BIRTH RATE FOR WOMEN 40-44 TOPPED TEENS, 12.7 TO 12.6
The U.S. teen birth rate fell just below the rate for women ages 40 to 44 in 2024, CDC figures showed.
CDC data released in March 2025 and cited by Fox News compared births among women ages 40 to 44 with births among teenagers ages 15 to 19. The CDC‘s final 2024 numbers put the older group at 12.7 births per 1,000, just ahead of 12.6 per 1,000 for teens.
“For the first time in U.S. history, more women over the age of 40 are having kids compared to teen moms,” the Fox article said.
The comparison is about rates per 1,000 women in each age group, not a head count of total babies born.
How the gap closed
The teen rate dropped in 2024 while the rate for women ages 40 to 44 rose, the CDC reported. Birth rates also declined for females ages 15 to 34 and held steady for women ages 35 to 39.
Overall, total births ticked up in 2024 even as the general fertility rate slipped.
The shift has been decades in the making. Fox’s article said the birth rate for women over 40 jumped 193% from 1990 to 2023, while the rate for females under 20 fell 73%.
The teen share of all births went from one in eight in 1990 to one in 25 in 2023, the article said. Total U.S. births fell over the same stretch.
What the latest CDC data shows
The teen rate kept sliding. CDC provisional data published in September 2026 put the 2025 teen birth rate at 11.7 per 1,000 females ages 15 to 19, down 7% from 2024 and a record low.
