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Birth Rate & Fertility

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  • short reads

    The odds that you will give birth to a boy or girl depend on where in the world you live

    Research over hundreds of years has consistently found that boys naturally outnumber girls at birth. The speculation is that this is nature’s way of countering the relatively high mortality rates of males, and creating more of a gender balance in the population. While historically, there have been about 105 boys born for every 100 girls […]

  • report

    More Evidence of Preference for Sons

    This posting is an excerpt from a FactTank article about unmarried fatherhood, and which fathers are more likely to acknowledge paternity when asked. Unmarried fathers of sons are slightly more likely to acknowledge paternity than fathers of daughters.

  • report

    Delayed Motherhood in Canada

    This links to a FactTank posting about a new Statistics Canada report showing that birth rates for the first time are higher for women in their late 30s than in their early 20s. Most births in Canada are to women ages 30 and older; by contrast, in the U.S., 40% are.

  • short reads

    In Canada, most babies now born to women 30 and older

    In the U.S. and many other nations, it’s no longer unusual for women to have a first child at age 35 or even 40. In Canada, this rise in births to older mothers has produced a striking turnabout: For the first time on record, birth rates are higher for women in their late 30s than in their early 20s.

  • report

    Birth Rate Trends Differ Notably by Age Group

    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.

  • short reads

    What’s behind the falling teen birth rates?

    The sharp drop in teen birth rates, especially among Hispanic teens, appears to be linked to both economic and attitudinal factors. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last week that the birth rate among 15- to 19-year-olds had fallen to a record low 31.3 births per 1,000 in 2011. Teen birth rates dropped for […]

  • report

    Record Share of New Mothers are College Educated

    Overview Mothers with infant children[1. For historical analyses, women living with their own child younger than age 1 are used as a proxy for new mothers. For analyses from 2008 or thereafter, women who have given birth in the past 12 months are identified as new mothers. See About the Data for more details.] in […]