The fertility rate in the United States has fallen to another new low, with fewer women than at any time in history having children.
The rate was 54.5 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age (15 to 44 years) last year, a 3 percent drop compared to 56 in 2022.
The number of babies born in the U.S. also declined year over year, with just under 3.6 million live births in 2023.
At the same time, immigration is on the rise: in 2022, a record 2.6 million immigrants arrived in the United States legally, and up to 14 million people if illegal migration is taken into account.
The trends are part of a major demographic shift taking place in the United States and other Western countries experiencing high migration and low birth rates.
Experts sThe United States is heading toward a so-called “underpopulation crisis” by 2050, when too few people will be born to sustain its current economic system.
Shown above are the number of live births in millions (blue bars) and the fertility rate per 1,000 women (green bars) each year from 2021 to 2023.
The current population of the United States is supported by mass migration, mainly from Central American countries.
By 2045, some statistics predict The United States will have a minority white population, due to multiple factors, including migration, the birth crisis, and the increase in interracial families. Although these predictions have been questioned in recent years.
He Latest CDC data In 2023, the total fertility rate fell to 1.62 births per woman, the lowest since the government began tracking this metric in the 1930s.
For a population to remain the same size, however, it must reach a “replacement” fertility rate of 2.1, a figure the United States has not seen since 2007, before the 2008 financial crisis.
If not addressed in time, it can lead to an increasingly ageing population, with a significant proportion of them requiring care and unable to work.
Researchers have warned that the United States faces an underpopulation crisis by 2050, and experts agree that the demographic shift toward fewer births and an aging population is a crisis in the making.
In terms of age groups, the largest declines in live births were among teenagers, with birth rates among 15- to 19-year-olds falling by 4 percent between 2022 and 2023.
Additionally, 18- to 19-year-olds experienced a five percent drop, representing the largest change within that group.
The CDC found that more women are having children in their 30s and 40s, and the birth rate among women ages 20 to 24 hit a record low of 55.4 births per 1,000 women, a decline of four percent.
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The above shows the birth rate for adolescents aged 15-19, 15-17, and 18-19 each year from 2021 to 2023.
There are several theories that experts have proposed as the cause of the falling birth rate, including the rising cost of living and the increased expenses that come with caring for a child.
They also point out that people are prioritising their careers over marriage and family, meaning an increasing number of people are focusing more on education and business success rather than saying “I do” and having babies.
However, in 2023, Ohio State and the University of North Carolina study Young Americans were found to still plan to have two children on average.
About 88 percent of teens, both boys and girls, say they plan to have children.
Still, the birth rate is not keeping up, and the only way to stabilize a population is for women to have more babies or for more immigrants to come to the country.
Today, immigrants make up 14 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Pew Research Center.
In 2022, the foreign-born U.S. population peaked at 46.1 million people.
And as immigration policies became more permissive and immigration increased, the number of foreign-born residents has tripled since 1970.
Since 1965, when the Immigration and Nationality Act opened immigration to people from Asia and Latin America and allowed more immigrants to enter the United States legally, about 72 million immigrants have arrived in the country.
The Migration Policy Institute wrote: ‘Between 2021 and 2022, growth in the number of immigrants in the United States accounted for 65 percent of the total increase in the U.S. population (912,000 out of nearly 1.4 million).’
Mexico is the leading source of immigrants to the United States, with 10.6 million Mexican immigrants living in the country in 2022. They are followed by immigrants from India, China, the Philippines and El Salvador.
Due to a combination of declining birth rates, rising immigration and more racially diverse families, the Brookings Institute’s 2018 census projections predict that the white population in the U.S. will fall to a minority of 49 percent by 2045.
