U.S. birth rates lowest in 35 years
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Topics: U.S.
It was found that the national average is the lowest it's been in 35 years.
The financial, economic and social stresses of the pandemic have many people less concerned with family planning and more concerned with making ends meet.
It's still unclear when the pandemic will end, making it difficult for anyone to plan for the long term, but if past birth trends continue, we should see birth rates drop further in 2021.
State rankings
1 Wyoming -14.7%
2 Alaska -13.8%
3 Vermont -12.5%
4 New Mexico -11.9%
5 Illinois -11.6%
6 California -11.2%
7 Montana -10.9%
8 West Virginia -10.7%
9 Kansas -9.8%
10 Hawaii -9.5%
Over 40% of women changed their plans for parenthood due to COVID-19.
Wyoming, Alaska and Vermont saw the largest birth declines from 2014 to 2019.
The national birth rate has decreased 1% annually since 2014.
Eight states saw a decline of more than 10% in births.
As unemployment increases by 1%, birth rates drop by 1%.
QuoteWizard analyzed the CDC National Center for Health Statistics' provisional number of births.
To rank states that have seen the biggest decreases in child births, they found the change of provisional births over a five-year period from 2014 to 2019. States with the biggest decreases in births were ranked closer to 1, and states with smaller decreases were ranked closer to 50. ■