Birth Rate & Fertility

The likelihood of becoming a young father plummets for those with a bachelor’s degree or more: Just 14% had their first child prior to age 25.

In 2014, 40% of births were to unmarried mothers, a slight decline from the 41% share that had held steady since 2008. Although the single percentage point drop in 2014 was small, it was only the third one-year dip in this measure since the end of World War II.

It could be a half-century (or longer) before Hispanics become a majority there, according to scaled-back state population projections.

Two-thirds (66%) of U.S. Mormon adults are currently married, down slightly from 71% in 2007 – but still high compared with current rates among Christians overall (52%) and U.S. adults overall (48%).

Half of Americans (48%) say two is the ideal number of children for a family to have, reflecting a decades-long preference for a smaller family over a larger one.

For women, postgraduate education and motherhood are increasingly going hand-in-hand. Not only are highly-educated women more likely to have kids, they are also having bigger families than in the past.

As of 2010, nearly a third of the world's population identified as Christian. But if demographic trends persist, Islam will close the gap by the middle of the 21st century.

More than half (54%) of mothers near the end of their childbearing years with at least a master’s degree had their first child after their 20s. In fact, one-fifth didn’t become mothers until they were at least 35. Some 28% became moms in their late 20s, and 18% had children earlier in their lives.

How common is it for new parents to put down roots in the same areas that they themselves were born? The answer, according to a new Pew Research analysis, depends on which part of the country they hail from.

For the first time in decades, the non-marital birth rate in the U.S. has been declining. It's likely that the decline occurred as a result of the economic recession of 2007-2009.