The number of babies born in the United States was expected to top 4 million in 1989, the highest number in nearly 25 years, federal officials said.
While women were having fewer children, the rise in the birthrate was attributed to the large number of baby boomers currently having children, a report in The New York Times said Tuesday.The rise in the number of babies born came as a surprise to some demographers who predicted a decade ago as many as 25 percent of American women born in the 1950s would remain childless.
It turned out women simply deferred having children, and the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show the average age of first-time mothers rose from 21.8 years in the 1960s to 23.7 years in 1988.
Statistics also showed 70 percent of all babies were born to women in their 20s and the rate of childlessness for women born in the 1950s was 16 percent compared with 14 percent for women born in the late 1940s.
"During 1989 it looks like we'll just touch 4 million," said Martin O'Connell, a Census Bureau demographer. "That number I see peaking at between 4.0 and 4.1 million and trailing off toward the end of the decade to 3.8 and 3.6 million."