America’s baby failures exposed: Only half of women under 45 have children amid ‘changing family values’ and rising cost of living

Just over half of women under the age of 45 are having babies in the US, according to official data revealing the country’s drought.

From 2002 to 2019, the proportion of women aged 15 to 45 with at least one child fell from 59.9 percent to 52.1 percent, a decrease of one eighth.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) national survey, the number dropped from 46.7 percent to 39.7 percent in men over the same period.

Overall, the U.S. birth rate fell 13 percent from 2002 to 2019, from 13.9 births per 1,000 people to 12.

The average American woman under 45 has 1.1 children while the average man has 0.8, the CDC reports

Men today have their first child on average at 26.4 years, women at 23.7 years. Both have increased dramatically over the past two decades

The findings come as many public figures – including Elon Musk and Bill Gates – fear they could trigger a crisis decades into the future.

There are concerns about labor shortages over the next half century due to declining birth rates leading to economic stagnation and outflows public services are unable to care for the aging population without a strong base of younger taxpayers to support them.

The aging of American women and declining birth rates are attributed to women delaying having children to advance their careers, and to advances in IVF and other fertility treatments.

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The CDC also highlighted the rising cost of parenting — with estimates suggesting it now costs more than $300,000 to raise a child to age 18, up from about $220,000 20 years ago.

Women have their first child today when they are 0.8 years older than they were in 2002 – the median age has moved from 22.9 to 23.7 years.

Men have always had their first child at an older age than women, but they experienced a similar increase in age when they became parents for the first time – from 25.1 to 26.4 years.

These figures do not take into account the Covid pandemic, which is likely to have pushed up the median age as teenage pregnancy rates have declined along with a general decline in fertility.

In the recently published study, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a branch of the CDC, reported 3.7 million American births in 2019 – a slight decrease from the previous year.

Over a five-year period, the researchers surveyed 21,441 men and women aged 44 and younger across America to collect birth and fertility data.

They found that women had more children than men, were likely younger and had more children on average.

Researchers found that 52.1 percent of the women had at least one child.

That’s down from 54.9 percent in 2015 — the most recent previous version of the survey — and a big drop from the nearly 60 percent of women under 45 who were older in 2002.

The decline was even more dramatic for men. Just under 47 percent said they were older in 2002, but that number dropped below 40 percent in 2019.

North Dakota, South Dakota and Alaska are the most fertile states in America with more than 65 annual births for every 1,000 fertile older women

Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and California saw the biggest declines in fertility rates since 2005

America’s overall birth rate has declined in recent decades, with the US Census highlighting the 2008 recession as the turning point in America’s fertility decline

An average American woman under the age of 45 has 1.1 children, up from 1.3 in 2002. Men dropped from 1.0 to 0.9 in 2010, below one per capita. In 2019, the average man had 0.8 children.

While Americans are having fewer children today than they were two decades ago, they are also having children later than in the past.

While fertility rates have fallen almost everywhere in the US, some states have experienced it significantly more than others.

In Arizona, the number of births per 1,000 women under the age of 45 in the state fell from 80.6 in 2005 to 54 in 2020 — a 33 percent drop in 15 years.

Utah, once America’s most fertile state, saw its fertility rate drop 31 percent, from 92.8 births per 1,000 women under 45 to 64.1.

Other states such as Colorado (26 percent decline in fertility), Nevada (26 percent), California (26 percent) and New Mexico (25 percent) were also among the states with the steepest declines.

North Dakota was the only state where the birth rate rose 4 percent from 64.8 to 67.4 in 15 years. Louisiana saw no change in the birth rate.

While numerous factors can cause this decline, experts point to two main culprits.

First, women now make up a larger share of the workforce than ever before.

They are more likely to graduate from high school or college than their male counterparts—and as a result, reach higher levels in their respective careers.

In turn, many women put off having a child at a young age and instead focused on their work.

Economic factors also play a role. The US Census Bureau points to the 2008 recession as a trigger for declining birth rates in America.

The recession caused many families to lose large chunks of their savings and lose jobs in all industries, making it more difficult for many families to have another child.

As more Americans go to college and the cost of education rises, so does the proportion of the population in their early 20s with thousands of dollars in debt.

Many may put off starting a family until they are at a more secure point in life—and for some Americans, that may never come.

The use of contraceptives such as condoms, contraceptives and other forms of family planning is also more common today than in previous years.