US Birth Rate Drops to Historic Low After Pandemic Baby Surge

A doctor examines a pregnant woman at a health center in Denver, Colo., on March 15, 2017. Jason Connolly/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. births declined to their lowest level in more than 40 years last year, according to new provisional data published on April 25 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Just under 3.6 million babies were born in 2023, marking a 2 percent decline—or roughly 76,000 fewer births—from the previous year and the lowest level seen since 1979, when roughly 3.4 million U.S. babies were born.

The latest figure marks an end to the rise in childbirth rates seen during the COVID-19 pandemic and puts rates more in line with declines seen between 2015 and 2020, when there were roughly 2 percent fewer babies being born every year, according to the report—although those rates dropped a whopping 4 percent between 2019 and 2020.

U.S. births ticked up slightly by 1 percent in 2021, while the birth rate in 2022 was flat.

However, the latest figures suggest that the slight uptick is over, and “we’re back to the trends we were in before,” said Nicholas Mark, a University of Wisconsin researcher.

The findings from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a unit of the CDC, are based on more than 99.9 percent of the birth certificates filed in 2023. However, they are provisional, meaning the final birth count may change.

Still, while there might be an adjustment to the 2023 data, it won’t be enough to erase the “sizeable” decline seen in the provisional numbers, according to the CDC’s Brady Hamilton, the report’s first author.

According to the provisional data, the declines are partly driven by a marked decline in the birth rate among older teenagers and women aged 20–24.

Among teenagers aged 18–19, birth rates fell 3 percent, which is also a record low, while the rate among teenagers aged 15–17 was flat in 2023,  the data shows.

‘People Are Deliberately Parenting’

Overall, birth rates have been falling for teenagers since 2007.

Meanwhile, among women aged 25–34—who accounted for more than 2 million births in 2023—the birth rate was down around 2.5 percent, while the rate among women aged 20–24 fell by 4 percent to a record low of 55.4 births per 1,000 women.

Rates fell across almost all racial and ethnic groups except for Hispanic women, who saw birth rates rise by 1 percent from 2022 to 2023.

Among American Indian women and Alaska Native women, birth rates declined 5 percent, while they were down 4 percent among black women. White women saw a 3 percent decline, while Asian women experienced a 2 percent decline in birth rates.

Experts believe the declining birth rate may be partly due to an unsteady economic environment forcing young adults in the United States to be more conscious and financially plan childbirth.

“People are deliberately parenting,” Karen Guzzo, a demographer and the director for the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Time magazine.

Ms. Guzzo added that her research suggests that a tougher economy, student debt, disparities in access to health care, and work instability are all issues prompting Americans to delay starting a family.

Elsewhere, Dr. Brady Hamilton, a statistician with the National Center for Health Statistics and lead author of the new report, also noted that the shift in women’s birth rates could be attributed to a changing economy and women placing greater emphasis on education and career as opposed to family planning, among other things.

Birth Rates May Decline Further

“The highest rates have, over time, been shifting towards women in their 30s whereas before it used to be with women in their 20s,” Dr. Hamilton told CNN. “One factor, of course, is the option to wait. We had a pandemic, or there’s an economic downturn, let’s say – women in their 20s can postpone having a birth until things improve and they feel more comfortable.

“For older women, the option of waiting is not as viable,” Dr.  Hamilton added.

The report also comes shortly after the first over-the-counter birth control pill, known as Opill, became available in stores and online in March.

Elsewhere, the provisional CDC data notes a rise in deliveries by cesarean section last year, likely in line with the rising average age of mothers, said co-author Michelle Osterman, a health statistician at NCHS.

The rate of infants delivered by cesarean section increased for a fourth consecutive year to 32.4 percent, marking the highest it has been since 2013, and it is up from 32.1 percent in 2022, according to the report.

“We do know that older women tend to more have difficulties during delivering, so it could be influenced by the increase in maternal age,” said Ms. Osterman. “And ‘low-risk’ (cesarean) doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not medically significant.”

Overall, the latest data shows that the total fertility rate—which estimates the number of births that a hypothetical group of 1,000 women would have over their lifetimes, based on the age-specific birth rate in a given year—was 1,616.5 births per 1,000 women in 2023, marking a decline of 2 percent from 2022.

That figure could have some impact on total population trends and sizes if a declining death rate suddenly changes or if rebounding immigration patterns come to a halt, data from the U.S. Census Bureau suggests.

A separate analysis published in the Lancet journal last month estimates that the average birth rate in the United States could fall to 1.53 by 2050 and 1.45 by 2100, leading to a population “crisis.”

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.