A declining birth rate

This post is based on a recent article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Their primary chart shows that U.S. birth rate has fallen by 20% since 2007. And, the authors cannot explain the drop by demographic, economic, or policy changes.

Births have fallen among women in their early 20s, late 20s, and teens (in fact, the teen birth rate in the U.S. has been falling steadily since the mid-1990s). Births have fallen among white women, Black women, and Hispanic women, with the largest declines among Hispanic women. Births have also fallen among women with and without college degrees and among both married and unmarried women. The population of U.S. women of childbearing age has actually shifted toward groups that tend to have higher birth rates, not lower birth rates, with the exception of a rising share of women of childbearing age being unmarried.