“A lower percentage of women aged 15 to 44 in 2015\u20132019 had ever had a biological child (52.1%) compared with women aged 15 to 44 in 2011\u20132015 (54.9%),” concluded a report issued Jan. 10 by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
\nDeclines were also seen for men becoming fathers. From 2015 through 2019, 39.7% of boys and men aged 15 to 44 had fathered a child, compared to 43.8% during 2011\u20132015, the report said.
\nOverall, birth rates have plummeted for Americans over the past five decades: “Between 1976 and 2018, the mean number of children ever born per woman declined, from three children to two,” according to the report’s authors,\u00a0Gladys Martinez\u00a0and\u00a0Kimberly Daniels.
\nBy 2019, the average female aged 15 to 49 had given birth to 1.3 children, and the average male had fathered 0.9 kids.
\nAmerican women are also tending to have a first child later in their lives, the new study found.
\nThe average age for giving birth to a first child was about 24 years for women and 27 for men in 2019, according to the report, which was based on a national survey of almost 21,500 Americans aged 15 to 49. The probability that a woman would have her first child by age 40 fell from 83% in 2011\u20132015 to 81% by 2019. A similar dip was seen for men becoming fathers by age 40: from 78% in 2011\u20132015 to 72% by 2019.
\nIn fact, “delayed childbearing, having a first child at age 35 or over, [has] increased ninefold between 1972 and 2012,” the authors noted. Overall, birth rates among women in their 40s have charted steady increases since 1985.
\nAccording to the report, the reasons for these trends are many: Better access to contraception, more women seeking higher education, more women entering and staying in the workforce, changing family values, “relationship instability,” and concerns over personal finances and the high cost of childrearing.
\n“Having a first child at older ages has been associated with a positive impact on women’s wages and career paths,” according to Martinez and Daniels.
\nLater childbirth can be healthy for children, as well, they noted, because having a child in your 30s and 40s typically means a family has better financial resources.
\nA woman’s education appears to influence the timing of her having a first child. The report found that as the years a woman spent in school\/college rose, her likelihood of having a first child in her teens or 20s declined.
\nOf course, fertility declines with advancing age, so the trend towards later births does have that “potential negative consequence,” the authors added.
\nThere’s also been a continued trend toward Americans having children outside of marriage, the report found.<\/p>\n