America’s baby boom is fading fast.
Fertility among American women has fallen by nearly a quarter in less than two decades and is expected to decline further, according to government data. At the same time, foreign-born mothers now account for roughly one in four births in the United States.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that the US total fertility rate will reach 1.58 births per woman in 2025, down from 2.12 in 2007.
The 2007 figure, recorded a year before the Great Recession, was the last time the US fertility rate exceeded the 2.1 births-per-woman threshold generally associated with natural population replacement. Since then, the rate has dropped 25.5%.
The figures also show that women born outside the US now have between 22% and 25% of all American births, equating to approximately 800,000 to 900,000 children each year.
Foreign-born women currently have a higher fertility rate than women born in the US: 1.79 births per woman compared with 1.53.
Even so, both rates remain well below the replacement level. Projections indicate that fertility among foreign-born women will also decline more rapidly than among their US-born counterparts over the coming decades.
From 2026 to 2056, the overall US fertility rate is expected to edge down from 1.58 to 1.53 births per woman, a decline of 3.2%.
Among US-born women, the rate is projected to slip from 1.53 to 1.50 births per woman, a 2% decrease.
The projected decline is steeper among foreign-born women, whose fertility rate is expected to fall from 1.79 to 1.66 births per woman by 2056—a drop of 7.3%.
Together, the trends point to an increasingly older America. Government projections indicate that annual deaths could surpass annual births as early as 2030.
Without immigration, the US population would therefore begin shrinking within four years, according to the projections.
The report forecasts a marked slowdown in population growth over the next 30 years. Annual growth is expected to average 0.3% during the next decade, then fall to 0.1% between 2037 and 2056.
As a result, the US population could begin to contract during the second half of the 21st century—even when immigration is included in the calculations.
