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ATLANTA — The U.S. fertility rate hit a record low last year, extending a nearly two-decade decline, provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed on Thursday.
The decline also reflects global trends, as fewer women choose to have children against a changing social backdrop. In the U.S., the general fertility rate has fallen by nearly 23% since 2007, according to the agency's data.
Shifting priorities among younger women, including "greater and more demanding job market opportunities, expanded leisure options, increased intensity of parenting... make the option to have children less desirable," said Phillip Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley College.
The number of babies born in the U.S. in 2025 declined 1% from a year earlier to roughly 3.6 million, while the general fertility rate — the number of births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 — also slipped 1% to 53.1, the data showed.
While fertility rates among women in their 30s and 40s have increased over the past decade, those gains have remained too modest to offset sustained declines among women under 30.
Last year, the fertility rate among women aged 25 to 29 fell by about 4.4%, while the rate for women aged 30 to 34 rose by about 2.7% from 2024, the data showed.
Fertility rates among teenagers also declined sharply, with the rate for those aged 18 to 19 falling 7% and the rate for younger teens aged 15 to 17 dropping 11%, both reaching record lows.
The provisional data is based on 99.95% of all birth records received and processed last year by the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the CDC, as of February 3, 2026.
