Birth Rate Down 2.6% Lowest in 100 Years Due to Economic Hardship

The U.S. Birth rate is at and all time low. In fact it's the lowest birth rate in 100 years. The culprit: The current economic crisis.The situation is a striking turnabout from 2007, when more babies were born in the United States than any other year in the nation's history. The recession began that fall, dragging stocks, jobs and births down. “When the economy is bad and people are uncomfortable about their financial future, they tend to postpone having children,” Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University, told AP.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 4,136,000 children were born in 2009, which was down 2.6 percent from the 2008 estimate. That followed a similar decline in 2008, which was the beginning of the economic downturn. The CDC said the 2009 numbers are preliminary and could change. There have not been any details disclosed on the characteristics of women who gave birth in 2009.

The National Center for Health Statistics said that births fell 2.7 percent last year even as the population grew. "It's a good-sized decline for one year. Every month is showing a decline from the year before,"StephanieVentura, the demographer who oversaw the report, told The Associated Press (AP). "It could take a few years to turn this around," he added, noting that the birth rate stayed low throughout the 1930s.