Millennial Women Are Having Fewer Children Than Any Other Generation

Millennial women are having fewer children than the women in previous generations.

According to The Atlantic, a new report from the Urban Institute states there was a significant decline in birth rates in 2012 compared to five years prior.

In 2007, for every group of 1,000 women in their 20s, 1,118 children were born.

By 2012, the same amount of women birthed 948 children in what the Urban Institute called "by far the slowest pace of any generation of young women in US history."

Of the total birth rate, there was a 26 percent decrease in Hispanic women giving birth in 2012; a 14 percent decrease in black women giving birth and an 11 percent decrease in white women giving birth.

The Urban Institute cited several plausible reasons for the lack of births.

Previous research determined the fertility rate went down 2.4 percent after the Great Recession that ruined the career and marriage plans of many Millennials.

That's about 426,850 babies who could have been born but weren't.

Another result of the Great Recession was a decrease in immigrants, and immigrants are more likely than American women to have children.

What the report doesn't consider is the fact that young women today do not feel as pressured to get married and have children as their predecessors did, especially during their 20s.

Women who experienced recessions of the past made efforts to have children afterward, but the Urban Institute isn't sure Millennial women will do the same.

This isn't cause for alarm just yet; it's too early to predict the falling birth rates leading to a falling economy.

The only noticeable effect, the report says, will be a lower presence of toddlers and younger children.

But, everyone will probably be too busy celebrating to worry about the future at that point.

Citations: The Childless Millennial (The Atlantic)