ATLANTA — There aren’t just fewer jobs in a recession. There are fewer babies too.
U.S. births fell in 2008, the first full year of the recession, marking the first annual decline in births since the start of the decade and ending an American baby boomlet.
The downturn in the economy best explains the drop in maternity, some experts think. The Great Depression and subsequent recessions all were accompanied by a decline in births, said Carol Hogue, an Emory University professor of maternal and child health and epidemiology.
And the numbers have never rebounded until the economy pulled out of it, she said, calling the 2008 recession the most likely culprit for fewer babies.
It is not clear that it’s the only explanation, however. Another expert noted a recent decline in immigration to the U.S. may also be a factor.
The nation recorded about 4,247,000 births last year, down about 68,000 from 2007, according to a report from the National Center for Health Statistics.
The largest declines in births were in California and Florida, two states hit hard by the housing crisis.
Hogue said she “wasn’t surprised” by the numbers, which are not final and will be updated.
Of course, 2007 was a year in which more babies were born in the United States than in any other year in the nation’s history. In the past, a fluctuation of births by 1 percent or 2 percent would not be seen as very significant, especially from such an unusual year.
But the drop seems to break an unusual trend. Births had been rising since 2002, and birth rates had been increasing in women of different age groups, said Stephanie Ventura, chief of the health statistics center’s reproductive branch.
Births in 2008 were down in all but 10 states, primarily the northwest quadrant of the country, including North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington and Alaska.
