Thursday, October 13, 2016

Fewer Births Expected

One of these days the baby bust will end, but it might not be anytime soon. Women aged 15 to 44 in 2013-15 expect to have an average of 2.2 children in their lifetime—down from 2.4 children expected by their counterparts in 2006-10—according to the National Survey of Family Growth. Among childless women aged 15 to 24, fully 86 percent expect to have children someday. Among childless women aged 25 to 34, the figure is 77 percent.

But when will they have children? Will it be in the next year or two, causing a baby boom? Or will their childbearing stretch out over years, lengthening the baby bust. It looks like it will be a stretch. When childless women are asked when they expect to have their first child, only 12 percent say it will be within two years, 29 percent say in two to five years, and the largest share—36 percent—say more than five years from now.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics, Birth Expectations of U.S. Women Aged 15-44

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