The United States has witnessed the largest single-year decrease in the birth rate for more than five decades, based on a government report released on Wednesday.

The rate dropped not only for mothers of selected races and ethnicity but in every major race and in nearly all age groups. The drop reached the lowest point in the birth rate since federal health officials tracked it more than a century ago.

Moreover, births have been declining in younger women for years. Many mothers postponed motherhood and had smaller families. In recent years, birth rates for women in their late 30s and 40s have been climbing up, but it was a different story last year.

According to the Associated Press, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Brady Hamilton, the lead author of the new report, shared that the decline in births even for older mothers is striking.

In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is based on a review of more than 99% of birth certificates issued last year. The findings also mirrored the latest Associated Press analysis of 2020 data from 25 states, showing that births had fallen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Meanwhile, experts say that the pandemic highly contributed to the big decline in numbers last year. Experts also added that the anxiety regarding the coronavirus and its economic impact likely caused many couples to think that having a baby during the pandemic was not a good idea.

Also, Hamilton mentioned that many pregnancies in 2020 happened before the United States declared the pandemic. The researchers in CDC are also working on a follow-up report to interpret it better and on how the decline happened, The Guardian reported.

Additional CDC Report

On the other hand, the CDC report also highlighted that around 3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. last year. The number is down from about 3.75 million in 2019. When births were booming in 2007, the U.S. even recorded 4.3 million births in total.

Also, the U.S. birth rate dropped to around 56 births for every 1,000 women of child-bearing age. This is the lowest rate on record. The current rate is only half of what it was way back early 1960s.

The birth rate for females ages 15 to 19-year-olds dropped 8% from 2019. It has fallen almost every year since 1991. Even birth rates fell 8% for Asian American women; 3% for Hispanic women; 4% for Black and white women; and 6% for moms who were American Indians or Alaska Natives.

But the current generation of the U.S. is getting further away from having enough children to replace itself.

The U.S. in the past belongs to a few developed countries with a fertility rate that ensured each generation had enough children to replace it. Years ago, the estimated rate was 2.1 kids per American woman. But it has been sliding and even dropped last year to only 1.6, which is the lowest rate on record, NBC News reported.

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