The fertility rate in the United States has been falling for years, dipping so low that the nation’s population would be declining without immigration, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This marks the seventh straight year that the fertility rate has dropped.
In 2017, the number of births in the U.S. was 3,853,472. This was a decrease of 2% from 2016 which was 3,945,875.
Age of First-time Mothers is 26 before it was 21 in 1972.
Age of First-time Fathers average age is now 31 before it was 27 in 1972.
American women are giving birth at older ages and are more likely to have problematic conditions like obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes.
Childbearing decisions are often tied to our feelings about the future, says Hartnett, and “even though a lot of the economic indicators have improved, people are still not feeling optimistic about the future.”
Static wages after the last recession coupled with record-breaking credit card and student debt have left many Millennials with too much financial anxiety to have children. And there’s little support for working parents in the U.S.: Two-thirds of first-time mothers in America worked through their pregnancy, but the U.S. is one of only two countries without a national paid family leave policy, according to a recent report from the Urban Institute. A little over half of U.S. companies offer maternity leave, and only 6 percent of those offer paid leave. And childcare can be a crippling expense, eating up more than 37 percent of a minimum wage worker’s income.
Childbearing
Decisions are often tied to our feelings about the future, says Hartnett, and "even though a lot of the economic indicators have improved, people are still not feeling optimistic about the future."