patterns playing out since the Covid-19 pandemic, when communities across the South boomed while people relocated from northern and coastal states.
Moves south were so strong that the region’s grown at double the national rate — with the south’s population climbing by 6% between 2020 and 2025, while the US population overall grew by 3.1%, according to Axios.
The south’s child population growth doesn’t only mean more kids are arriving, but also adults of child-rearing and family building age are also on the rise.
It remains unclear, however, exactly how many of the south’s new children were the results of higher birth rates compared to how many were migration or relocations.
Most of the growth happened in larger cities, however, with metro counties seeing a 1.5% increase in child populations amounting to 361,757 people from 2020 to 2025.
Smaller southern cities saw their child populations drop during that time by .7% — 18,280 people — while non-city counties’ child populations dropped by 39,508, about a 2.2% decline.
