---
title: "Birth Rate Trends Differ Notably by Age Group"
description: "This is an excerpt from a FactTank posting about new data from the National Center for Health Statistics about birth rates in 2011. Rates for younger women fell to record lows, but rates continued to rise for women ages 40 and older."
date: "2013-07-08"
authors:
  - name: "D’Vera Cohn"
    job_title: "Former Senior Writer/Editor"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/dvera-cohn/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/07/08/birth-rate-trends-differ-notably-by-age-group/"
categories:
  - "Age & Generations"
  - "Birth Rate & Fertility"
  - "Comparison of Age Groups"
---

# Birth Rate Trends Differ Notably by Age Group

The overall U.S. birth rate declined to a record low in 2011, but [newly-released government data](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr62/nvsr62_01.pdf) showed remarkably different trends for young and older women. Birth rates continued to decline to an all-time low among women in their teens and early 20s, while rising to the highest level in four decades among women in their early 40s. [Read more at FactTank.](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/07/03/birth-rates-hit-record-low-for-those-under-25-still-on-the-rise-for-those-40/)