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Women in the United States are giving birth more often, and birth rates are expected to hit record lows in 2023, he said. Data From the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. fertility rate has been declining for decades, especially since the Great Recession of 2008, which has been declining rapidly.Baby swelling” But the birth rate quickly returned to a more consistent pattern of decline.
In the year In 2023, the U.S. fertility rate will drop another 3 percent from last year, to a historic low of about 55 per 1,000 girls ages 15 to 44, according to the latest data released by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. Just under 3.6 million babies were born last year, 68,000 fewer than the year before.
In the year Since 2007, when the fertility rate was at its peak, the number of births has fallen by 17%, and the total birth rate has fallen by 21%, according to the new report.
There's no single reason why the U.S. birth rate is declining, said Sarah Hayford, director of the Institute for Demographic Studies at Ohio State University. Perhaps a number of social and economic factors are at play, she said.
A “package of demographic changes” — people marrying later and younger, spending more years in school and taking longer to establish themselves in the economy in steady jobs, to name a few — is consistent with fertility rate trends, Hayford said. Involved in the new report.
“People are waiting to have children. And on average, the longer people wait to have children, the less children they end up having,” she says. “I think there's more social acceptance about not having children or having a small family. So as this becomes more acceptable, people scrutinize their decision to become parents.
CDC data shows that births continue to shift to older mothers; Women aged 30 to 34 had the highest birth rate, with 95 births per 1,000 women in this group in 2023.
In the year By 2023, the teen birth rate will drop to a record low, with 13 births per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19, the data shows.
Long-term trends aside, women in the U.S. are experiencing significant reproductive care in the years since the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade and denied the federal right to abortion.
National-level data may mask some of the effects of state abortion bans on local fertility trends. But one Analysis States with abortion restrictions starting last year had a 2.3% higher average birth rate than states without restrictions in the first half of 2023, resulting in about 32,000 more births than expected.
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“The relationship between abortion rights and birth rates is complicated. We're seeing recent trends in abortion policy play out in terms of demographic effects,” Hayford said. But abortion does change people's childbearing plans.
People's broader experiences with reproductive health can shape these decisions, she says.
And the new CDC report shows a worrying trend.
The majority of pregnant women—about three-quarters—received prenatal care during the first trimester in the past year. But the share of women getting care later — or never — has been rising in recent years. In the year By 2023, 2.3% of pregnant women had no prenatal care, up from 5% last year. According to the new report, 5% of women received prenatal care only in the third trimester.