Fertility Rates Continue To Decline In U.S.

The Daily Mail reports that "US fertility rates slump by 2% in a year to lowest on record, with 1.62 births per woman in 2023: Experts say focus on careers and access to contraception is behind the trend." The replacement rate is 2.1. The U.S. last saw a 2.1 rate in 2007. 

    Although there was a noticeable drop in the number of births during the pandemic, there was a slight bump following the pandemic, likely resulting from couples that had put off having children during the pandemic deciding to go ahead with having those children. But that bump seems to be over. The article relates:

    'The 2023 numbers seem to indicate that bump is over and we're back to the trends we were in before,' said Nicholas Mark, a University of Wisconsin researcher who studies how social policy and other factors influence health and fertility.

    Birth rates have long been falling for teenagers and younger women, but rising for women in their 30s and 40s - a reflection of women pursuing education and careers before trying to start families, experts said. 

    Mark called that development surprising and said 'there's some evidence that not just postponement is going on.' 

    CDC data shows in 2007 the total U.S. fertility rate was 2.12 births per woman, the 2023 rate of 1.62 shows a steady decline.  

    'People are making rather reasoned decisions about whether or not to have a child at all,' Karen Benjamin Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told The Wall Street Journal. 

    'More often than not, I think what they're deciding is 'Yes, I'd like to have children, but not yet.' 

    An analysis published in the prestigious Lancet journal, estimated the average birth rate in America is predicted to fall to 1.53 by 2050 and by 2100 reach 1.45. 

    The concern is that this figure is way below the replacement level of 2.1 children — the number each woman would need to have, on average, to replace both parents, and maintain the economic climate. 

    Some women are choosing to have children later in life and instead focus on their careers during their younger years.

    As fertility is linked to age, this can lead to some women never having children or fewer than they might originally have planned.

    Experts have previously warned that some are prioritizing careers over families, which they say has put the country on an irreversible path to economic decline.

    Many millennials also say they do not want to have children.

    Rising cost-of-living pressures, especially the price of childcare, is another factor that puts a dampener on couples having children or deciding to have multiple.

    America's first over-the-counter birth control pill became available in March.

 I would note that the U.S. still has higher birth rates than many of its competitors. Likely because the U.S. is, overall, more religious.