U.S. birth rate falls to record low, but older women are having more babies: NPR
Fewer women in their 20s are choosing to become mothers, leading to an overall decline in the U.S. birth rate. But the birth rate among American women aged 30 to 45 is increasing according to the latest federal data.
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP
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CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP
Sarah Harris was 37 when she gave birth to her daughter Bridget last year. She describes motherhood as equal parts joy and exhaustion. “When you have a baby in your 30s, what you gain in wisdom and experience, you also lose in energy,” Harris says with a laugh.
Harris, who lives in Vermont, was laid off four months after Bridget’s birth. She says she’s still figuring out what her career and life with a child will look like. Harris thinks a lot of women are like her. They struggle with financial uncertainty and wait until much later to choose a pregnancy.
There’s also the high cost of raising a child, which Harris says has convinced her that one is enough. “I think in another time, in another life or in another scenario, I could have had more children,” Harris says. “I think we’re going through a difficult societal time and it’s absolutely affecting people’s reproductive choices.”
Harris is, in fact, part of a slow revolution in what motherhood and parenting look like in the United States. The latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that women’s overall fertility rate fell 1% to a new record high in 2025. This continues a two-decade trend toward fewer children.
Sharp decline in parenting among American women in their 20s
The year-over-year decline for those aged 20 and over is even more striking. “The 6 percent decline in the birth rate among women ages 20 to 24 is certainly notable,” said Brady Hamilton, a demographer at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics and co-author of the report. He noted that women in their late teens also experienced a 7% decline.
A separate study released last month by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta found that Generation Z women, in their late teens and 20s, “are significantly less likely to want children” compared to American women of previous generations.
“Several factors have been identified as contributing to this reduced desire to have children, such as increased labor market and agency opportunities for women, increased financial costs, changing priorities and (concerns about) maternal mortality,” the study reveals.
Dr. Tanise Branche, medical director of labor and delivery at Temple Health, a health, research and education network in Philadelphia, told NPR that more of her younger patients are following a different life script.
“They start to focus not only on what they can provide for the children, but also on what will be best for them,” she says.
Women in their 30s and 40s saw their birth rates increase “significantly”
Meanwhile, the latest CDC data shows a small but significant increase in the number of women ages 30 to 45 choosing to become pregnant.
Branche says more and more women, including herself, are building careers and stable lives before becoming mothers.
Branche is currently pregnant with her fourth child. “I will be 43 when I last give birth and I started this reproductive journey at 37,” she said. “I see the positive side is that we have a choice.”
Fewer children because of choice – and affordability
As a result of this change, there are now fewer children in the United States. The population under 18 has been steadily declining, according to the United States Census Bureau, falling by more than 1 million between 2010 and 2020.
Some experts also believe that women would choose to have more children if they could afford them and had appropriate supports, including affordable housing, child care and health insurance.
“The fact that many people still say they want a family, but don’t feel like they can have one (is a concern),” says Anna Louie Sussman, author of a new book about parenting choices called Inconceivable. “Young people say: I can barely take care of myself, I can’t imagine taking care of anyone else.”
Sussman herself is part of the delayed motherhood trend. Due to her own concerns about finances and career, she froze her eggs and waited to have her child until her early 40s.
“I feel lucky to be a little further along professionally than I would have been in my 20s or even 30s,” she said.
As women build different lives and birth rates continue to decline, the United States is changing. The median age is rising rapidly, reaching 39.4 years in 2025. More states, including Vermont where Sarah Harris lives, are seeing their populations decline, according to the Census Bureau.
“I think about it a lot because I live in a very small place where we hope to keep our elementary school doors open as long as possible,” she says.
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