The economy is hitting young people hard. Millennials and Gen Z are facing sky-high mortgage rates, soaring home prices, and inflation that are delaying traditional or historic milestones like having children.
In fact, women are starting families later, having fewer children, and some are forgoing starting families altogether, according to a report released Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics within the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s what it means. But the most surprising statistic in the report is that the U.S. total fertility rate will hit an all-time low in 2023, dropping to 1.62 births per woman. This is far below the “replacement rate,” or the number of births needed to satisfy the number of older generations, which is 2.1.
“For the first time in our country’s history, a 30-year-old man or woman is not doing as well as his parents did when they were 30. This is a breakdown in the social compact,” said Professor Scott Galloway of the University of New Caledonia. To tell. York University’s Stern School of Management said in a recent interview. Good morning Joe. Only 27% of adults aged 30 to 34 have at least one child, compared with 60% in 1990, he said.
“People are leaving America,” Galloway said. “They’re not optimistic about it. They don’t have children.” In fact, a report from the National Center for Health Statistics shows that birth rates for women between the ages of 15 and 39 are declining. There is. According to the report, there will be approximately 3.59 million births in the United States in 2023, a 2% decrease from 2022.
Furthermore, birth rates among minority women are declining at an even faster pace. The report found that general fertility rates fell by 5% for black women, American Indians and Alaska Native women, and by 3% for Asian women. The main reason for this is increased morbidity and mortality rates for women of color, said Peggy Roberts, a New York certified women’s health nurse practitioner. luck.
These trends “instill a sense of anxiety among women about the risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth,” she says. “As a result, women are choosing to forego the possibility of having children.”
Why are fewer women having children?
Although there are many factors that influence the decline in fertility rates, personal finances and career choices continue to be top priorities for women in these years when they have traditionally been focused on having children. Many women delay childbearing until their late 30s or 40s in order to advance in their careers.
This is especially true for some of the most successful women in business, including former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi. Although Nooyi undoubtedly had an illustrious career, she said she always felt guilty balancing her work with caring for her two daughters. luck At the 2014 Aspen Ideas Festival.
“The body clock and career clock are completely contradictory,” she said. Furthermore, a 2023 report from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania found that women reach their peak earnings in their 40s, and the employment age for women continues to rise.
Nooyi said women’s 30s and 40s are traditionally focused on career development, but that also coincides with when women are expecting to have children. As her mother moves up the ranks to middle management, her children become teenagers, and “your husband is about to become a teenager, too,” she joked. Additionally, as the children grow up, this is also the time when the mother’s elderly parents will also need care.
“We’re a mess,” she said. “You can’t have it all.”
Roberts Plus notes that more women are “expressing their choice not to have children” in order to pursue higher education, and that “women are concerned about not having a partner with whom to form long-term relationships and build families.” It has been announced,” he said.
Birth rates are also affected by increased awareness of contraception, said Janet Choi, a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist and chief medical officer of fertility care provider Progyny. luck. More women now have access to and use contraceptives. “This is especially true for modern long-acting reversible contraceptives,” she says.