Since the Trump administration renews its focus on lower birth rates in the United States, the new data from the centers of diseases and prevention control indicate that births were somewhat stable in 2024, as it rose 1 % over the previous year.
There were 3622,673 births in the United States last year, according to L. The Disease Control Center report was issued on Wednesday. In general, the number of births decreased by 2 % annually, on average, from 2015 to 2020 and fluctuated in the years that is away, according to the report.
The report also estimated the birth rate among women between the ages of 15 and 44, and is referred to more specifically as the fertility rate. The rate decreased from 2014 to 2020, then fluctuated until 2024. Last year’s fertility rate was 54.6 births per 1000 women, and the report was found – an increase of 0.2 % compared to 2023.
Brady Hamilton, the lead author of the report and CDC statistics, said that the data coincides with “a continuation of the general declining direction in births for teenagers and the bullish trend in births to the older women who were seen over the past three or so.” However, he said that the Center for Disease Control cannot speak to the reasons behind this trend.
Sociologists who examined CDC data have greatly reflected the women who were late in their twenties recently to do so in the thirties and forties of the age. The birth rates last year increased among women between the ages of 25 and 44, but it decreased between teenagers and those under the age of 25.
“It is not that people decide to be children at all,” said Karen Benjamin Jozo, director of the Carolina Population Center at North Carolina University in Chapel Hill.
Instead, she said, people ask themselves: “Do I have the right partner? If I have another child to care for the child, what will you do for my expenses? Do you feel my job?”
These fears may also be the same Parents are forced to have fewer childrenJozo said. In 2024, the ordinary woman had two biological children, according to the CDC report, compared to more than three in 1960.
The total fertility rate in the United States has decreased since 2007 – which sociologists expect to continue, despite the nominal rise last year.
Sarah Hayford, director of the Institute of Population Research at Ohio State University, said that the economy has generally improved since the “great recession”, many people still do not feel that their financial situation has become better.
She said: “In many places, the housing market represents a great challenge, and this is something that many people want to be in their place before they have children.”
The Trump administration said Definitions on imported goods and Get rid of federal programs that support women and children It can add to a climate of women delaying having children or deciding not to adhere.
The Trump administration, for its part, expressed regret for the decline in birth rates.
Vice President JD Vance called for “more children in the United States of America” in Anti -miscarriage gathering In January. In the same month in which priority should be given to the higher prices of marriage and birth rates in the federal transport funds.
President Donald Trump called it Himself “head of fertilization” At the White House event in March. His executive order Expanding the scope of access to fertilization in the laboratory It emphasizes “the importance of family formation” and calls for facilitating “mothers and fathers of love and longing to have children.”
Technical billionaire Elon Musk, chief of Trump’s adviser, also pointed out that birth rates are low as a risk to the survival of humanity. According to the CDC report, the birth rate in the United States is much lower than what is known as the “replacement level”, as a sufficient number of children is born so that the population can maintain its size from one generation to another.
The New York Times reported on Monday The White House weighs proposals to stimulate birth, including a $ 5,000 cash bonus for mothers after delivery. But sociologists said that these efforts are unlikely to reflect low birth rates. A 2021 Study “Child Rewards” in South Korea I found that most of the money went to the women who had given birth to a child regardless of the incentive.
“You can not only turn the switch and change the birth rate,” said Julia Stracyr, Assistant Research Professor at the Fitzhu Mulan Institute at the George Washington Manpower Institute.
She added: “Economic requirements – not only to have children, but to raise children – last for a very long time, and $ 5,000 does not go long to support this,” she added.
Sociologists have generally agreed that low fertility or birth rates are not an inherent problem. In fact, they said that decreased birth rates in adolescence is a positive direction.
“It is good news when people can avoid having children in periods of their lives where they will say themselves,” this is not the right time. “
This article was originally published on NBCNEWS.com
