>US women of childbearing age saw declining or unchanged birth rates in various age groups in 2023, also following recent trends. Large drops seen among women ages 15 to 24 were likely due to prioritizing education over parenthood, Hayford added. The average age for a first-time mother was 27.5 years, a record high for the US, the report said.
>Teen birth rates declined by 4% from 2022 and have sunk by 68% since 2007, the researchers said.
>The total fertility rate was 1.6 births per woman — a pace that has generally declined since 2008 by 2% each year, meaning the US will have to rely on immigration to sustain current population levels.
I love my daughter more than anything, but I won’t lie, I feel immensely frustrated with my lack of ability to push life forward career-wise and financially while raising a young child. No one is doing anything to help change this dynamic, and the birth rate will continue to fall and fall until we become like Western Europe or East Asia, staring down the barrel of a massive societal issue.
Soft-Mongoose-4304 on
More immigrants
SerratedBeak on
I mean, have you seen Americans lately? Who’d want to make more of them?
Jimmy_McNulty2025 on
Are we prepared for a world where the economy just doesn’t grow each year? Like, that seems like it will fundamentally break society. What happens when 401k’s don’t grow over time?
huskiesowow on
My biggest problem is never getting time with my wife alone. Babysitters are wildly unreliable, we literally had four different sitters cancel on us four weeks straight. On top of that, our parents (we only have one each tbf) aren’t really into the grandparent role, so an overnight stay is basically out of the picture. You give up your entire past life, lose out on an enormous amount of money (529 plan is covering $650k for college by the time they graduate), and you have the stress and pressure of raising people that will be great members of society.
I’ve joked with my wife about the amount of money it would take to have a third kid. $2M minimum and even then I’d dread it.
Dependent_Weight2274 on
Sorry guys, wife and I had a baby in 22, but not 23. Must have pushed the numbers down. We had another in 24, so that should push us back up.
My bad.
StonkSalty on
Good, stop giving AmeriKKKa more wage slaves and cannon-fodder.
ModernMaroon on
I guess my kid will be part of the smallest American cohort yet.
Leonflames on
I won’t lie, I do hope to get married and have a family in the near future. The issue is that housing is so expensive in my area(Los Angeles metro) and my close family is struggling with the rent.
Plus, I’m getting a sense that many cities across the city are cultivating a culture of childlessness, which discourages people from having children.
ElectricalShame1222 on
The question is when contraception is banned next year will the birth rate increase or will the banning of IVF in six months negate the impact?
12 Comments
[Non-paywall link](https://archive.is/VShL5)
>US births declined in 2023 to the lowest level in more than 40 years, continuing a decades-long trend toward smaller American families.
>Total births for the year fell to 3.596 million, a 2% decline from 2022, according to a [report released](https://archive.is/o/VShL5/https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr74/nvsr74-1.pdf) Tuesday by the US National Center for Health Statistics that confirms [preliminary data](https://archive.is/o/VShL5/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-25/us-births-fell-last-year-to-lowest-total-since-1979-report-says) published last year.
>Births have been declining globally as political instability and uncertainty discourage people from having children. Earlier this month, the European Union said 2023 births dropped to 3.6 million — a 5% rate of decline not seen in more than [six decades](https://archive.is/o/VShL5/https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20250307-1%23:~:text=This%20is%20the%20largest%20annual,fertility%20published%20by%20Eurostat%20today.). The number of babies born in China last year, 9.5 million, was the [second-lowest](https://archive.is/o/VShL5/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-17/china-s-population-shrinks-again-posing-risks-for-economy) since the nation’s establishment in 1949.
>[…]
>US women of childbearing age saw declining or unchanged birth rates in various age groups in 2023, also following recent trends. Large drops seen among women ages 15 to 24 were likely due to prioritizing education over parenthood, Hayford added. The average age for a first-time mother was 27.5 years, a record high for the US, the report said.
>Teen birth rates declined by 4% from 2022 and have sunk by 68% since 2007, the researchers said.
>The total fertility rate was 1.6 births per woman — a pace that has generally declined since 2008 by 2% each year, meaning the US will have to rely on immigration to sustain current population levels.
>The report from the NCHS, a unit of the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention](https://archive.is/o/VShL5/https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/0247409Z:US), is based on birth certificate data.
Good.
I love my daughter more than anything, but I won’t lie, I feel immensely frustrated with my lack of ability to push life forward career-wise and financially while raising a young child. No one is doing anything to help change this dynamic, and the birth rate will continue to fall and fall until we become like Western Europe or East Asia, staring down the barrel of a massive societal issue.
More immigrants
I mean, have you seen Americans lately? Who’d want to make more of them?
Are we prepared for a world where the economy just doesn’t grow each year? Like, that seems like it will fundamentally break society. What happens when 401k’s don’t grow over time?
My biggest problem is never getting time with my wife alone. Babysitters are wildly unreliable, we literally had four different sitters cancel on us four weeks straight. On top of that, our parents (we only have one each tbf) aren’t really into the grandparent role, so an overnight stay is basically out of the picture. You give up your entire past life, lose out on an enormous amount of money (529 plan is covering $650k for college by the time they graduate), and you have the stress and pressure of raising people that will be great members of society.
I’ve joked with my wife about the amount of money it would take to have a third kid. $2M minimum and even then I’d dread it.
Sorry guys, wife and I had a baby in 22, but not 23. Must have pushed the numbers down. We had another in 24, so that should push us back up.
My bad.
Good, stop giving AmeriKKKa more wage slaves and cannon-fodder.
I guess my kid will be part of the smallest American cohort yet.
I won’t lie, I do hope to get married and have a family in the near future. The issue is that housing is so expensive in my area(Los Angeles metro) and my close family is struggling with the rent.
Plus, I’m getting a sense that many cities across the city are cultivating a culture of childlessness, which discourages people from having children.
The question is when contraception is banned next year will the birth rate increase or will the banning of IVF in six months negate the impact?