US birth rate continues to decline: NPR

According to the , women in the US gave birth to about 710,000 fewer babies last year than the nation’s peak in 2007. Preliminary data released This week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The latest one percent decline in “normal fertility” from 2024 to 2025 is part of a longer-running decline, said lead researcher Brady Hamilton, a demographer at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

“The general fertility rate (in the U.S.) has declined 23% since 2007,” Hamilton told NPR.

The impact of that change in real numbers is quite large: in 2007, there were 4,316,233 babies were born. Last year, even though the population of the entire country is large, there were still 3,606,400 newborns.

There is no consensus as to why women and couples have changed their behavior so significantly. Some experts point to economic factors, others say cultural influences and better access to education and contraception for women are driving the change.

“(This study) doesn’t provide information about the decisions that people were making and what factors they were considering when they were thinking about starting a family or increasing the size of their family,” Hamilton said.

Whatever the reason, many demographers and economists see the apparent shift toward smaller families and fewer children as a significant concern for the country and its labor force, especially as immigration to the US has also declined under the Trump administration.

A The report published earlier this year by the Congressional Budget Office found that due to these combined trends, the country’s population is likely to age more rapidly and grow much less, leaving the US with about 8 million fewer residents than projected by 2055.

“The (US) population of people 24 or younger is projected to decline each of the next 30 years,” the CBO authors concluded.

The declining fertility trend in the US reflects even more dramatic changes in much of the world.

In East Asia, Europe, and even many South American countries, the total fertility rate has fallen well below what is known as the “replacement” level. This means that without significant levels of immigration, not enough children are being born to maintain a stable population.

Even in the US, the total fertility rate is now well below replacement level. But some economists say it’s not clear whether the trend toward fewer children reflects a permanent national change.

One possibility is that American women are delaying motherhood and having more children later, according to economist Martha Bailey, head of the California Center for Population Research at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“We’re seeing a big decline in the fertility rates of young women, teens and women in their 20s,” Bailey said. “It is not yet clear whether the same women will go on to have children.”

A CDC study was published last March Found that fertility rates are increasing among women in their 30s and 40s, although not fast enough to offset declines in younger women.

Bailey said it is appropriate to have policy discussions around ideas that could make it easier for couples to have children or to have more children during their lifetime.

“People are having as many children as they want and can afford at the time that best suits them,” he said. “I don’t think anyone is in favor of maid story “Type of policy system, where we’re trying to talk families out of having kids they don’t want.”

One silver lining in this data is the big decline in teen childbearing rates, which fell 7% in 2025. Public health officials say the decline in childbearing rates by children and teens represents major progress.

“What’s really impacting the birth rate is lower rates of teen pregnancy overall, in the context of greater contraceptive use and less sexual activity for young people, and then also continued access to abortion care,” she said. bianca allisonIn an interview with NPR, pediatrician and associate professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.