As Ohio’s elected officials continue to hope for economic growth, there’s a factor some may not have considered. According to a report by the Ohio Capital Journal, the Buckeye State’s fertility rates are dropping — standing at 56.2 births per 1,000 women in 2023. That’s an 8.9% decrease from the state’s average of 61.9 per 1,000 between 2011 and 2020.

Interestingly, births to mothers younger than 20 and ages 20 to 24 both fell dramatically compared with 2007 data.

Nationwide, the problem is serious enough that members of the Trump administration have considered incentivizing births. That has not made U.S. women more willing, however.

Here in the Buckeye State, officials have to make this kind of population data part of their planning. It affects everything: education, health care, workforce, housing … everything.

The Pew Charitable Trust researchers who wrote the report said, “State policymakers must reckon with the question of how best to navigate lower fertility rates and related fiscal impacts.”

This is not something to be ignored. Smaller numbers of working adults will eventually reduce not just the workforce but the tax base and therefore state revenue.

According to Pew, reasons for the decline in births are varied.

Many of the reasons involve money, such as financial woes — maybe even related to student loan debt — housing and child care costs, and simply different ambitions for families, such as higher education goals and career success.

It’s not hard to understand why some are making a different choice than perhaps was made by earlier generations. What is more challenging is figuring out how (or whether) to try to do something to reverse the trend and how to prepare for how it will very likely affect our state and federal financial health.

The time to start working on such challenges is now.

Waiting to tackle it later could be a major mistake, indeed.