Link: https://www.the-independent.com/news/health/us-fertility-rate-cdc-births-b3070940.html

For every 1,000 women, aged 15-44, approximately 53 gave birth last year - down from 54 the previous year, according to new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Birth rates decreased among those up to age 29 but increased for women aged 30-44, the CDC found.

The findings are indicative of a broader U.S. trend in recent decades and one that the Trump administration and its MAGA allies, including Elon Musk, have sought to reverse.

...

However, there are multiple factors complicating efforts to reverse the trend. Greater access to IUDs and birth control have helped reduce teen births, which has long been a goal for U.S. policymakers because of the complications young mothers with underdeveloped bodies face during pregnancy.

“People are able to avoid having kids at points in their life when they don’t feel it’s the right time,” Karen Benjamin Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told NBC News Wednesday.

A shift in women’s education has also had a major impact. Women now make up the majority of the college-educated workforce, according to the Pew Research Center.

Those with college degrees generally have fewer children, 2022 University of Pennsylvania research shows. That’s largely because of a focus on establishing careers, traveling or finding a romantic partner.

But many women who want to have children are facing major headwinds - economic ones. The average cost of raising a child in the U.S. has ballooned to more than $300,000, the financial marketplace LendingTree says, rising nearly 2 percent from a year ago. That’s increased from $230,000 in 2000, the bank SoFi says.

And while marriage could help distribute some of that financial burden between two, fewer women are heading to the altar. The marriage rate has fallen 60 percent over the last five decades, according to 2023 research.

“Examining age-specific fertility rates, marriage rates and trends in women’s educational attainment, it is clear many women are delaying fertility and ultimately having fewer children,” the university said.

MAGA ally Elon Musk, who has 14 children and the president’s ear, fears declines in fertility rates could mean the “end of civilization.”

A civilization that doesn't support mothers and children doesn't deserve to exist.

And I don't mean just government programs.

Listening to a psychologist from Pakistan off-handedly mention that everyone in a family/community takes care of children; in the US it is only the parents and people paid to take care of children. This is unsustainable.

A civilization that doesn't support mothers and children doesn't deserve to exist.

I strongly agree.

I would say that it shouldn't even be called a civilisation in the first place.

Do they really just expect everyone to keep having more kids forever? They always frame this as a problem with women but it just seems like a consequence of reality to anyone living in it.

The village is hard to come by for parents in the US, that's for sure. Grandparents often can't offer as much help as needed due to having to continue to work themselves. Hardly any parental leave for mothers or fathers. Individualism dialed up to 11 to the point where we shame our youth for not living on their own immediately when they turn eighteen.

It's hard out here.

They expect to use the falling fertility rates to force women to have more children. This is one of the reasons they are trying to strip women of our right to healthcare and voting. Because without birth control, abortion, and education, women and girls will be forced to have babies they don't want again. And they will be under control of men.

I am sorry 15-44?! Are we now encouraging teen pregnancy?

Republicans very much want teen pregnancies to increase:

The Trump administration has a new plan for teenagers learning about pregnancy: Beginning this summer, it will steer millions of dollars toward organizations that focus on anatomy, fertility tracking, hormonal production and “reproductive goals counseling.”

Take Fox News, which ran a segment framing the drop in teen pregnancies as alarming. “We still have 3.6 million births a year,” noted the medical analyst Marc Siegel. “But the problem is teens and young adults. From ages 15 to 19, the fertility rate is down 7%, and it’s down 70% over the last two decades, meaning we’re telling people that are young not to have babies, to wait until they’re in a more stable life situation.” I’m sorry, that’s a problem?

The podcaster and Maga bigwig Katie Miller was also aghast. “Hormonal birth control isn’t just poison for women’s minds and bodies – it’s killing population growth,” she lamented on X. “Our biological destiny is to have babies – not slave behind desks chasing careers while our civilization dies.”

Anti-Reproductive Rights Call Falling Teen Pregnancy Rates a “Crisis”

Step 2 is bringing back child labor, I suppose, to make feasible the economics of having children in times like these.

They're already there as well:

State lawmakers continued to weaken child labor protections in 2026

• So far this year, at least 13 states have introduced bills weakening child labor protections, and four have enacted them.
• Meanwhile, only three states have introduced bills to strengthen standards in 2026, compared with 15 in 2025.
• Industry-backed attacks on child labor standards have followed four troubling trends: 1) lowering minimum wages for teen workers; 2) weaponizing “youth apprenticeships”; 3) eliminating youth permits; and 4) weakening safeguards for teen child care workers.
• The Trump administration has undermined federal enforcement of child labor standards, even amid rising violations.

The last baby boom was caused by giving young men enough money to buy a house and a lack of contraceptives.

The first won’t ever happen again and the latter shouldn’t ever happen again.

I wish we had that here. My wife and I have no family where we live.

White women.

The obvious solution to sub-replacement fertility rate is to expand immigration. Not only does that directly increase population, but immigrant families tend to have more children. Somehow, though, the same people screaming about fertility rates are also screaming about immigration. It's almost like they only want one particular kind of baby.

Only a sick fuck would have a child in the USA Today.

Come on now.

Tell me how great America is and how amazing it would be to raise a child there. Do it without mentioning other countries significantly worse off… usually because of the USA.

Attack the people in power, not those that are simply trying to live a life they desire.

No. I’m going to attack the people who refuse to do anything about it.

You think there’s no parents fighting the good fight right now?

From what I can see, no. But you keep trying to calm everyone down like the good federal agent you are.

lol says the brand new account trying to agitate people into taking up arms against the US government.

You’re not as clever as you think you are.

Let’s not forget that women’s liberation didn’t exist in the legal system until the 1970s. Prior to the 1970s, marital rape was legal in every US state.

Republicans very much do. I believe another lemmy person linked you into the relevant sources.

Once again, women’s liberation is only 50 years old. As such, we get blamed for a lot when a certain subset of men are unhappy with any part of life we touch, or don’t touch, whatever the case.

We can’t just live our lives, we owe them something.

To have any hope of financial support women had to get married. And if they didn't they were ostracized from "civilized" society.

It’s why Roe fell. They feel entitled to us. This subset of men has been flailing and teaching their kids that flail, since the 70s.

Interesting tidbit regarding the “witch” phenomenon in history. It was typically post-menopausal and unmarried women. It was also way to strip authority (through advice, midwifery, etc) from said women within their local populations.

I’d say conservatives finally got what they asked for because they spent the decades after Reagan screaming about welfare moms. “Don’t have them of you can’t afford them” was drilled into kids and frequently blared from Fox news. They treated single moms like shit who are undeserving of empathy or help, and now women are afraid to have babies because the thought of becoming a poor single mother is terrifying.
Republicans have a long history of misogyny and because they’re in power it’s squelching the desire for children.

We get manosphere blokes screaming about pregnant women being too uppidy for asking for a seat on the subway instead. The leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide. Not an environment encouraging raising children.

Couldn't even open a bank account without male permission

I always appreciate when I see your username pop up, Zephora.

You’re completely correct. The domino effect has been going for a while now. Pulling back Roe has led to so many deaths and tragedies already.

There's only really one way to raise fertility rates in any modern society (not that it's even a real issue) and that's to raise wages, reduce rents, and increase social services. There are plenty of people who would like to have kids but can't because they can't afford having a bigger space, paying for a good school, taking time off work to look after them, etc. Things which would benefit nearly everyone and which we should be doing anyway.

Of course, if a country just "needs more people" for some reason, and they don't want to spend money on the poors, there's no shortage of immigrants and refugees we could take in. But then, it's not really about a "population shortage," is it? It's about race, and it's about controlling women.

It's hardly surprising that the more that right-wingers talking about falling birthrates get into power, the more the birthrate falls, because all they do is make starting a family less affordable.

Hahah, no thanks.

I’m not bringing a $200,000 pet into this world so oligarchs can have another consumer/wage slave.

300k now according to the article

Even if I could afford it, I'm pretty sure I would never unwillingly drag another life into this capitalistic hellscape. Just in my lifetime so far, I've seen the inequality divide just get bigger and bigger, and social systems and safety nets get smaller and smaller (where they're even allowed to exist). Billionaires and giant corporations run everything, prices go up, jobs are harder to come by and easily taken away. Republicans only care about a "Life" until it's born, then it's on its own. Why the hell would I put my unconsenting future child through that!? I might someday adopt, though...

"I don't understand... we threw out all the immigrants who were having more children, and whose children on average try harder, are more innovative, and become more successful on average than their native peers, and we've simultaneously doubled the cost of living and made everyone constantly angry and unpleasant. Why is this problem not fixed?"

Capitalism needs continuous growth to keep moving wealth upwards.

Well, it might help if they stopped Brawndo-Ing the birthrate.

He means ‘white’ civilization.

The only babies the US is booming are in Mideast kindergartens

Sometimes you will also see extended familial/clan networks help out but even that grows weaker amongst kin due to well everything going on. Personally as much as I'd love to help my kin take care of their kids on occasion free of cost even, well I am barely stable at the best of times. I'll keep an eye out at campouts and celebrations but I'm well aware that I'm the unstable cousin of the clan.

thats why they are banning abortions, removing contraception and ice having breeding farms in texas. they tried nothing but nothing happening.

our local state universities, one faculty employee blamed the low enrollment on the low birth rate, no its not that. its the lack of development for career(experience) and jobs after graduation.

whats the matter, why dont cons tell thier conservative white women to have children.

and 40+yo having risky pregnancies.

and there was ample economic opportunities too.

or the rest of world. only people like musk has a fetish.

also no daycare, the lack opportunities for women, means they are going to college more than men now to have a better life.

its wierdly, white conservatives and rich people in general that are obsessed with birth rates too. plus all the lack of funding for education that has been ongoing for a long time even in blue areas, they give those areas just enough people arnt falling behind in large numbers, not enough to advance thier potentials.

i dont think its on lemmy yet, but medicaid is getting "cut" 2027, will require people to have 20hrs/week to keep medi-caid in most states a person i know just recieved the letter. the thing is, this will automatically kick out people who couldnt work, and 20hrs automatically puts you over the maximum limit for income for medicaid in most states. i think estimated 10+million will get kicked off medicaid. no thanks to SCHUMER last year which affected the aca.

the saying goes "we tried nothing, but nothing is happening", its basically like those people expecting a job/path will open up for them without trying.

Having lived in a few places, I wonder how much of this is how communities are structured physically. Fiefdoms are common in suburbia. But city folk also seem a little isolated, at least in big cities in the USA, which I attribute to parents having no time because of cost of living pressure and culture.

the ruling class in some ways drink their own koolaid and think a free market will innovate blah blah.

in others they can't afford to give their peasants the basics, because they have to keep capitalism running past it's due so they stay in power.