A report from the federal government includes the disappointing but predictable news that the number of births in the United States continues to decline. While that big picture is cause for long-term concern, there is at least one positive nugget to be found.
The report from the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there were 3.606 million births in the country in 2025. That’s down about 22,000 from the 3.628 million births in 2024.
This continues a long trend of decreasing births, going back a number of years. 2025’s fertility rate was 53 births per 1,000 women, the lowest since the government began tracking that statistic.
A look at the details of the report shows exactly where the births are declining: Among younger women.
Women aged 15-17 delivered 4,500 fewer babies last year than in 2024. Among those 18 or 19 years old, there were 6,800 fewer births. And 16,000 fewer babies were born to women aged 20 to 24.
This is where the good news is found. It’s impossible to be disappointed that the 15-to-19 age group is having fewer children. It’s reasonable to assume that most of the women in this age group who had a baby last year were unmarried, and that the pregnancy was unexpected.
The teenage birth rate has been going down for more than 30 years. In 1991, about 61 of every 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 had a baby. In 2025, that was down to 12 per 1,000 — a decrease of 80%.
Young women having babies has been a problem in Mississippi for decades. The report did not break down the births by state, but if this state is following that particular national trend, it is a good thing.
One other thing: The smallest number of births in the 2025 report is 1,350 — to girls ages 10 to 14. That is down from 1,727 a year ago. Thank goodness.
What’s further interesting in the report is that women 35 and older had more babies last year than in 2024.
Those from 35 to 39 had 17,700 more babies last year. Births were up by 1,400 for women ages 40 to 44, and up by 500 for those aged 45 to 54.
This information tracks with many reports that say couples are waiting longer to have children, and are having fewer of them because of economic concerns like wages, health care costs and housing costs.
There’s no denying the expense of raising children. To do it right also demands a lot of time and energy, along with the help of relatives and friends, and the ability to learn from mistakes as you go. Parents also learn the bitter lesson that everything doesn’t go as planned, and the payoff for all this may not arrive for years, when children are adults.
All that said, America’s future depends on today’s couples having more children. If they don’t, the population will decline. It’s already likely to do this in the next few decades; forecasts from the Census Bureau and other places believe the U.S. population will start a slow decline sometime between the 2050s and the 2080s.
To avoid population loss, the birth rate needs to be 2.1 per woman. But federal statistics say the rate has been below that for most years since the 1970s, and in recent years it has fallen to the 1.6 range. Without a higher birth rate, the only hope to keep the population growing is immigration — preferably the legal kind.
Jack Ryan, Enterprise-Journal
