NEW YORK (AP) – US births rose slightly last year, but experts haven’t seen it as evidence to reverse the long-term decline.
Over 3.6 million births were reported in 2024, according to the Preliminary Data Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s 22,250 from the final tally of the 2023 US birth, released Tuesday.
The 2024 total could grow at least a bit when the numbers are confirmed; Another spare data set Overall fertility rates showed an increase in only one group of Hispanic women.
Hans Peter Kohler, a University of Pennsylvania sociologist who studies family demographics, says the rise (less than 1%) could be a slight variability in the middle of a wider trend.
“I’ve been hesitant to read a lot on the 2023-24 increase, and certainly not as a sign of a reversal of the trend towards a decline in the US fertility rate,” Kohler said, adding that further analysis is needed to understand the changes that took place in the birth patterns last year.
Birth and fertility rates in the United States have been declining for years. They fell a few years after most of the 2008-09 recession, except for the 2014 rise. They also fell in 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, and then rose For the second consecutive year, an increase in experts was partly due to pregnancies amidst the pandemic.
With a 2% drop in 2023, we gave birth to less than 3.6 million people. Minimum 1 year tally Since 1979. Vermont’s fertility rate was the lowest, with Utah at its highest, according to a 86-page report on Tuesday. 2023 Birth Data.
The report shows that the average age of mothers at first birth continued to rise, reaching 27.5 years, based on reviews of all birth certificates submitted that year. Before we steadily climbed, it was 21 1/2 in the early 1970s.
Birth rates have long fallen for teenagers and young women, but have been rising for women in their 30s and 40s. This reflects women who pursue women before they try to start a family, experts say. However, in 2023, the birth rate for women of almost all ages fell, including women in their early 40s.
Preliminary fertility data for 2024 shows a continuous decline among teenagers and women in their early 20s. However, it also showed an increase in women in their late 20s as births to Hispanic women increased completely. There was also an increase in women in their 30s as it rose among Hispanic and white women, with women in their 40s rising among white women.
Dr. John Santelli, an expert on family health at Columbia University, said immigrant mothers have driven an increase in Hispanic births, and the steady economy in 2024 may have supported the figures.
“But I think the change is small… I don’t think it’s going to change the long-term trajectory,” Santelli said.
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