2025/01/01 by Christopher Julian, Wendy D. Manning · 2 voices
Social Sciences · #Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
paper · doi:10.25035/ncfmr/fp-25-11
In the U.S. birth rates have steadily declined since the Great Recession. In 2023, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR)—which estimates the average number of children a woman would have if current birth rates persisted throughout her childbearing years—reached a record low of 1,616.5 births per 1,000 women, marking a 2% decline from 2022 (Hamilton et al., 2024). The timing of fertility has shifted such that birth rates have decreased among younger women, whereas they have risen among those aged 35 and older (Osterman et al., 2023). In this profile we focus on the reported number of children among women who are at the end of their reproductive careers (ages 45-50). Data on completed fertility are drawn from the 2024 Current Population Survey’s (CPS) biennial June Fertility Supplement. In the 2024 Fertility Supplement, the CPS expanded its fertility questions to include women up to age 50. We present the distribution of children ever born (none, one, two, three, or four or more) among women aged 45–50, with breakdowns by race, ethnicity, and educational attainment. This update builds on previous Family Profiles (Guzzo & Schweizer, 2020; Guzzo & Loo, 2023).