Fertility Trends in the United States, 1980-2017: The Role of Unintended Births

46 Pages Posted: 4 Feb 2019 Last revised: 27 Mar 2022

See all articles by Kasey Buckles

Kasey Buckles

University of Notre Dame - Department of Economics

Melanie Guldi

University of Central Florida - College of Business Administration - Department of Economics

Lucie Schmidt

Smith College; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: January 2019

Abstract

After roughly 10 years of decline, the U.S. fertility rate reached a historic low in 2017. However, aggregate trends in fertility mask substantial heterogeneity across different demographic groups. Young women and unmarried women have seen the largest declines in fertility in recent years while women older than 30 and married women have actually experienced increases. In this paper, we explore the role of changes in unintended births in explaining fertility patterns in the U.S. from 1980 to 2017, with an emphasis on the fertility decline of the last decade. We begin by documenting heterogeneity in fertility trends across demographic groups, using data from the National Center for Health Statistics’ Natality Detail Files. We then use data from the National Survey of Family Growth to describe trends in unintended births and to estimate a model that will identify the maternal characteristics that most strongly predict them. Finally, we use this model to predict the proportion of births in the Natality Detail Files that are unintended. We find that 35% of the decline in fertility between 2007 and 2016 can be explained by declines in births that were likely unintended, and that this is driven by drops in births to young women.

Suggested Citation

Buckles, Kasey and Guldi, Melanie and Schmidt, Lucie, Fertility Trends in the United States, 1980-2017: The Role of Unintended Births (January 2019). NBER Working Paper No. w25521, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3328388

Kasey Buckles (Contact Author)

University of Notre Dame - Department of Economics ( email )

Notre Dame, IN 46556
United States

Melanie Guldi

University of Central Florida - College of Business Administration - Department of Economics ( email )

Orlando, FL 32816-1400
United States

Lucie Schmidt

Smith College ( email )

Northampton, MA 01060
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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