Graph Shows US Births Decline Over 50 Years

Newsweek

6 hours ago

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Newsweek has created a graph to show how births in the United States have declined over the last 50 years.
This has happened for every age group, fluctuating across the decades, rising steadily in the 1980s and 1990s, and declining sharply after 2008, according to the U.N. Population Division.
The Context
America is one of many countries around the world struggling with falling birth rates. Fertility rates are projected to average 1.6 births per woman over the next three decades, according to the Congressional Budget Office's latest forecast released this year.
This number is well below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman required to maintain a stable population without immigration.
The Donald Trump administration has made this issue one of its priorities, the White House exploring giving women a "baby bonus" of $5,000, according to an April New York Times report.
The Birth Rate Situation In America
Different age groups have been affected differently by the shift in births. While mothers between the ages of 50 and 54 had no babies in 1975, this number gradually increased to more than 100 over the years and was 159 in 2024.
Conversely, teen pregnancies have drastically and consistently declined since 1975, when there were 599,926 before this number started to go down in the early 2000s, to 136,376 in 2024.
The issue with a lower number of births, taking place while the elderly live longer, means that is that the country is headed for a time when there are more elderly, dependent people than there are working-age people.
At the beginning of this year, a report by the McKinsey Global Institute warned that major economies are heading toward a "population collapse" by 2100 because of falling fertility rates.
Trump said during a speech in December: "We want more babies, to put it nicely."
Many trying to tackle this issue have focused on public health policies and financial plans, often citing the 2008 financial crisis, its effect on housing, inflation and pay as a major contributor to why people delay having children, have fewer of them or to not have them at all.
Parental leave, improved childcare services, and financial independence in general are all things advocates call for in the hopes of making it easier for people to have children.
Earlier this month, Trump announced a $1,000 tax-deferred investment account for American babies born during his second term.
The White House said the so-called "Trump Accounts" will "afford a generation of children the chance to experience the miracle of compounded growth and set them on a course for prosperity from the very beginning."
Meanwhile, the United States could make childbirth free for privately insured families, in an effort to tackle declining birth rates.
The bipartisan Supporting Healthy Moms and Babies Act, which would designate maternity care as an essential health benefit under the Affordable Care Act, was introduced in the Senate in May.
Beth Jarosz, a senior program director of U.S. programs at the Population Reference Bureau, said that "reducing health care costs is important, but may not be enough to move the needle on births."
"The cost of childbirth is just one of the many costs of having a child, and people are also reeling from the much bigger costs of child care, housing, and other necessities," she told Newsweek.
Culture's Impact On America's Birth Rates
However, while financial concerns are generally accepted as a major contributor to declining birth rates, they are not the lone cause.
Bell said that even the policies she calls for "are also unlikely to increase the birth rate, as evidence from other countries with much more supportive policies suggest."
Norway is considered a global leader in parental leave and child care policies, and the United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF) ranks it among the top countries for family-friendly policies. But it, too, is facing a birth rate crisis.
The Nordic country offers parents 12 months of shared paid leave for birth and an additional year each afterward. It also made kindergarten (similar to a U.S. day care) a statutory right for all children aged 1 or older in 2008.
And yet, Norway's fertility rate has dropped dramatically from 1.98 children per woman in 2009 to 1.44 children per woman in 2024, according to official figures. The rate for 2023 (1.40) was the lowest ever recorded fertility rate in the country.
Newsweekspoke to several experts about Norway specifically, who all cited recent culture changes.
Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty
For example, "young adults are more likely to live alone" and "young couples split up more frequently than before," Rannveig Kaldager Hart, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health's Centre for Fertility and Health, said.
American Vice President JD Vance touched on cultural changes when he said in January: "We failed a generation not only by permitting a culture of abortion on demand but also by neglecting to help young parents achieve the ingredients they need to lead a happy and meaningful life.
"Our society has failed to recognize the obligation that one generation has to another as a core part of living in a society. So let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America."