U.S. Birth Rate Hits All-Time Low

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The U.S. birth rate reached an all-time low in 2013, as the number of babies born in the country declined for the sixth straight year since the peak in 2007, a new report finds.

The country’s birth rate dipped to 62.5 births per 1,000 women between ages 15 and 44, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That is 10 percent lower than the birth rate in 2007, which was 69.3 per 1,000 women, and a record low since the government started tracking birth rates in 1909, when birth rate was 126.8.

In 2013, there were 3.93 million babies born in the U.S., down less than 1 percent from 2012, and down 9 percent from 2007, when a record-breaking 4.32 million babies were born in the U.S.

But trends in the birth rate varied among age groups. Among women under age 30, childbearing is on the decline, whereas it continues to rise among women older than 30, in line with the general trend over the last three decades. In fact, 2013 birth rates for women ages 35 and over was “at the highest levels seen in approximately 50 years,” the researchers wrote in their report.

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