U.S. Fertility Rates Hit Record Low In 2025; Experts Cite Why Having Kids Has Become ‘Less Desirable’

The U.S. birth rate fell to a record low in 2025, with experts pointing to why starting a family has become “less desirable” among younger women.

New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows U.S. fertility rates reached a record low in 2025, with experts pointing to the reasons behind the decline.

The CDC released provisional data on April 8 showing U.S. birth rates have reached a new record low, extending a nearly two-decade decline, Reuters reports. Since 2007, the general fertility rate has dropped by nearly 23%. The trend mirrors global patterns, as fewer women are choosing to have children amid shifting social dynamics.

Phillip Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley College, credits the declining birth rate among younger women to “greater and more demanding job market opportunities, expanded leisure ⁠options, increased intensity of parenting… make the option to have children less desirable.”

The data, based on 99.95% of all birth records received and processed last year by the National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the CDC, as of Feb. 3, 2026, shows that the number of babies born in the U.S. in 2025 fell 1% from the previous year to about 3.6 million. The general fertility rate, measured as births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, also dropped 1% to 53.1. While birth rates have risen among women in their 30s and 40s over the past decade, those increases have not been enough to offset ongoing declines among women under 30.

Data show the fertility rate among women ages 25 to 29 declined about 4.4% in 2025, while the rate for women ages 30 to 34 increased roughly 2.7% from 2024. Teen pregnancy also continued to fall, with rates dropping 7% for those ages 18 to 19 and 11% for younger teens ages 15 to 17—both reaching record lows.

Fertility rates are declining across countries, research shows. Recent data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean’s latest Demographic Observatory show that Latin America now averages 1.8 children per woman—below the 2.1 replacement level needed to maintain a stable population. This marks a sharp shift from the 1950s, when women in the region had an average of 5.8 children.

At Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, sociologist Martina Yopo Díaz attributes the decline to the growing reality that “children, and reproduction more broadly, are playing an increasingly marginal role in the life plans of younger generations.”

Simone Cecchini, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Center at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, said the shift has happened much faster than in Europe, even surpassing United Nations projections from two decades ago. Some places are already seeing the effects, with declining populations in countries like Cuba and Uruguay, as well as several Caribbean islands.

“According to our estimates, the total population of Latin America and the Caribbean will grow until 2053 and, from then on, will begin to decline on average,” Cecchini said.