01 July, 2017
Like most things in life, you can blame this on millennials; many experts fear the generation is less likely to have babies, while others caution that millennials are simply putting off parenthood longer.
When it comes to the teen birth rate in the United States, we're finally there. According to 2016 data released Friday by the CDC, the number of women giving birth in the U.S. is down 1% from 2015 and at a historic low. The just-released data shows that since 1991 the teen birth rate for women aged 15 to 19 years old has dropped by 67% percent and in 2016. This is a continuing long-term trend. The number of births to women aged 15-19 was 209,480 a year ago. But Donna M. Strobino, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The Washington Post that there is another decline, too, that we should be celebrating: teen pregnancies.
The percentage of women receiving prenatal care ranged from 51.9% to 80% depending on different groups (non-Hispanic native Hawaiin and other Pacific Islanders women having the lowest percentage, and Asian and non-Hispanic white women having the highest - non-Hispanic black women averaged in the middle).
As well as with teens, the birth rate declined for women in their 20s while the rates for women in their 30s and 40s rose in 2016.
Meanwhile in India: Despite the fertility rate dropping from 4.97 children per woman to 2.3 children per woman over the past 40 years, the country's population is predicted to keep growing, hitting the 1.44 billion mark and surpassing China in seven years, the Hindu reports.
