(TheLastPatriotNews.com) – In a trend that is shocking experts, birth rates in the United States have continued to decrease between the years 2022 and 2023, based on the latest findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
This decline is part of a consistent downward spiral in national birth rates that has been observed for the past 17 years, highlighted by a significant reduction during the period of the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009.
From 2007 through 2022, the US birth rate decreased by nearly 23 percent as per the CDC’s reports.
In 2023, the country recorded 3,596,017 births, which reflects a reduction of approximately 2 percent from the 3,667,758 births documented in 2022.
Furthermore, the general fertility rate, which measures births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, decreased by almost 3 percent last year, dropping to 54.5 from the 2022 figure of 56.
The decline in births among teenagers has been persistent since the 1990s and this trend persisted into the recent years.
Specifically, the birth rate among teens aged 15 to 19 fell by 4 percent from 13.6 to 13.1 births per 1,000 girls from 2022 to 2023.
For younger teenagers aged 15 to 17, the birth rate saw a smaller decrease of 2 percent, moving from 5.6 to 5.5 births per 1,000 girls.
In 2007, the general fertility rate peaked at 69.5 births per 1,000 women in the 15 to 44 age group, marking the highest level since the 1990s, which was 1 percentage point above the rate of the previous year.
Since that peak, the birth rate has continued to fall, driven in part by the rising costs associated with raising children and concerns over future economic stability, as noted by Sarah Hayford, director of the Institute for Population Research at Ohio State University.
Hayford also pointed to societal shifts in attitudes toward family life.
“Not having children, or having fewer children, is becoming more socially acceptable. As a result, people are weighing more carefully the decision to have children,” she explained.
She does not view the decreasing birth rate as a concern in itself.
Rather, she sees it as a factor that introduces new policy challenges, which are not inherently more challenging to address than other issues.
“If people want to have children but are not able to because of economic constraints, to me that would be a cause for concern,” Hayford remarked.
Copyright 2024, TheLastPatriotNews.com
