Declining Fertility Among Teenagers

by AmeriStat staff

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(AmeriStat, January 2003) Among more developed countries, the United States has one of the highest rates of teenage childbearing. In 2001 there were 45.8 live births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 19, down from the recent peak of 62.1 births per 1,000 in 1991. The birth rate of women ages 15 to 17 reached a record low in 2001: 25.2 per 1,000.

Teenage fertility rates were considerably higher in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1957, at the height of the baby boom, there were 96.3 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 19. Back then, however, the great majority of these births (86 percent of them in 1957) were to women who were married at the time of birth (though they often had not been married at the time of conception). The proportions have since reversed; now only 21 percent of teen births are to women who are married.

Fertility rates have dropped especially rapidly during the past decade among black teenagers, from 115.5 per 1,000 in 1991 to 73.2 per 1,000 in 2001. Despite this decline, birth rates for black teenagers remain high compared with birth rates for white teenagers.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics.

References

J.A. Martin et al., "Births: Final Data for 2001," National Vital Statistics Reports 51, no. 2 (2002); J.A. Martin et al., "Births: Final Data for 2000," National Vital Statistics Reports 50, no. 5 (2002); S.J. Ventura et al., "Births: Final Data for 1999," National Vital Statistics Reports 49, no. 1 (2001); S.J. Ventura et al., "Births: Final Data for 1998," National Vital Statistics Reports 48, no. 3 (2000); S.J. Ventura et al., "Births: Final Data for 1997," National Vital Statistics Reports 47, no. 18 (1999); S.J. Ventura et al., "Report of Final Natality Statistics, 1996," Monthly Vital Statistics Report 46, no. 11, Supplement (1998); S.J. Ventura et al., "Report of Final Natality Statistics, 1995," Monthly Vital Statistics Report 45, no. 11, Supplement (1997); S.J. Ventura et al., "Advance Report of Final Natality Statistics, 1994," Monthly Vital Statistics Report 44, no. 11, Supplement (1996); National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics of the United States, 1993, Volume I, Natality (Hyattsville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999); National Center for Health Statistics, Report to Congress on Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing (Hyattsville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1995); and National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics of the United States, 1979, Volume I, Natality (Hyattsville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1984).

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