The birth rate in the United States rose slightly last year, ending what had been a steady decline since 2014, the federal government reported on Tuesday.
The country recorded 56.6 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 in 2021, 1% more than the previous year, when there was a sharp drop, according to provisional data released by the National Vital Statistics System. part of the Centers for Disease. Control and prevention. There were 3,659,289 births in 2021, an increase of about 46,000, or 1 percent, from 2020.
Until last year, the birth rate had dropped by an average of 2% each year since 2014.
The figures further confused the question of how the pandemic has affected birth rates. Early tests in 2020, when births were down 4 percent from the previous year, suggested that women may have delayed pregnancy.
The birth rate is just one piece of the country’s largest population puzzle. With low birth rates, declining immigration, and rising deaths, the country’s population has slowly expanded over the past decade. High birth rates can lead to a scarcity of resources, such as during the post-war baby boom years, while low birth rates can leave a country with too few people to take care of or care for. larger population.
A complicated network of factors goes into a nation’s birth rate, including its economy: births tend to go down during periods of economic hardship. Women expect more to have babies, and more choose not to have any.
Since 2007, birth rates in the United States have declined every year except 2014, when there was a modest increase before the decline continued in 2015.
This decline coincides with the beginning of the Great Recession, when millions of Americans lost their jobs and homes. (Despite frequent speculation, there is usually no baby boom nine months after snowstorms, blackouts and other one-off events that leave couples alone and bored).
In addition to the overall figures, recently released data showed that birth rates fell among women aged 15 to 24, including a 6 percent drop to historic lows among women aged 15 to 19 and a increase among women aged 25 to 49 years.