PHOENIX — A new report by the insurance site QuoteWizard shows childbirths are down 7% across the country since 2016.
The decline is not uniform.
Births are down almost 20% in Alaska and only two states, New Hampshire and Tennessee, recorded increases.
Arizona is down 8%, ranking the state 16th.
There is now an urban/rural state divide in the decline in rates. Joining Alaska among the states with the largest decreases are New Mexico and Wyoming as well as California, New York, and Illinois.
Using the total fertility rate of live births per woman, Arizona births were well above the 2.1 recognized replacement level at the start of the decade.
Since then the state has seen a steady decline but remains just above 2.1 births per woman.
Breaking the data out by the state’s two largest ethnicities shows that birth rates among Hispanic women are higher than Non-Hispanic Whites.
Births among women who identify with the U.S. Census as Non-Hispanic White has consistently been under 2.1 since 2009.
A steady decline in births began in 2014 and the most recent data from 2020 records a birthrate of 1.7. Hispanic women meanwhile began the decade with four live births per woman. The decline was steady since then and dropped to 2.8 in 2020.
While a total fertility rate of over 2.1 means a growing population, net migration to the state is also a factor in growth.
Between 2015 and 2019 there were over 410,000 births recorded.
Net migration into Arizona was over 300,000 during that time and the Health Department reports 287,000 deaths.
Meaning Arizona’s population gain from 2015 to 2019 was around 440,000.
