Good New for the United States, Actually Very Good News

 

There is much to celebrate in the latest news about the birth rate in the United States.  First is the record low in teen births.  

U.S. birth rate up 1%, still near record low THE NEW YORK TIMES 

Births in the United States increased by just 1% in 2024, still near the record low rates that have alarmed demographers, according to data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 3.6 million babies were born in the United States last year, a meager rise from the record-setting low in 2023. 

The fertility rate, approximately 1.6 births per woman over her lifetime, is well below the 2.1 births needed to maintain the country’s population through births alone. The new data represents “the continuation of a long-term decline of births in the United States that began really with the Great Recession in 2007,” said Ken Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire. 

These numbers, and the reasons that they have experienced such a consistent decline, are widely seen as a problem that could affect the U.S. economy in coming decades, as fewer young workers support a growing aging population. The decrease is due in part to a remarkable shift in who is giving birth: Much of the long-term trend can be attributed to the substantial reductions in teenage pregnancies over the last several decades. 

In 1991, the most recent national peak in teen births, 61.8 births occurred per 1,000 15- to 19-year-olds, but that number was down to 12.7 births by 2024, a record low. “One of the big questions is all these births that haven’t occurred — are they just being delayed?” Johnson said. “Are these women going to have these babies later than they would have otherwise? Or are a lot of these births going to be forgone entirely?” The recent data seems to suggest that at least some people are forgoing having children altogether, Johnson said, adding, “Births in older women are up a little bit, but not enough to make up for all those births that didn’t occur.