Quick Hit

The U.S. fertility rate has fallen to a record low, with a 2% drop in births compared to the previous year. This decline reflects a continuing trend as American women navigate economic and social challenges, often choosing to delay or forgo having children.

Key Details

• About 3.59 million children were born in the U.S. in 2023, a 2% drop compared with 3.66 million in 2022.
• The total fertility rate fell to 1.62 births per woman in 2023, the lowest rate recorded since the government began tracking it in the 1930s.
• Factors contributing to this decline include women having children later in life, increased access to contraception, and economic challenges such as homeownership and student debt.

Diving Deeper

The data released by the federal government paints a stark picture of the changing demographics in the United States. Births in 2023 were lower than any year since 1979, despite a slight increase during and after the Covid pandemic. This decline in fertility rate is a reflection of the complex interplay of social and economic factors that American women face.

Women are establishing fulfilling careers and have more access to contraception, leading to a trend of having fewer children, later in life. At the same time, young people are grappling with uncertainty about their futures, with a significant portion of their income going towards homeownership, student debt, and child care. This economic pressure is causing some women to delay having children, which can result in having fewer children due to declining fertility.

As Karen Benjamin Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, puts it, “People are making rather reasoned decisions about whether or not to have a child at all. More often than not, I think what they’re deciding is ‘Yes, I’d like to have children, but not yet.’” This trend is likely to have significant implications for the country's demographic and economic future.