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Arizona Sees A Significant Birthrate Decline

People are just not having babies in Arizona; this coming from a CNN finding which shows that the state experienced a 20 percent drop in its fertility rate between the 2007 and 2017. To put that figure in perspective, it equates to about 20,000 less births over the ten year span.

In the US overall, the numbers of kids a woman will have, on average, has shrunk from 2.12 to 1.76.

Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine in Phoenix, Dr. Michael Foley, says that there is a plurality of factors which have contributed to the declining fertility rate.


“One of them, I think, is the recession that we experienced. It created a certain amount of economic insecurity,” Foley said. “I think people and families perceived that the resources needed to support having children and families was a little less secure.

“I also think over the last decade there has been improved sex education, the availability of birth control — it’s all led to a decrease in teen pregnancy substantially.”

But for Arizona specifically, Foley said there is one factor that played a significant role in the decline of the state’s birthrate.

“I think there is more of an immigration enforcement in Arizona that has delayed women of child-bearing age from crossing over from Mexico to Arizona and from having more and more children,” Foley said.

“At the time we had one of the highest birth rates in the country, we had a high population of immigrants.”

According to CNN, the average birth rate for Hispanic women was 3 children per woman in 2006, which was a much higher figure than the 2.1 average sustained across the country.

“I think the big swing is related to both the economic changes that happened over that same decade and the increasing scrutiny over immigration and verifying immigration status once they were here,” Foley said.

With the decline as clear as day, experts are trying to figure out what implications may be for the future.

The Baby Boomer population only continues to get older and more expensive.

“If we have less children we are going to have less people to support the social security system to help support our Baby Boomer population,” Foley said.

“We are going to have less people contributing to it because of the population falling.”