The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this past summer that the number of births in the U.S. is down 2% – “the lowest number of births in 32 years.”

These reports were met with surprise and alarm. USA Today, for example, led with the headline “A lot of empty kindergarten rooms.”

However, this recent decline fits with global trends and isn’t unprecedented in U.S. history. 

The U.S. maintained surprisingly high fertility rates for a long time.

After the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s, fertility in the U.S. and other wealthy countries fell during the 1970s. However, the U.S. steadily rebounded, even as rates in most other wealthy countries stayed low or fell even lower.

By 1990, there were 2.1 children per woman in the U.S., compared to 1.4 in Spain and 1.5 in Germany, for example.

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