U.S. Birth Rate Falls to a Record Low; Decline Is Greatest Among Immigrants

[pampango]

The U.S. birth rate dipped in 2011 to the lowest ever recorded, led by a plunge in births to immigrant women since the onset of the Great Recession.

The overall U.S. birth rate, which is the annual number of births per 1,000 women in the prime childbearing ages of 15 to 44, declined 8% from 2007 to 2010. The birth rate for U.S.-born women decreased 6% during these years, but the birth rate for foreign-born women plunged 14%—more than it had declined over the entire 1990-2007 period.1 The birth rate for Mexican immigrant women fell even more, by 23%.

This report does not address the reasons that women had fewer births after 2007, but a previous Pew Research analysis4 concluded that the recent fertility decline is closely linked to economic distress. States with the largest economic declines from 2007 to 2008, as shown by six major indicators, were most likely to experience relatively large fertility declines from 2008 to 2009, the analysis found.

Looking back a century, data about very young children provide evidence about earlier trends.7 The share of U.S.-born children younger than age 2 with foreign-born mothers was about as high during the wave of immigration in the early 1900s (21%) as it is now. By 1960, after four decades of restrictions on immigration, that share had plummeted to a low of only 4%. It inched up to 6% by 1970 before rising rapidly as immigration levels increased due mainly to federal legislation passed in 1965.



http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/11/29/u-s-birth-rate-falls-to-a-record-low-decline-is-greatest-among-immigrants/

[customerserviceguy]

1. It's a result of bad economic times

Births dropped during the Depression, and that was before we had most modern forms of contraception. Why wouldn't the Great Recession have the same effect?

[pampango]

2. You are right. That was Pew's conclusion, too.

"...a previous Pew Research analysis concluded that the recent fertility decline is closely linked to economic distress. States with the largest economic declines from 2007 to 2008, as shown by six major indicators, were most likely to experience relatively large fertility declines from 2008 to 2009, the analysis found."