Families in the U.S. and around the world are having fewer children as people make profoundly different decisions about their lives. NPR's series Population Shift: How Smaller Families Are Changing the World explores the causes and implications of this trend.

Ashley and Nick Evancho say raising their 3-year-old, Sophia, is one of the most joyous things they've ever done. "Watching my daughter run around in the yard is otherworldly for me," Ashley said on a recent afternoon in their home in Grand Island, a suburb of Buffalo, N.Y.

But the Evanchos also made a decision that's increasingly common for families in the U.S. and around the world: One is enough.

"I don't need another one. I don't want another one. I love having only one child," said Ashley Evancho, who works as a financi

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