KEY POINTS
- The report revealed that births among 15- to 19-year-olds fell by 3% in 2022
- The 3% drop is a smaller decrease compared to the roughly 8% decrease per year since 2007
- The report’s lead author said the smaller decrease could be because there’s no more scope left for improvement
The birthrate among teenagers in the U.S. has fallen to a new record low, according to new figures published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report, published Thursday, revealed that births among 15- to 19-year-olds fell by 3% in 2022.
Since the year 1991, the teenage birthrate in the U.S. has been continuously declining except for a spike seen in 2006 and 2007, according to NBC News.
The birth rate among teenagers in 2022 was 13.5 per 1,000 females, which is a 3% drop from the rate of 13.9 per 1,000 in 2021. However, the 3% drop is a smaller decrease compared to the roughly 8% decrease per year since 2007.
Brady Hamilton, a statistician and demographer at the CDC‘s National Center for Health Statistics and the report’s lead author, said the figures in the new report are provisional and will be updated when the final numbers for 2022 are available.
“I’m excited the U.S. has made significant progress in reducing pregnancies among youth,” Dr. Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, dean of the Duke University School of Nursing, and whose research interests include teen sexual and reproductive health, told ABC News. “The all-time low should be an indication that we’re continuing to move in the right direction.”
While the report did not point out reasons behind the decline, some experts believe it could be the result of a combination of factors that include better access to contraception and improved sex education among teenagers.
Guilamo-Ramos said the continuous decrease in teen births is positive, but noted that it’s necessary to observe why the progress is slowing down.
“From 2007 to 2021, on average, the sort of reduction in the teen birth rate was about 8%,” he further said, adding, “And if you look at the more recent data that was released in the report, it’s 3%. Something kind of to keep an eye on and that it appears like that rate could be slowing down in terms of the progress.”
Others believe the comparatively smaller decrease of 3% could be because the numbers are plateauing and that there is no more scope for improvement, owing to years of progress.
“If there are a lot of states where the rates are already low, they bottom out. They can’t get any lower,” Hamilton said.
The report also revealed that 3,661,220 babies were born in the U.S. in 2022. The total number of births in 2021 was 3,664,292, but authors reportedly see this decline as insignificant.
