CV NEWS FEED // According to recent reports, birth and fertility rates in the United States have plummeted to the lowest levels since they have been recorded.
CNN reported Thursday that according to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), “There were about 3.6 million babies born in 2023, or 54.4 live births for every 1,000 females ages 15 to 44.”
The same day, Axios indicated that the “U.S. fertility rate in 2023 amounted to about 1.62 births per woman — well below the ‘replacement rate’ of 2.1 that would allow a generation to completely replace itself.”
Per Axios, according to the government data, birth rates “fell among adult women younger than 40 and were unchanged for women in their 40s.” Furthermore, “[b]irth rates declined across nearly all racial groups.”
“After a steep plunge in the first year of the [COVID] pandemic, the fertility rate has fluctuated,” CNN added. “But the 3% drop between 2022 and 2023 brought the rate just below the previous low from 2020, which was 56 births for every 1,000 women of reproductive age.”
In reaction to this data NCHS statistician Dr. Brady Hamilton stated: “We’ve certainly had larger declines in the past. But decline fits the general pattern.”
The NCHS is a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is in turn an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
>> REPORTS: PRO-LIFE LAWS INCREASE BIRTHRATE <<
In addition, CNN’s report noted that states with pro-life laws on the books “had an average fertility rate that was 2.3% higher than states where abortion was not restricted in the first half of 2023, leading to about 32,000 more births than expected.”
City Journal senior editor Steven Malanga referenced a similar fact in his recent article “Baby Blues.”
“One thing that stands out in the United States, however, is how fertility differs among the states—ranging from a low of 1.27 in Vermont to nearly replacement-level in South Dakota,” Malanga wrote.
“Notably, the states with the highest birthrates are overwhelmingly Republican, and those with the lowest are disproportionately Democratic,” he pointed out. “What, if anything, can this tell us?”
Malanga continued:
The 17 states with the highest general fertility rates are all designated by Cook Political Report as Republican, or GOP-leaning, including such Republican strongholds as North Dakota, Nebraska, Louisiana, Utah, and Texas. By contrast, the bottom six states—and nine of the ten states with the lowest fertility rates—are all either Democratic or Democratic-leaning
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Others near the bottom include Rhode Island, Oregon, Massachusetts, Washington, and California. Only two Democratic states have birthrates above the national average, compared with 20 Republican states with above-average fertility.
“Marriage is certainly a key element in understanding state-level fertility data and birthrates more generally,” he wrote later in the article. “While women may have children outside of marriage, studies consistently show that married couples are more committed, stay together longer, and have more children than do unmarried individuals.”
“Perhaps the most important thing that government can accomplish when it comes to fertility is to do no harm,” Malanga emphasized:
Recent American social policy may well have discouraged marriage, especially among low-income recipients of federal and state government aid. Similarly, local governments played a decisive role in pushing up American housing costs—and creating the disincentives to having children that those costs present.
In response to the news of plunging birth rates X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk wrote on his platform, “While many other countries are worse, America is trending towards extinction!”
Musk has 11 children.
The Daily Wire senior reporter Ryan Saavedra wrote on X: “American women are having fewer children, later in life. Women are establishing fulfilling careers and have more access to contraception.”
Readers can find Malanga’s full City Journal article here.
