Fertility rates in the United States hit a record low in 2023, according to provisional data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday.
Total births last year fell two percent from 2022 to 3.59 million, “a level not seen since 1979, when about 3.4 million U.S. babies were born,” TIME reported. Brady Hamilton, a U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) demographer and lead author of the report, told the publication the rate of U.S. women of childbearing age having babies is the lowest since the CDC began tracking.
The decrease is ultimately a return to the two-decades-long trend of Americans having fewer children after a temporary boost during the coronavirus pandemic.
The birth rate for women between the ages of 15 to 44 was 54.4 births per 1,000, which is down from the previous low of 56 births per 1,000 in 2020 and down three percent from 2022.
“The data, based on more than 99 percent of birth certificates issued that year, is broadly in line with a general annual decline of roughly 1-2 percent over the last decade, a steady drop punctuated only by a steep plunge of 4 percent at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic followed by a modest, expectation-defying pandemic ‘baby bump,”‘ Forbes reported.
Researchers found that teen births also hit a record low in 2023, with 13.2 births for every 1,000 teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19. The decline was three percent from 2022, which is less than the average seven percent decline from 2007 to 2022.
The data revealed that cesarean deliveries make up nearly a third of all deliveries at 32.4 percent and increased for the fourth year in a row. The rate of cesarean deliveries is at its highest since 2012.
Researchers said the U.S. fertility rate in 2023 remained below replacement, which is “the level at which a given generation can exactly replace itself.” Demographers wrote that the current rate needed for replacement is 2,100 births per 1,000 women.
“The rate has generally been below replacement since 1971 and consistently below replacement since 2007,” the report states.
