US fertility rate reached new low in 2024, CDC data shows

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The United States has reached a new record low in its fertility rate, with federal data released on Thursday, July 24, 2025, showing it has fallen to less than 1.6 children per woman in 2024. This marks a significant departure from the rate of approximately 2.1 children per woman, which is considered necessary for a generation to replace itself and was a level the U.S. once maintained among developed nations. This decline has been ongoing for nearly two decades, as more American women are opting to delay childbirth or forgo it entirely.

This new U.S. fertility rate now aligns with those observed in Western European countries, according to data from the World Bank. The recent drops have prompted the Trump administration to implement measures aimed at boosting birth rates. These initiatives include an executive order designed to broaden access to and reduce the cost of in vitro fertilization (IVF), as well as supporting the concept of "baby bonuses" to encourage more couples to have children.

However, Leslie Root, a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder specializing in fertility and population policy, suggests that there is no cause for alarm. She views this trend as part of a continuous process of fertility delay, emphasizing that the U.S. population is still growing with more births than deaths, indicating a natural increase.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released this updated total fertility rate alongside comprehensive birth data for 2024. Historically, the U.S. total fertility rate was around 3.5 in the early 1960s, before plummeting to 1.7 by 1976 after the Baby Boom era concluded. It saw a gradual increase to 2.1 in 2007 but has since been on a downward trajectory, with a brief uptick in 2014. The rate in 2023 was 1.621, slightly decreasing to 1.599 in 2024, as reported by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina, notes that birth rates are generally declining across most female age groups, a trend she believes is unlikely to change in the near future. Factors contributing to this decline include people marrying later in life and concerns about having the financial resources, health insurance, and other necessities for raising children in a stable environment. Guzzo suggests that periods of worry are not conducive to having children, which explains the continued decline in birth rates across most age groups.

When asked about the Trump administration's birth-promoting initiatives, Guzzo expressed skepticism, stating that they do not address broader needs such as parental leave and affordable childcare. She concluded that "The things that they are doing are really symbolic and not likely to budge things for real Americans."

Interestingly, the CDC's new report, which is based on a more thorough review of birth certificates than provisional data released earlier in the year, also indicated a 1% increase in overall births last year compared to the previous year, amounting to approximately 33,000 more babies. This brought the annual national total to just over 3.6 million births. However, a discrepancy emerged regarding age-specific birth rates: while earlier provisional data suggested increases for women in their late 20s and 30s, the updated report actually found declines for women in their 20s and early 30s, and no change for those in their late 30s. CDC officials attributed this recalculation to a change in the U.S. Census population estimates used to compute the birth rate, a explanation that Root finds plausible. She explained that as the total population of women of childbearing age increased due to immigration, it offset small increases in births to women within those specific age groups.