The U.S. birth rate reached a new record low in 2025, according to provisional Vital Statistics data released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Last year, the U.S. recorded only 53.1 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age (ages 15-44), a 1.3% decline from 2024 and a 23% decline from 2007. The decline reflects a social shift as women are choosing to bear children later in life, as well as the combined weight of decades of social changes that undermined the American family.

The U.S. birth rate today is so far below historical averages that the total number of annual births is much smaller than in previous years, when the U.S. had a significantly smaller population. For example, there were 4.3 million births in 1961, when the U.S. population was 184 million, slightly larger than the current population of Bangladesh. In 2025, there were only 3.6 million births in the entire U.S., despite a population of 342 million.

In 1961, the general fertility rate stood at 117.1 births per 1,000 females aged 15-44, more than twice the current rate. Or, to put it differently, there were an average of 3.62 births per woman in 1961, versus an average of 1.61 births per woman in 2023 (the last year for which data is available), far below the replacement rate.

Significantly, U.S. birth rates declined most since 2024 among younger age cohorts. Births to girls (ages 10-14) declined from 0.2 per 1,000 females to 0.1 per 1,000 (a total decline from 1,727 to 1,350). Births to underage teens (15-17) declined from 5.3 per 1,000 to 4.7 (from 34,465 to 29,939), while births to 18- and 19-year-olds declined from 23.6 per 1,000 women to 21.9. There are obvious benefits to the continued decline in teen pregnancies, as most teen mothers are still unwed (if not underage) and not in a stable position to raise a child.

However, the trend shown by these data, a decline in teen pregnancies, does not explain the causes for the decline — whether it is due to less pre-marital sex or to more sinister causes, such as the easy access to chemical abortion pills by mail, a Biden-era policy the Trump administration has taken no steps to reverse.

Birth rates also declined for women in their 20s, once considered the peak years for childbearing. Among women aged 20-24, the birth rate declined from 55.8 per 1,000 women to 52.2. Among those aged 25-29, the birth rate declined from 89.5 per 1,000 women to 85.6.

By contrast, among older cohorts, the birth rate actually increased. For women aged 30-34, there were 96.2 births per 1,000 women, up from 93.7 in 2024. For women aged 35-39, the birth rate rose to 55.1 per 1,000 women, from 54.3. For women aged 40-45, the birth rate rose to 12.8 per 1,000 women from 12.7. For the age categories 35-39, 40-44, and even 45-54, the total number of births actually rose.

Notably, the age cohort with the highest birth rate was ages 30-34, closely followed by ages 25-29; lagging behind was the 35-39 cohort, followed by the 20-24 cohort. In other words, more women are giving birth in their 30s than in their 20s, although the median is still slightly above 30.

This is not a natural distribution of childbirth. According to the CDC, “A woman’s chances of having a baby decrease rapidly every year after the age of 30,” meaning that a woman’s fertility is highest in her late teens through late 20s. Thus, these data indicate that American women are choosing to have children far later than their years of peak fertility.

The important question is why there is such a delay in childbearing. One common hypothesis is that women (or, more broadly, families) wait to have children until they reach a certain threshold of economic security. Historic trends suggest that economics does play a role. During the Great Depression, for instance, birth rates plummeted from a post-World War recovery of 119.8 births per 1,000 women in 1921 to 75.8 births per 1,000 women in 1936; birth rates then rose sharply again during the economic boom that accompanied World War II, even before the famous “baby boom” of 1946.

However, economics is not the only factor at play. For starters, note that birth rates during the worst of the Great Depression were still significantly higher than birth rates today. During the relative prosperity of the 1960s, American birth rates once again plunged, falling from 117.1 births per 1,000 females in 1961 to 85.2 in 1968, and finally bottoming out at 65.0 in 1976. Despite short rallies leading to peaks in 1990 (70.9 births per 1,000 women) and 2007 (69.3 births per women), U.S. birth rates have never again climbed from this deflated level.

We must therefore ask, what happened in American society in the 1960s that led to a permanent reduction in the birth rate? Many readers likely know the answer already: the Sexual Revolution, a widespread popularizing of godless academic theories that tore sex outside of its proper expression in marriage, denied its orientation toward childbearing, and claimed it was nothing more than a vehicle for the fulfillment of adult desires.

Alongside this revolution in thought came revolutions in technology (contraception pills) and law (Roe v. Wade and no-fault divorce). Before these developments (especially contraception), married couples did not really “choose” to have children; children were just natural results of their marital union. Thus, these revolutionary changes not only helped legitimize the Sexual Revolution practically, but they did so by directly reducing the number of children women would bear. Indeed, it would be surprising if such fundamental social changes did not affect U.S. birth rates.

Since 2007, the U.S. birth rate has only declined further. To the extent that families consider financial stability when deciding whether to have children, the Great Recession and its slow recovery, not to mention the COVID panic and the ensuing inflation, have surely played a role in depressing birth rates.

Additionally, American society continues to experience aftershocks of the Sexual Revolution. Transgender ideology entices young people, especially young women, into treatments that permanently sterilize them, without due consideration for their future fertility. Radical new waves of feminism encourage women to postpone families and prioritize careers. New reproductive technologies such as IVF promise extended fertility, although they may fail to fulfill those promises. The principles of the revolution have been fruitful and multiplied even if its principals refuse to do so.

The continued decline in birth rate leaves America in a perilous position. As American women have fewer babies, and do so later in life, the population grows gradually older. American welfare programs like Social Security and Medicare rely upon a healthy, young population to support the needs of frail and elderly Americans. But a point is coming soon when the tax base of the system will no longer be able to support the beneficiaries, forcing difficult decisions about curtailing these programs. Additionally, population decline leads to empty homes and neighborhoods, a blight that invites crime and other social ills to multiply.

Progressives have a solution to America’s stalling birth rate: open the borders and invite the world to come here. After all, they don’t much like Americans anyway. Conservatives (or, more precisely, “Natalists”) have a different solution: create better incentives for families to have children.

However, this prescription is hardly popular in an individualistic society obsessed with self-fulfillment. Raising children demands endless sacrifice. But it is good, both for one’s own maturity and for society as a whole. Such long-term good is what results when we follow God’s design to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). At the end of the day, government policies do little to promote this principle. Those who believe it is true must first embody it one family at a time. With 65 years of a bad cultural example to counter, there is no time to lose.