After two consecutive years of increases, the number of births in the United States declined by 2 percent in 2023, coinciding with the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a report released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics, 3,596,017 babies were born in 2023. This represents a decrease from the 3,667,758 births recorded in 2022 and the 3,664,292 in 2021.
This drop in the birth rate is double the average annual decline of 1 percent seen between 2014 and 2019 but is only half of the 4 percent decline observed from 2019 to 2020. The CDC also reported that abortion rates increased by 5 percent in 2021, the year before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. However, these figures may not fully capture the total number of abortions due to incomplete or absent reporting in some states.
The report noted a 3 percent decline in the fertility rate for women aged 15 to 44, with 54.5 births per 1,000 women in 2023, down from 56.0 in 2022 and 56.3 in 2021. Fertility rates in the U.S. have been declining for the past decade, ranging from a 2 percent