People living in the United States had the lowest number of babies in more than 40 years, a feat which could be coming because the COVID-19 pandemic forced more people to take care of sick family members or deal with job losses.
The birth rate in the United States fell 4 percent in 2020 to about 3.6 million babies, its sixth-straight annual decline and the lowest since 1979, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Reuters news agency reported on Tuesday.
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The CDC did not attribute the overall decline to the pandemic but experts have predicted that pandemic-led reasons including anxiety will hit the country’s birth rate.
‘The recent decline in birth rates reflects both a longer-term downward trend in birth rates that was apparent prior to the pandemic and pandemic-related reduction,‘ said Lorna Thorpe, director of epidemiology at the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone in New York City.
In general, US fertility rates have dropped over the years as women marry late and delay motherhood, especially in years when the economy has slowed.
Older data from Population Reference Bureau, a non-profit statistics collector, showed the US birth rate reached an all-time low in 1936 following the 1929 stock market crash.
It once again took a hit through the 1970s in the wake of big social changes, including the landmark Roe vs Wade case that legalised abortion.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
