Data story · Birth rates, 1960–2024
Below replacement, even in Utah
The world’s total fertility rate was 2.19 births per woman in 2024, less than half its 1963 peak of 5.31, and just over two-thirds of people now live in a country below the 2.1 that keeps a population level. The U.S. hit a record low of 1.60 in 2024. Utah had the highest rate of any state every year from 2005 to 2015, fell below 2.1 in 2018, and since 2010 has fallen further than any other state. Most of that fall is women in their early twenties, and of the explanations that can be tested state by state, later marriage fits best.
- Total fertility rate (TFR)
- Children per woman if she lived through this year’s birth rate at every age. About 2.1 keeps a population level without migration.
- General fertility rate (GFR)
- Births this year per 1,000 women aged 15–44. It moves when birth rates change and when the age mix of those women shifts.
- Crude birth rate
- Births per 1,000 people of every age and sex, the rate most headlines mean by “birth rate”.
1 · The world
The world’s fertility rate has more than halved since 1963
In 1963 the average woman would have had 5.31 children at that year’s rates; in 2024, 2.19, just above replacement. Just over two-thirds of people now live in one of the 119 countries below 2.1, up from 4% in 1960. Of the 14 countries charted, only Nigeria and Israel are still above it; South Korea is at 0.75. Pick a country to trace it.
People living in a country below 2.1 · share of the world, 1960–2024
Total fertility rate, 1960–2024 · births per woman at that year’s rates
World Bank total fertility rates (SP.DYN.TFRT.IN: UN World Population Prospects estimates and national statistics), updated July 2026. The U.S. line uses NCHS final data from 1970, because the Bank’s latest U.S. figures are provisional; the two agree to within 0.002 for every earlier year. The share below 2.1 weights each country by its population; 2.1 is replacement only where few children die young.
2 · The United States
A record low, and a later start
U.S. women averaged 1.60 children at 2024’s rates, the lowest NCHS has recorded (it was 1.62 in 2023). It has fallen in every year since 2007, when it stood at 2.12, except 2014 and 2021. The fall is young: births to teenagers fell 70% from 2007 to 2024 and to women 20–24 47%, while rates at 35–39 rose 14% and at 40–44 32%. Later has not made up for fewer.
U.S. total fertility rate, 1970–2024 · births per woman, NCHS final data
Births per 1,000 women, by age · 2007 and 2024
3 · The states
Every state fell; none has been at replacement since 2018
From 2005 to 2024 the total fertility rate fell in all 50 states and D.C. Utah had the highest in the country every year from 2005 to 2015; South Dakota passed it in 2016, Utah dropped below 2.1 in 2018, and South Dakota was the last state at or above it, in 2018. In 2024, Utah ranked #6.
Utah: 2.47 in 2005, 1.80 in 2024 (−27.3%), #6 of 50 by size of drop on this measure.
Steepest falls · total fertility rate, 2005–2024
- #1−34.9%
- #2−33.8%
- #3−33.0%
- #4−29.3%
- #5−28.2%
- #6−27.3%
- #7−27.3%
- #8−26.7%
Every state fell on every measure. The three disagree about Utah because they weigh women differently: the crude birth rate counts births against everyone, the general fertility rate against all women 15–44, and the total fertility rate gives each age group of women the same weight. Section 4 takes that apart.
Change in the total fertility rate, 2005–2024 · births per woman; click a state to trace it below
Every state’s total fertility rate, 2005–2024 · births per woman; pick a state on the map or in the list to trace it
4 · Did Utah fall furthest?
The steepest fall since 2010, not from the peak
Counting births against everyone, or against all women 15–44, Utah’s 2005–2024 drop is the largest of any state (−36% and −34%). On the total fertility rate, which gives every age the same weight, it ranks #6, behind Nevada, Arizona, California and two more. All three fell faster than Utah in the 2007–2010 recession, when Utah’s rate barely moved (#30), and all three have fallen more slowly since. From any starting year between 2010 and 2016, no state’s TFR has fallen further than Utah’s (−27% from 2010).
| Measure | Years | Utah | Rank of 50 | Steepest falls |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crude birth rate (per 1,000 people) | 2005–2024 From 2005 | 20.9 → 13.3 −36.4% | #1 | Utah −36.4% · Arizona −35.8% · Nevada −35.7% |
| General fertility rate (per 1,000 women 15–44) | 2005–2024 From 2005 | 90.4 → 59.9 −33.7% | #1 | Utah −33.7% · Arizona −32.8% · Nevada −32.8% |
| Total fertility rate (births per woman) | 2005–2024 From 2005 | 2.47 → 1.80 −27.3% | #6 | Nevada −34.9% · Arizona −33.8% · California −33.0% |
| Total fertility rate (births per woman) | 2010–2024 After the recession | 2.45 → 1.80 −26.6% | #1 | Utah −26.6% · California −24.9% · Nevada −24.5% |
| Total fertility rate (births per woman) | 2007–2010 The recession years | 2.63 → 2.45 −6.9% | #30 | Nevada −19.3% · Arizona −14.8% · Mississippi −14.3% |
Why the measures disagree. The GFR weighs each age by how many women that age a state has, and Utah’s women skew young: in 2008, 38% of its women 15–44 were in their twenties, against 33% nationally. Utah’s drop was concentrated at exactly those ages (section 5), so the GFR magnifies it; the TFR weighs every age alike, which is why demographers use it to compare places. Utah’s women getting older explains little: of the GFR’s 32.9-point fall from 2008 to 2024, the age mix accounts for 3.3.
| Claim | What the NCHS rates show | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Utah leads the country in falling fertility. The New York Times (reprinted by The Salt Lake Tribune), July 2026 | From any starting year between 2010 and 2016, Utah’s total fertility rate has fallen further than any other state’s, in births per woman and in percent. From its 2007 peak it has not: total fertility rate #4 (Nevada −39.0%, Utah −31.7%); general fertility rate #2 (Nevada −37.0%, Utah −36.5%); crude birth rate #2 (Nevada −38.5%, Utah −36.1%). | Partly |
| Utah’s fertility rate fell the most of any state, by far: births per 1,000 women in 2023 against the 2011–20 average. Utah Foundation, citing Pew Charitable Trusts, July 2025 | On NCHS’s rates, Utah’s general fertility rate went from an average of 75.3 to 59.6, −20.8%, the largest fall; next was New Mexico at −17.7%. The total fertility rate agrees, by a smaller margin: −18.1% against Nevada’s −16.8%. | Holds |
| Utah’s total fertility rate fell almost 22% from 2010 to 2020, the seventh-fastest decline in the country. Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, University of Utah, July 2022 | 2.45 → 1.92, −21.7%: #6 of the 50 states, #7 counting D.C. | Holds |
| Changing birth rates at each age, not the age mix of Utah women, drove the fall in births after 2008. Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, University of Utah, October 2017 | Through 2024 too. Of the general fertility rate’s 32.9-point fall from 2008 to 2024, the shifting age mix of women 15–44 accounts for 3.3 points (10%); lower birth rates at each age account for the rest. | Holds |
5 · Where the drop came from
Just over three-fifths of Utah’s drop came from women under 25
In 2008, Utah women aged 20–24 had 127.6 births per 1,000, 24% above the U.S. rate of 103.0; by 2024 it was 57.6, against 55.8. Women under 30 account for nearly nine-tenths of the drop in Utah’s TFR, from 2.60 to 1.80. Unlike the nation, Utah saw almost no rise at older ages: its rate at 35–39 was 51.0 in 2008 and 51.4 in 2024; the U.S. rate went from 46.9 to 54.3.
Births per 1,000 women, by age · Utah and the U.S., 2008 and 2024
Where Utah’s 0.80 fewer births per woman came from · 2008–2024, by age
- Under 25
- −0.48
- Under 30
- −0.71
- 30 and over
- −0.09
- All ages
- −0.80
Each bar is five times the change in that age group’s birth rate, the share of the TFR it carries. Rates by age for each state start in the 2008 report; the 2005–07 reports give only teen rates by state.
6 · Why Utah
Later marriage fits best; much else moved at once
No dataset says why a woman has a child, and state averages can’t separate causes that move together. They can test each explanation two ways: did it move more in Utah than elsewhere, and did states where it moved more see bigger declines from 2010 to 2024? Later marriage tracks the decline across states best (r = −0.66), and in Utah the shift hit the early twenties, where its births were. Women’s degrees, women’s work and house prices moved more in Utah than almost anywhere but track the decline across states more weakly. In-migration runs the wrong way.
Later first marriage. Utah: 23.3 → 25.2 (+1.9 yr), #21 of 50 by how far it moved toward fewer births; the U.S.: 26.7 → 28.8. Across the states, r = −0.66: states where it moved more saw clearly bigger declines. Utah’s median rose about as much as the nation’s, but the shift landed where Utah’s births were: the share of women 20–24 never married rose 12.1 points (61.2% → 73.3%), #2 among the states.
Later first marriage · Utah and the U.S., 2010–2024
A correlation across fifty states is not a cause, and these explanations move together: where women marry later they also tend to study longer and work more, often in states where homes got dearer. State averages cannot pull them apart; the test only shows which ones the pattern across states supports and which it doesn’t.
Test an explanation · each dot a state, 2010–2024; the line is the least-squares fit
Across: change in women’s median age at first marriage (years). Up and down: change in the total fertility rate, 2010–2024. Hover a dot for its state. The survey had no standard 2020 release, so the trend beside skips that year.
| Explanation | Utah | U.S. | Utah’s rank | r | Fit across states |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| +1.9 yr | +2.1 yr | #21 | −0.66 | Strong fit | |
| +12.1 pts | +6.2 pts | #2 | −0.27 | Weak fit | |
| +14.5 pts | +10.8 pts | #4 | −0.38 | Moderate fit | |
| +8.6 pts | +4.6 pts | #2 | −0.35 | Moderate fit | |
| +1.67 | +0.82 | #3 | −0.25 | Weak fit | |
| −2.8 pts | −2.3 pts | #20 | −0.49 | Runs the wrong way | |
| 2.45 | 1.93 | #1 | −0.12 | Weak fit |
Rank: 1 = moved furthest in the direction that would lower births (for “More people moving in”, the biggest fall in the share born in the state; for “Starting high”, the highest starting rate). r: Pearson’s r between the change and the TFR’s percent change across the 50 states (D.C. left out); a fitting explanation reads negative, or positive for moving in.
Religion can’t be tested this way
InferencePew’s surveys put the Latter-day Saint share of Utah adults at 58% in 2007, 55% in 2014, 50% in 2023–24 (±6–7 points; the latest wave also moved from phone to mostly online). Nationally, the share of Latter-day Saints with a child under 18 at home fell from 49% (2007) to 37% (2023–24), against 35% to 28% for all U.S. adults, and Latter-day Saint women with a bachelor’s degree rose from 25% to 40%.
The Church’s own count of new children of record per 1,000 members, worldwide, fell from 9.4 in 2008 to 5.2 in 2025. Only a few states have enough Latter-day Saints for a survey to measure, so religion can’t join the cross-state test. Read it as consistent with the marriage and age evidence, not as a separately measured cause.
New children of record per 1,000 members at the prior year-end, from the Church’s annual statistical reports; the series starts at the 2008 change from “increase in” to “new” children of record. Worldwide, not Utah.
Not a recession story
In the recession years, 2007 to 2010, Utah’s total fertility rate fell 6.9%, #30 of 50; Nevada (−19.3%) and Arizona (−14.8%) fell fastest. Nationally, those three years hit Hispanic women hardest: their rate fell from 2.84 to 2.35, against 1.91 to 1.79 for non-Hispanic white women.
Utah’s fall came after: from 2.45 in 2010 to 1.80 in 2024. Pick any starting year from 2010 to 2016 and no state has fallen further since. Inference: a decline that ran for more than a decade after the recession ended looks less like a response to one bad economy than like a change in when, and whether, people form families.
Hispanic rates: NCHS, Births: Final Data for 2010 (Table 8; 2007 revised on intercensal estimates). Later years use single-race categories and are not compared here.
Methods and sources
How the numbers were built
Every figure on this page is computed from six CSVs, each linked below, by one tested module (src/lib/birthRates.ts) that refuses to build on a gap, a duplicate or a row whose TFR doesn’t equal five times the sum of its age rates.
- U.S. rates: NCHS final natality data. 1940–2010 from the 2010 report (rates for 2001–09 revised on intercensal population estimates; 1940–55 births adjusted for under-registration), 2010–2024 from the 2024 report (2020 revised on the Census Bureau’s blended base). The TFR starts in 1970 in these tables.
- State rates: each year’s “Births: Final Data” report, 2005–2024, as first published; the report and table for every row are in the CSV. Later revisions to 2001–09 and 2020 are not applied to state rows, so those years can differ slightly from NCHS’s revised national figures. The 2005–07 reports publish only teen rates by age.
- Rankings are among the 50 states; D.C. is shown on the map but not ranked. “Steepest” means the largest percent decline unless the text says births per woman.
- World: World Bank total fertility (SP.DYN.TFRT.IN) and population (SP.POP.TOTL) for every country with both, 1960–2024. A country is below replacement when its TFR is under 2.1.
- Age mix: Kitagawa’s split of the GFR change into rates and age mix, using Census estimates of women by age (2008 intercensal, 2024 vintage). Rebuilt GFRs match NCHS’s to within a point in every state.
- Explanations: American Community Survey 1-year tables via data.census.gov (2010 on; there was no standard 2020 release): median age at first marriage (B12007), never married by age (B12002), degrees (B15001), labor force (B23001), place of birth (B05002), home value and household income (B25077, B19013). Estimates carry sampling error, larger in small states.
- Fit is Pearson’s r across the 50 states between an explanation’s change and the TFR’s percent change over the same years: a correlation between places, not evidence about any person.
- Religion: Pew Religious Landscape Study state estimates (Utah n = 323, 315, 340) and Pew’s September 2026 report on Latter-day Saints; the Church’s annual statistical reports for children of record, worldwide.
Show every state’s total fertility rate
| State | 2005 | 2007 | 2010 | 2024 | 2005–24 | 2010–24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 2.05 | 2.12 | 1.93 | 1.60 | −22% | −17% |
| Alabama | 1.93 | 2.07 | 1.87 | 1.72 | −11% | −8% |
| Alaska | 2.44 | 2.32 | 2.35 | 1.79 | −27% | −24% |
| Arizona | 2.37 | 2.43 | 2.07 | 1.57 | −34% | −24% |
| Arkansas | 2.09 | 2.20 | 2.00 | 1.76 | −16% | −12% |
| California | 2.18 | 2.20 | 1.95 | 1.46 | −33% | −25% |
| Colorado | 2.08 | 2.10 | 1.92 | 1.49 | −28% | −23% |
| Connecticut | 1.91 | 1.92 | 1.72 | 1.48 | −23% | −14% |
| Delaware | 2.01 | 2.13 | 1.94 | 1.61 | −20% | −17% |
| District of Columbia | 1.79 | 1.75 | 1.65 | 1.11 | −38% | −33% |
| Florida | 2.06 | 2.12 | 1.83 | 1.55 | −25% | −15% |
| Georgia | 2.14 | 2.25 | 1.96 | 1.64 | −24% | −17% |
| Hawaii | 2.28 | 2.29 | 2.15 | 1.68 | −26% | −22% |
| Idaho | 2.32 | 2.49 | 2.24 | 1.82 | −22% | −19% |
| Illinois | 2.03 | 2.04 | 1.88 | 1.47 | −27% | −22% |
| Indiana | 2.06 | 2.12 | 1.97 | 1.77 | −14% | −10% |
| Iowa | 2.00 | 2.15 | 2.01 | 1.80 | −10% | −10% |
| Kansas | 2.14 | 2.27 | 2.16 | 1.77 | −17% | −18% |
| Kentucky | 1.99 | 2.09 | 1.97 | 1.80 | −10% | −9% |
| Louisiana | 1.87 | 2.16 | 1.95 | 1.77 | −5% | −9% |
| Maine | 1.78 | 1.79 | 1.70 | 1.38 | −22% | −19% |
| Maryland | 2.00 | 2.06 | 1.89 | 1.59 | −20% | −16% |
| Massachusetts | 1.71 | 1.80 | 1.67 | 1.38 | −20% | −17% |
| Michigan | 1.91 | 1.91 | 1.85 | 1.52 | −20% | −18% |
| Minnesota | 2.02 | 2.15 | 1.96 | 1.67 | −17% | −15% |
| Mississippi | 2.02 | 2.28 | 1.96 | 1.74 | −14% | −11% |
| Missouri | 1.99 | 2.08 | 1.94 | 1.67 | −16% | −14% |
| Montana | 1.98 | 2.08 | 1.99 | 1.59 | −20% | −20% |
| Nebraska | 2.19 | 2.30 | 2.14 | 1.92 | −12% | −10% |
| Nevada | 2.27 | 2.42 | 1.96 | 1.48 | −35% | −24% |
| New Hampshire | 1.78 | 1.76 | 1.67 | 1.35 | −24% | −19% |
| New Jersey | 2.05 | 2.10 | 1.90 | 1.64 | −20% | −13% |
| New Mexico | 2.21 | 2.27 | 2.06 | 1.56 | −29% | −24% |
| New York | 1.86 | 1.92 | 1.81 | 1.51 | −19% | −17% |
| North Carolina | 2.06 | 2.15 | 1.91 | 1.66 | −20% | −13% |
| North Dakota | 1.98 | 2.12 | 2.04 | 1.81 | −9% | −12% |
| Ohio | 1.96 | 2.01 | 1.90 | 1.65 | −16% | −13% |
| Oklahoma | 2.11 | 2.22 | 2.10 | 1.76 | −17% | −17% |
| Oregon | 1.85 | 1.98 | 1.79 | 1.36 | −27% | −24% |
| Pennsylvania | 1.86 | 1.96 | 1.81 | 1.53 | −18% | −15% |
| Rhode Island | 1.73 | 1.76 | 1.63 | 1.33 | −23% | −18% |
| South Carolina | 1.97 | 2.14 | 1.88 | 1.67 | −15% | −12% |
| South Dakota | 2.26 | 2.41 | 2.27 | 2.04 | −10% | −10% |
| Tennessee | 2.00 | 2.11 | 1.88 | 1.72 | −14% | −9% |
| Texas | 2.34 | 2.40 | 2.16 | 1.77 | −24% | −18% |
| Utah | 2.47 | 2.63 | 2.45 | 1.80 | −27% | −27% |
| Vermont | 1.62 | 1.72 | 1.66 | 1.27 | −21% | −23% |
| Virginia | 2.03 | 2.06 | 1.88 | 1.60 | −21% | −15% |
| Washington | 1.91 | 2.03 | 1.91 | 1.48 | −23% | −22% |
| West Virginia | 1.80 | 1.93 | 1.83 | 1.63 | −10% | −11% |
| Wisconsin | 1.94 | 2.01 | 1.89 | 1.60 | −18% | −16% |
| Wyoming | 2.16 | 2.28 | 2.04 | 1.70 | −22% | −17% |
NCHS, National Vital Statistics Reports (Births: Final Data for 2005, 2008, 2010 and 2024, and every year between) · World Bank fertility and population · Census Bureau, American Community Survey · Census population estimates · Pew Religious Landscape Study and Pew on Latter-day Saints · the Church’s annual statistical reports (via Record Counts, Not Record Growth) · Hispanic rates from NVSR 61-1, Table 8. Data: fertility-world.csv, fertility-below-replacement.csv, fertility-us.csv, fertility-by-state.csv, fertility-state-indicators.csv and fertility-women-by-age.csv. · Data sources