Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 26, 2024 / 16:45 pm (CNA).
Provisional data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week showed that the fertility rate in the United States hit a record low and the total number of births in the country was the lowest it’s been in decades.
According to the report, slightly fewer than 3.6 million babies were born in 2023, or 54.4 births per 1,000 women aged 15 through 44. This was a 2% decline in total births and a 3% decline in births per 1,000 women when compared with the previous year.
The total fertility rate, which estimates how many children an average woman would have over the course of her life based on the yearly data, was just over 1.6 births per woman, which was a 2% decline from the previous year. This is well below the replacement rate needed to sustain a population, which is about 2.1 births per woman over her life.
This was the fewest number of babies born in the United States in a year since 1979 and the lowest fertility rate recorded in American history — just under the previous record lows set in 2020.
The 2023 decline reverses a minor fertility rate bump for the calendar years of 2021 and 2022, which was the first increase since 2014. The 2023 numbers continue a wider trend in fertility declines since the 1960s when contraception became widely available in the United States and the women’s liberation movement began to emerge. Abortion became widely available in the 1970s after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision — which was overturned in 2022.
Fertility rates by age group
The birth rate dropped for teenagers and women in their 20s and 30s — but the decline was sharper for teenagers and women in their 20s than it was for women in their 30s. The birth rate for women in their 40s did not show significant changes.
According to the data, the 2023 birth rate for teenagers aged 15 through 19 was 13.2 per 1,000 women, which was a 3% decline from the previous year. The birth rate for women aged 20 to 24 was 55.4 births for 1,000 women, which is a 4% decline from the previous year. The birth rate for women aged 25 through 29 was 91 births per 1,000 women, which was a 3% decline from the previous year.
The 2023 birth rate for women aged 30 through 34 was 95.1 births per 1,000 women, which was a 2% decline from the previous year. For women aged 35 through 39, there were 54.7 births per 1,000 women, which was a decrease of less than 1%.
Fertility rates by ethnic group
According to the report, most ethnic groups saw a decline in total births and a decrease in fertility rates from 2022 to 2023 — but this reduction affected some ethnic groups at different rates.
The total number of births was down 5% for American Indian and Alaska Native women, 4% for Black women, 3% for white women, and 2% for Asian women. For Hispanic women, the total number of births went up by 1%. There was not much change for Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander women.
No ethnic group saw an increased general fertility rate from 2022 to 2023. It decreased by 5% among American Indian and Alaska Native women and Black women, by 3% for Asian and white women, and by 1% for Hispanic women. The rate was virtually unchanged for Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander women.
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Yep.
Contraception/abortion and feminism’s downgrading of marriage and motherhood.
What did we expect?
The whining about a decline in teen birthrates as if that is something bad here is disturbing. What is wrong with you people? Teens should be living their lives and learning how to navigate the world as they transition to adulthood. What they should not be doing is having babies. EVER.
What would the problem be for 18 and 19 year olds to be parents?
When my mother was in high-school many of her classmates were engaged by graduation .
By the time women marry today, if they marry at all, they’re already on the downward cusp of their fertile years.
Teenagers should not be having babies anyway. Poverty and problems for most teenage pregnancies.
If I’m to believe a substantial number of social media laments, the pursuit of some college degrees through the use of student loans is the recipe for poverty and problems for teenagers.
Yup.
I understand it’s not a common thing but I know 3 multi millionaires in our area who are high-school dropouts. Each owns their own business and one was featured recently in Forbes.
Higher education has it’s place but I think there really needs to be an important reason to accumulate that much debt. Lawyers, physicians, and scientists-sure. The rest of us? It’s going to vary.
Lets exercise a little calm, shall we?
I dont think the article was advocating for teenage births. The article was basically providing the statistics on women in the typical range of childbearing years, from age 15 to 40. Do women give birth outside those ages? Indeed they do, but it is too uncommon a number to draw conclusions about. The general observation drawn in the article is that live births are down. Doubtless much of this is from a cultural shift of many sorts: women going on to college and beyond for education, making long term careers, and a desire to get more material things which requires work to gather the cash.That all would delay childbirth, sometimes permanently.
One cannot discount the impact of abortion either. While unwed pregnancy and abortion have both gained societal approval in recent decades, whether society has found a good balance with all of this remains to be seen. Sadly, many women value careers over motherhood and fewer pregnancies would be the effect.I am reminded of a saying I once heard: Nobody ever lay in bed dying and said “I wish I had spent more time at work.” Personally I dont think that “work friends” have the same value as children and family either. No matter how much money you have acquired.
After 9/11, when I was desperate to read something focused on something other than the dominant topics of the day, I happened upon an account of OB-GYN practicing in New York.
This doctor told of numerous accounts of women in their mid 30’s to late 40’s, who having attained a position in some high-end law firm or Wall Street, would enter into his office, completely vexed at their inability to conceive and seeking some medical intervention. I remember several important facts from the article.
One was that these women seemed not to understand the decline in fertility with age-a misunderstanding that seemed to be buttressed by several accounts of late-in-life babies born to celebrity women-they didn’t understand these births were often the result not of the marital act: but a conception in a Petri dish or other exotic or expensive interventions. The doctor said he was constantly confronted with women who had to be told that just because they were psychologically ready for children, doesn’t mean their bodies were still capable. As I recall he described the inconsolable sobbing of women being told that in all likelihood, their fertility was over and that “40 is the new 30” was a social convention at odds with biology.
The biological reality is that a woman’s prime years for conception are something like 17-29. Are there women who conceive-even for the first time-at 35 or more? Sure, but a woman conceiving after 35 is automatically assigned the code “supervision of elderly primigravida”, in recognition of the medical issues associated with the situation.
Thank you for sharing that, Pitchfork.
I think I read that same article.
I had my last (#3) at age 34. Tried for #4 at age 36 or so. Months and months later, we finally gave up.
We have a problem in that physical maturity or maximum fertility occurs at a different time than social or occupational maturity. Thus women are having children in their 30’s, and on the downward slope of fertility. Early 30’s seems to work, but late 30’s,not so much.
40’s is a big problem. If you are going to have children, don’t wait until you are 40.
No surprise here. Humanae Vitae, anyone?