The United States' birthrate dropped to record-low numbers last year, putting births at their smallest totals in 35 years, according to federal figures released Wednesday. Experts say economic damages from the coronavirus pandemic may lower the numbers even more.
Provisional figures released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center showed about 3.75 million babies were born in the United States in 2019, down 1% from 2018, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, the general fertility rate dropped by 2% to 58.2 births per 1,000 women ages 15-44, marking the lowest level since the government started tracking the figure in 1909.
“There are a lot of people out there who would like to have two children, a larger family, and there’s something going on out there that makes people feel like they can’t do that,” said Melanie Brasher, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Rhode Island who studies fertility, commented.
The birthrate never really bounced back after the 2007-2009 recession, and millennials are slower to begin their families than those in previous generations because they are less financially secure, according to economists.
Brasher said the fallout from the pandemic will likely lower the birthrate in coming years, pointing out that for people who came out of the Great Depression, the birthrates were "much lower for that cohort than they were for people born after World War II."
According to the new report, there was an uptick among women in their 40s, but for others, the numbers held steady or dropped. Births to teenagers dropped the most, by 5%, and since peaking in 1991, overall the teen birthrate has fallen by 73%.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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