"I'm thankful to be able to have three and be the best dad that I can be. It's the best title you have in this life.”
The United States’ birth rate has been declining for years — even decades.
In fact, the fertility rate was as high as 3.5 children per woman in the 1960s, but plummeted to 1.7 by 1976 before rising to 2.1 in 2007 and falling again, according to CBS News.
It most recently decreased to 1.621 in 2023 and again to 1.599 in 2024 — an all-time low.
Teenagers are among the age groups seeing the steepest declines in births, according to NPR, with teen birth rates hitting historic lows in recent years. Women in their 20s and 30s are also seeing declines.
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But there’s one age group that hasn’t been affected by the decline — women in their 40s.
“According to the CDC's Vital Statistics Report, for the first time in the country, births in 2023 by women in their 40s exceeded the number of births by teenagers,” Bek Shackelford-Nwanganga reported, per NPR.
“Between 2013 and 2023, the percentage of births to moms aged 40 to 44 increased by almost 40%,” Shackelford-Nwanganga added.
So, what’s driving this sudden increase in birth rates?
The simple answer is that more women today are pursuing higher education — and the United States is also seeing an increase in women in the workforce.
As a result, many women in their 40s aren’t starting a family until later in their life.
Another driving factor is that many women in their 40s have better access to birth control and fertility treatment options — such as Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART).
The most common form of ART is in vitro fertilization (IVF), according to the CDC.
According to Dr. Caitlin Linscheid, a Kansas OB-GYN, women in their 40s need to be aware of the risks and complications that come with having a child later in life.
For example, the risk of developing gestational diabetes, hypertensive disorders (such as preeclampsia) and postpartum hemorrhage is generally higher in pregnant women in their 40s, per Linscheid.
What is the government doing about the declining birth rate?
With the U.S. birth rate declining, the federal government is looking for ways to improve.
In February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Domestic Policy Council to “make IVF and other fertility treatments more affordable for more Americans,” per CBS News.
Trump had previously vowed to get IVF covered by the government or insurance companies.
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But according to Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina, these policy changes wouldn’t do much to increase the overall birth rate in U.S.
"The things that they are doing are really symbolic and not likely to budge things for real Americans," she said, per CBS News.
And while 53% of Americans believe the declining birth rate will negatively impact the U.S., 56% of Americans agree that the government should have “no role” in encouraging people to have kids.
Those who do think the government should be involved have a few ideas for what would work best.
Some of those ideas include providing more tax credits for parents, requiring employers to provide paid family leave, providing free child care and raising awareness of how fertility declines with age.
58% of those who favor government interference were on board with insurance covering the cost of fertility treatment.
Nonetheless, Leslie Root — a University of Colorado Boulder researcher focused on fertility and population policy — pushes back on sounding the alarm over the birth rate.
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"We're seeing this as part of an ongoing process of fertility delay. We know that the U.S. population is still growing, and we still have a natural increase - more births than deaths," she said, per CBS News.
