In 2022, the mean age of Hispanic mothers at first birth amounted to 25.7 years in the United States. In comparison, the mean age of mothers of all races and origins in the U.S. was 27.4 years.
This statistic displays the first birth rates for women aged 35 to 39 in the United States between 1990 and 2012, by ethnicity. In 2000, non-Hispanic white women between 35 and 39 years of age had a first birth rate of 9.4 per 1,000 women. The average age of women who have their first births has been rising over the past years. Having children at later ages will impact the size, composition, and growth of the country's population.
Over the past 70 years in the United States, women have gradually started having children at a later point in their lives. Before the 1980s, women in their early twenties had the highest birth rates, however women in their late twenties had the highest rates between 1980 and 2015, but were recently overtaken by women in their early thirties. Another major trend is the decline of teenage pregnancies, which was less than a quarter of it's 1950-1955 rate in the years between 2015 and 2020. In fact, birth rates among 15-19 years olds often doubled birth rates of women aged 35-39 throughout the late twentieth century, but in 2020, the opposite is true.
For women in their forties, birth rates have remained comparatively lower than rates among the other age groups. The high figures in the 1950s and 1960s, can be attributed to the baby boom that followed the Second World War. In more recent decades, rising birth rates among older age groups is not only due to societal trends, but has also been aided by improvements in assisted reproductive technology (ART), such as in vitro fertilization (IVF). Such technologies have granted thousands of women the ability to conceive in circumstances where this would not have been possible in years past.
This statistic depicts the first birth rates for women in the United States aged between 35 and 44 years, by selected age group of the mother, from 1970 and 2012. In 2005, women between 35 and 39 years of age had a first birth rate of 10.7 per 1,000 women, among women between 40 and 44 years old, the rate was 2.0 births per 1,000 women. The average age of women who have their first births has been rising over the past years. Having children at later ages will impact the size, composition, and growth of the country's population.
Between 1991 and 2021 there has been a clear trend of mothers having children later in life in the United Kingdom, with the average age of mothers in the increasing from 27.7 in 1991 to 30.9 by 2021.
In 2021, the birth rate in the United States was highest in families that had under 10,000 U.S. dollars in income per year, at 62.75 births per 1,000 women. As the income scale increases, the birth rate decreases, with families making 200,000 U.S. dollars or more per year having the second-lowest birth rate, at 47.57 births per 1,000 women. Income and the birth rate Income and high birth rates are strongly linked, not just in the United States, but around the world. Women in lower income brackets tend to have higher birth rates across the board. There are many factors at play in birth rates, such as the education level of the mother, ethnicity of the mother, and even where someone lives. The fertility rate in the United States The fertility rate in the United States has declined in recent years, and it seems that more and more women are waiting longer to begin having children. Studies have shown that the average age of the mother at the birth of their first child in the United States was 27.4 years old, although this figure varies for different ethnic origins.
This statistic shows the share of men who are biological fathers in the United States in 2014, by age at the birth of their first child. In that year, 31 percent of men who were biological fathers had their first child between the ages of 20 and 24.
This statistic displays the first birth rates for women aged 40 to 44 years in the United States, by ethnicity and for the period between 1990 and 2012. In 2000, non-Hispanic white women between 40 and 44 years of age had a first birth rate of 1.7 per 1,000 women. The average age of women who have their first births has been rising over the past years. Having children at later ages will impact the size, composition, and growth of the country's population.
This statistic shows the distribution of births in the United States from 2011 to 2019, by age of the mother. In 2019, women aged 20 to 29 years birthed the most children in the United States at 51.31 percent of all births in that year.
This statistic shows the mean age at first birth among U.S. women from 2007 to 2017, by urbanization level. In 2017, the mean age of first birth among women in rural counties was 24.5, while the mean age among those in large metro counties was 27.7.
The mean childbearing age in Europe was just over 30 years in 2022, compared with 26.4 years in 1979, which was the lowest fertility rate in the provided period.
According to a 2019 SellCell survey, most children are allowed to have their first cell phone by the ages of 11-12. One percent get their own phone as early as between one and two years old.
The fertility rate of a country is the average number of children that women from that country will have throughout their reproductive years. In the United States in 1800, the average woman of childbearing age would have seven children over the course of their lifetime. As factors such as technology, hygiene, medicine and education improved, women were having fewer children than before, reaching just two children per woman in 1940. This changed quite dramatically in the aftermath of the Second World War, rising sharply to over 3.5 children per woman in 1960 (children born between 1946 and 1964 are nowadays known as the 'Baby Boomer' generation, and they make up roughly twenty percent of todays US population). Due to the end of the baby boom and increased access to contraception, fertility reached it's lowest point in the US in 1980, where it was just 1.77. It did however rise to over two children per woman between 1995 and 2010, although it is expected to drop again by 2020, to just 1.78.
As of June 2020, women aged between 15 and 19 years had given birth to 450,000 children in the United States. Birth rates in the U.S. are highest among women aged 20 to 34 years.
In 2023, the median age of the population of the United States was 39.2 years. While this may seem quite young, the median age in 1960 was even younger, at 29.5 years. The aging population in the United States means that society is going to have to find a way to adapt to the larger numbers of older people. Everything from Social Security to employment to the age of retirement will have to change if the population is expected to age more while having fewer children. The world is getting older It’s not only the United States that is facing this particular demographic dilemma. In 1950, the global median age was 23.6 years. This number is projected to increase to 41.9 years by the year 2100. This means that not only the U.S., but the rest of the world will also have to find ways to adapt to the aging population.
The typical American picture of a family with 2.5 kids might not be as relevant as it once was: In 2023, there was an average of 1.94 children under 18 per family in the United States. This is a decrease from 2.33 children under 18 per family in 1960.
Familial structure in the United States
If there’s one thing the United States is known for, it’s diversity. Whether this is diversity in ethnicity, culture, or family structure, there is something for everyone in the U.S. Two-parent households in the U.S. are declining, and the number of families with no children are increasing. The number of families with children has stayed more or less constant since 2000.
Adoptions in the U.S.
Families in the U.S. don’t necessarily consist of parents and their own biological children. In 2021, around 35,940 children were adopted by married couples, and 13,307 children were adopted by single women.
According to a survey conducted in 2024 in the United States, 30 percent of respondents stated that their children got their own cell phone when they were aged between 12 and 13. Furthermore, 20 percent of respondents stated their kids got their own device when nine or younger.
Over the past 160 years, life expectancy (from birth) in the United States has risen from 39.4 years in 1860, to 78.9 years in 2020. One of the major reasons for the overall increase of life expectancy in the last two centuries is the fact that the infant and child mortality rates have decreased by so much during this time. Medical advancements, fewer wars and improved living standards also mean that people are living longer than they did in previous centuries.
Despite this overall increase, the life expectancy dropped three times since 1860; from 1865 to 1870 during the American Civil War, from 1915 to 1920 during the First World War and following Spanish Flu epidemic, and it has dropped again between 2015 and now. The reason for the most recent drop in life expectancy is not a result of any specific event, but has been attributed to negative societal trends, such as unbalanced diets and sedentary lifestyles, high medical costs, and increasing rates of suicide and drug use.
In 2022, there were about 25.8 million children between the ages of 12 and 17 years old living in the United States. On the other hand, there were about 22.4 million children between the ages of zero and five years old in the country.
In 2022, about 40.26 percent of all family households in the United States had their own children under age 18 living in the household. This is compared to the approximate 50.62 percent of female led households with their own children.
In 2022, the mean age of Hispanic mothers at first birth amounted to 25.7 years in the United States. In comparison, the mean age of mothers of all races and origins in the U.S. was 27.4 years.