Admissions stats for HC?

The U.S. birth rate fell for the sixth year in a row in 2020, the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention reported Wednesday, reaching the lowest point since official records began over 100 years ago, dispelling once and for all speculation that the Covid-19 pandemic could fuel a “baby boom.”

The U.S. birth rate fell by 4% in 2020, double the average yearly decline since 2014, according to data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

The drop in fertility puts the U.S. even further below replacement levels—the amount of births needed for a generation to replace itself—which it has generally been below since 1971.

Birth rates vary a great deal by state. Among the states with the lowest birth rates for ages 15 to 44 in 2019 were Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. These states all had birth rates below 10%.

What do they have in common? They're all on the East Coast. They have major metropolitan areas that have major Ivy League universities. All except Rhode Island were among the eight most educated states in the country as a result, according to WalletHub’s annual survey for 2021. Massachusetts was the most highly educated state in the country.  As the New York Times survey showed, women who pursue higher education are less likely to have children.

They also have high median ages: Vermont at 42.8, New Hampshire at 43.0, Rhode Island at 40.1, and Massachusetts at 39.4 in 2018.17 Older women are less likely to have babies for obvious reasons.

The five states with the highest birth rates are South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Utah, and Nebraska. These states all have birth rates above 13%. They are all in the Midwest or West. They also have low median ages: South Dakota at 37.1, North Dakota at 35.2, Alaska at 34.6, Utah at 31.0, and Nebraska at 36.6. They don’t rank as highly in education levels. None is in the top 10.

In the United States, for example, there were 7.7 percent fewer births in December 2020 than during the same period in 2019. This January, Arizona, Iowa, Ohio, and Florida all recorded declines of roughly 9 percent on an annual basis. While in February, California saw a dramatic 19 percent drop, in part due to families leaving the state.

It’s a similar picture across the Atlantic Ocean, as January birth reports suggest that Europe is faring no better. Hungary is down 9.4 percent on an annual basis. Russia saw a drop of 10.3 percent, France of 13.2 percent, Spain of 20 percent, and Poland a whopping 24.7 percent. Even Sweden, which enforced less severe restrictions on mobility last year, recorded a 6.4 percent drop. All told, if this trend continues, there could be 400,000 fewer Europeans by the end of 2021.

In Asia, too, a baby bust is underway. Births in Japan and South Korea, which are already home to some of the oldest societies in the world, plunged almost 8 percent in December 2020. Meanwhile in China, the first country to be hit by the pandemic, cities like Guangzhou and Wenzhou reported declines of between 19 percent and almost 33 percent.