Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times

Fertility rates hit a record low in the United States in 2025, according to newly released provisional data.

Even as the birth rate drops, many Americans say it would be ideal to have two or three children, a Gallup survey shows. Loic Venance/AFP via Getty Images
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers said in a report released on April 9 that they reviewed 99.95 percent of all 2025 birth records received by the agency as of Feb. 3, 2026, and determined that the fertility rate for 2025 was 53.1 births per 1,000 females aged 15 to 44.

That was down by 1 percent from 2024, a 23 percent drop since the recent peak in 2007, and the lowest rate on record.

In 2025, just 3.6 million births were recorded, down by 1 percent from the 3.62 million births in 2024.

The peak number of births was 4.3 million in 2007.

The number of births was published earlier this year, but CDC researchers had not yet calculated the fertility rates.

The provisional numbers for 2025 showed that fewer younger women are having babies.

The fertility rate for teenagers fell again, continuing a decline from the most recent peak in 1991. The rate was 4.7 births per 1,000 15- to 17-year-olds, a drop of 11 percent from 2024, and the rate was 21.9 births per 1,000 18- and 19-year-olds, a decline of 7 percent.

The fertility rate for women aged 20 to 24 declined from 55.8 births per 1,000 women to 53.2 births per 1,000 women. The fertility rate for women aged 25 to 29 went from 89.5 births per 1,000 women to 88.6 births per 1,000 women.

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At the same time, more older women are giving birth, according to the data.

Women aged 30 to 34 had 94.4 births per 1,000, up from 93.7 births per 1,000 in 2024. Those aged 35 to 39 had 54.8 births per 1,000, slightly up from 54.3 births per 1,000 in 2024, and women aged 40 to 44 had 12.8 births per 1,000, slightly up from 12.7 births per 1,000 in 2024.

Even as the birth rate has continued dropping, many Americans say it would be ideal to have two or three children, according to a Gallup survey released in 2025.

Reversing the decline must involve governmental intervention aimed at people who want children but either do not have any or do not have as many as they would like, Lyman Stone, senior fellow and director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies, wrote in a blog post in March. He said solutions need to address the cost and time restraints that usually drive those decisions.

“American fertility continues to decline because American political and cultural leaders continue to do nothing to create a more family-friendly society,” Stone told The Epoch Times in an email. “Until political leaders take action to support families more, and until cultural elites decide the decline of American life is worth doing something about, there will be little hope for serious fertility recovery.”

Population projections released by the Congressional Budget Office in January estimated that, in part because of declining fertility rates, there will be more deaths in the country than births starting in 2033.