US birth rates increased in 2021 for the first time in 7 years
Couples seemed to have been busy during the pandemic.
For the first time in seven years, birth rates in the United States increased – albeit by only 1%.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics revealed there were 3,659,289 babies born in 2021, the first rise in births since 2014. Past years had seen a steady birth decrease of 2%, according to ABC News.
The data comes after births dropped 4% — dubbed the “baby bust” — in 2020 during the pandemic. Combined with COVID-19 deaths, it caused a decrease in population.
But now that society is bouncing back as the nation finally reached a “low level” of infections and deaths, people are once again starting families. (However, New York City is currently experiencing a “high” COVID-19 risk alert.)
Mothers, ages 35 to 44, gave birth the most of any age group — with a nearly 3% increase — which comes after a trend of women hesitant about having children.
In a state-by-state case, the Northeast region was amongst the boom of births. New Hampshire came out on top, with a 7% yearly birth-rate increase, trailed by Connecticut (6.5%), Vermont (5.2%) and New Jersey (5.09%). While only New Mexico saw a 1.9% percent fall and Hawaii only 1%, no other states saw a birth decrease greater than 1% from 2020 to 2021.
“When it comes to changes in fertility behavior, we’re limited,” Dr. Brady Hamilton, who is from the National Center for Health Statistics’ Division of Vital Statistics and served as the lead author of the report, told ABC News. “That’s where you need a survey about what’s behind the decision-making process.”
While the CDC doesn’t list an explanation for the boom, some respondents in a Pew Research Center poll cited medical issues (19%) or not knowing the “state of the world” (9%) as reasons for not having more or any children. A New York University study released in September 2021 demonstrated a similar trend: Fewer women wanted children, all thanks to the pandemic.
But things are turning around.
In 2021, fertility rates were up. The number of live births per 1,000 women between 15 and 44 years of age was 56.6, an increase from 56 the year prior.
While the total fertility rate was 1,663.5 births per 1,000 women, it still isn’t enough to reach “replacement levels,” or the level the population would need to essentially replace itself. According to ABC News, that number is 2,100 births per 1,000 women.
“That sort of suggests [that] when we saw the decline in births from 2019 to 2020, probably a lot of births were postponed,” Hamilton said. “People were waiting to see what happened [with the pandemic] and rates rose in older women as they may have proceeded to have that child.”
Even though the boom saw more births overall, teen pregnancies were down by 6%. Pregnancies amongst 15- to 17-year-olds decreased by 8% and those amongst ages 18 to 19 fell by 7%. While rates amongst mothers ages 10 to 14 were up by 6%, it was still relatively low.
“I’m always a little bit skeptical of just one year [of data],” demographer and program director of the Population Reference Bureau Beth Jarosz told CNN. “But in this case, I really would need to see what happens in 2022 to try to suggest that that’s any kind of a rebound or trend.”
