Over the past decade, fertility declined rapidly in the United States – from a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 2.2 births per woman in 2008 to just 1.7 in 2019. Initial reports suggest the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated this trend. Though some of the pandemic-related fertility decline may be due to families waiting to have children, rather than changing their desired family size. If this is the case, fertility should rise near the end of the pandemic and in the years directly following the pandemic. This post highlights two demographic trends in women related to the past decade’s decline in fertility: marriage and education.
Timing of marriage, and particularly whether a woman marries younger or older, has historically been a strong indicator of women’s fertility patterns. Figure 1 depicts age-specific marriage rates among women of childrearing age in 5-year age cohorts from 2006 to 2019, calculated from the American Community Survey (ACS). Over the time period observed, marriage rates among women aged 25-29 dropped 15.9 percentage points.
Please view online for additonal years.
Figure 2 shows the percentage of women at childrearing age who had a child in the previous year, separately by marital status.1 Over the whole period observed, married women are at least three percentage points more likely to have given birth in the past year than unmarried women. Further, over the past decade unmarried women of childbearing age have grown increasingly unlikely to give birth: the likelihood drops a full percentage point over the time frame observed.
In women, educational attainment (particularly college attendance), is also closely related to declines in fertility.
Figure 3 displays college education rates among women ages 25 and older. The figure shows a linear rise in completion of four years of college: in 2006, only 30.5 percent of women ages 25 to 49 had completed four years of college, compared to 40.7 percent in 2019.
Figure 4 plots the percentage of women of childrearing age who had a child last year, separately by whether she completed 4 years of college. The birth rates for each of these groups of women declined a full percentage point over the period observed. In 2019, women aged 15-49 with at least four years of college were 0.8 percentage points less likely to have had a child in the past year.
Examining age-specific fertility rates, marriage rates, and trends in women’s educational attainment, it is clear many women are delaying fertility and ultimately having fewer children. These factors are not isolated, but also interact with one another. A young woman who graduates college is more likely to marry and have children after age 21 and enter the formal labor market. Because she is a worker with a college degree, she likely earns a higher income than women without college degrees meaning her opportunity cost of leaving the labor market to have children will be higher than it otherwise would have been if she earned a lower income. Additionally, if women are concerned that they will progress in their careers at a slower rate if they go on maternity leave, they will also be disincentivized to have children. Further, high childcare costs provide a disincentive for parenthood.
The decline in birth rates in the US has also been observed in most developed countries around the world. With the fertility rate being below the 2.1-births-per-woman replacement rate, the resulting population’s age distribution has many policy implications. One concern about declines in fertility is that per capita federal debt will increase for future generations ceteris paribus. For instance, programs like Social Security that are pay-as-you-go systems, will not have enough working age people paying into the program to support the population of retirees without fundamentally changing payroll tax rates or Social Security benefit payouts. Relatedly, there are concerns that a shrinking population would result in a smaller workforce and slower economic growth. Still, others argue that a declining birthrate could have potential positive effects, such as reducing infrastructure costs, and easing ecological burdens and natural resource constraints. One should also keep in mind that increasing immigration could also offset some of the population decline (and effects) that the current trends in the birth rate would cause.
This analysis was conducted by Maddison Erbabian, Austin Herrick, and Victoria Osorio. Prepared for the website by Mariko Paulson.
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Marital status is determined by whether the respondent has ever been married, regardless of whether she is married currently. ↩
Year Age Group Percentage of women who have ever married 2006 15-19 0.026 2006 20-24 0.215 2006 25-29 0.543 2006 30-34 0.737 2006 35-39 0.815 2006 40-44 0.853 2006 45-49 0.884 2007 15-19 0.024 2007 20-24 0.204 2007 25-29 0.53 2007 30-34 0.727 2007 35-39 0.812 2007 40-44 0.85 2007 45-49 0.88 2008 15-19 0.02 2008 20-24 0.196 2008 25-29 0.515 2008 30-34 0.72 2008 35-39 0.805 2008 40-44 0.849 2008 45-49 0.875 2009 15-19 0.018 2009 20-24 0.19 2009 25-29 0.49 2009 30-34 0.7 2009 35-39 0.802 2009 40-44 0.843 2009 45-49 0.874 2010 15-19 0.017 2010 20-24 0.175 2010 25-29 0.479 2010 30-34 0.694 2010 35-39 0.795 2010 40-44 0.842 2010 45-49 0.868 2011 15-19 0.016 2011 20-24 0.163 2011 25-29 0.463 2011 30-34 0.68 2011 35-39 0.786 2011 40-44 0.838 2011 45-49 0.868 2012 15-19 0.016 2012 20-24 0.155 2012 25-29 0.449 2012 30-34 0.67 2012 35-39 0.784 2012 40-44 0.836 2012 45-49 0.869 2013 15-19 0.016 2013 20-24 0.149 2013 25-29 0.435 2013 30-34 0.662 2013 35-39 0.778 2013 40-44 0.832 2013 45-49 0.862 2014 15-19 0.015 2014 20-24 0.144 2014 25-29 0.421 2014 30-34 0.654 2014 35-39 0.77 2014 40-44 0.825 2014 45-49 0.858 2015 15-19 0.015 2015 20-24 0.136 2015 25-29 0.412 2015 30-34 0.646 2015 35-39 0.76 2015 40-44 0.822 2015 45-49 0.861 2016 15-19 0.015 2016 20-24 0.133 2016 25-29 0.403 2016 30-34 0.64 2016 35-39 0.756 2016 40-44 0.821 2016 45-49 0.857 2017 15-19 0.015 2017 20-24 0.134 2017 25-29 0.395 2017 30-34 0.635 2017 35-39 0.755 2017 40-44 0.819 2017 45-49 0.855 2018 15-19 0.014 2018 20-24 0.13 2018 25-29 0.386 2018 30-34 0.628 2018 35-39 0.747 2018 40-44 0.816 2018 45-49 0.854 2019 15-19 0.014 2019 20-24 0.129 2019 25-29 0.384 2019 30-34 0.619 2019 35-39 0.742 2019 40-44 0.806 2019 45-49 0.853
Year,Percentage of women who completed 4 years of college 2006,0.305 2007,0.313 2008,0.317 2009,0.326 2010,0.33 2011,0.337 2012,0.346 2013,0.353 2014,0.36 2015,0.37 2016,0.379 2017,0.39 2018,0.399 2019,0.407
Year EverMarried Percentage of women who had a child last year 2006 0 0.040076 2006 1 0.068384 2007 0 0.039468 2007 1 0.069154 2008 0 0.042001 2008 1 0.073779 2009 0 0.041393 2009 1 0.07264 2010 0 0.039568 2010 1 0.069435 2011 0 0.038092 2011 1 0.070396 2012 0 0.03627 2012 1 0.067904 2013 0 0.03573 2013 1 0.069148 2014 0 0.03522 2014 1 0.069907 2015 0 0.034373 2015 1 0.069827 2016 0 0.033926 2016 1 0.072189 2017 0 0.0325 2017 1 0.073227 2018 0 0.031425 2018 1 0.073254 2019 0 0.029348 2019 1 0.072421
year College Percentage of women who had a child last year 2006 0 0.054652 2006 1 0.063453 2007 0 0.054974 2007 1 0.06219 2008 0 0.058302 2008 1 0.06596 2009 0 0.057145 2009 1 0.064293 2010 0 0.05468 2010 1 0.060216 2011 0 0.053366 2011 1 0.062165 2012 0 0.051356 2012 1 0.058565 2013 0 0.051304 2013 1 0.059156 2014 0 0.051021 2014 1 0.059412 2015 0 0.050483 2015 1 0.058332 2016 0 0.050901 2016 1 0.060032 2017 0 0.050681 2017 1 0.059567 2018 0 0.049985 2018 1 0.058722 2019 0 0.048533 2019 1 0.056674