The Associated Press leads off this report with the rather milquetoast observation that birth rates in the United States last year “didn’t return to pre-pandemic levels.” That’s true, but it obviously doesn’t tell the entire story. The birth rate in the United States had been steadily declining with only a few exceptions for well over a decade. A very slight increase was recorded in 2021, but it was largely attributed to couples who had decided to postpone pregnancies during the early, uncertain days of the pandemic in 2020 when a significant drop was registered. Over this same decade, there was also a very measurable shift in the demographics of age in terms of who is having children. And all of this could have serious, long-term consequences for the country.

U.S. births were flat last year, as the nation saw fewer babies born than it did before the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.

Births to moms 35 and older continued to rise, with the highest rates in that age group since the 1960s. But those gains were offset by record-low birth rates to moms in their teens and early 20s, the CDC found. Its report is based on a review of more than 99% of birth certificates issued last year.

A little under 3.7 million babies were born in the U.S. last year, about 3,000 fewer than the year before.

Simply looking at the raw number of successful births doesn’t tell the whole story. The reality is that the average number of births per woman in any society that’s required to maintain a stable population over the long run (known as the replacement rate) is roughly 2.1 births per woman. We have now dropped below 1.7. That’s not quite as bad as what we’re seeing in Japan, which is in the middle of an actual population crisis, but that’s the direction we appear to be heading in.

And then there are the demographics I mentioned above. The largest number of births came from mothers who were 35 or older. Meanwhile, the number of young women in their late teens and early twenties (once the leaders in birth rates) reached a record low. This is problematic for a couple of reasons.

First of all, while every child is a blessing and should be welcomed into a loving family, pregnancies in older women are more problematic. Historical data shows that mothers over the age of 35 are the most likely to experience perinatal mortality and neonatal morbidity when compared to the more “traditional” birth ages of 18 to 29. In other words, when the group having the largest percentage of babies is also the group most statistically likely to lose babies, the long-term problem is accelerated.

Meanwhile, fewer women in their late teens and early twenties are having children. We don’t have much more than anecdotal evidence to go by, but this trend seems to be the result of shifting social attitudes rather than some sort of spike in infertility rates. In fact, American marriage rates are now a shocking 60% lower than they were fifty years ago. That must be a factor. The devaluation of institutions like marriage and the nuclear family has predictably produced any number of negative results for this country. But the decline in birth rates is high on the list of issues.

Depopulation is a slow form of cultural suicide. But what, if anything, can be done about it? You can’t just send out the FBI to round up people and forcibly take them to a Justice of the Peace and then to a hotel honeymoon suite. (I probably shouldn’t be giving them any ideas.)  Japan recently passed a new law offering cash and tax incentives to encourage people to get married and have children. It sounds sort of silly, but should we be considering something like that? Then again, if you really need the government to literally bribe you to get married, what are the chances you’ll make it through the long run? But no matter what we do or don’t do, if this birth rate situation doesn’t turn around soon, the upcoming generations need to prepare for some hard times.