More Women Aren’t Having Children, Survey Finds

More women in the U.S. are childless than at any other time since the government began keeping track, a new survey found.

Nearly half of women between the ages of 15 and 44 did not have kids in 2014, up from 46.5% in 2012 to 47.6% in 2014, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The figure is the highest percentage since the Census Bureau started measuring it in 1976.

Among women between 25 and 29, 49.6% were childless in 2014, also an all-time high. In the group between 30 and 34, 28.9% were childless, up from 28.2% in 2012 but below an all-time high of 29.7% in 2010.

As of 2013, the general fertility rate in the U.S., as measured by the number of babies women between 15 and 44 have over their lifetimes, had fallen for six straight years and sat at 1.86, according to the New York Times. Maintaining a stable U.S. population would require a fertility rate of 2.1.

Read next: There’s Nothing Wrong with the Mommy Track

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