Fertility Rate in U.S. Hit a Record Low in 2018

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Fertility Rate in U.S. Hit a Record Low in 2018

The rate of births fell again last year, according to new government data, extending a lengthy decline as women wait until they are older to have children.

The number of births per 1,000 women in the United States has been declining even as the economy has recovered from the downturn of 2007-8.

The fertility rate in the United States fell in 2018 for the fourth straight year, extending a steep decline in births that began in 2008 with the Great Recession, the federal government said on Wednesday.

There were 59.1 births for every 1,000 women of childbearing age in the country last year, a record low, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The rate was down by 2 percent from the previous year, and has fallen by about 15 percent since 2007.

In all, there were 3,791,712 births in the country last year, the center said in its release of final birth data for 2018.

Fertility rates are essential measures of a society's demographic balance. If they are very high, resources like housing and education can be strained by a flood of children, as happened in the postwar Baby Boom years. If they are too low, a country may find itself with too few young people to replace its work force and support its elderly, as in Russia and Japan today.

In the United States, declines in fertility have not led to drops in population, in part because immigration has helped offset them.

The country has been living through one of the longest declines in fertility in decades. Demographers are trying to determine whether it is a temporary phenomenon or a new normal, driven by deeper social change.

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