Minority birth rates increasing

There were some notable differences in the birth rates by race and ethnicity in 2003. Women of both Hispanic and Asian descent had higher birth rates than either non-Hispanic whites or blacks. This continues a multi-year trend. In 2003, 43% of babies were born to minority mothers, up from 20% just six years earlier. Only 18% of births in 1993 were to minority mothers.

Births to non-Hispanic white mothers and American Indian mothers rose 1% from 2002 to 2003; births to Hispanic women rose 4% and births to Asian or Pacific Islander women rose 5%. The number of births to non-Hispanic black mothers, the only group that did not experience an increase, fell in 2003 by less than 1%.

Importantly, in 2003, only the total fertility rate for Hispanic woman exceeded the level of "replacement" (2,100 births per 1,000 women), the rate at which a given generation can exactly replace itself.

The general fertility rate rose for most race and Hispanic origin groups between 2002 and 2003. The rates increased 2% for non-Hispanic white women and 3% for Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander women. The general fertility rate for non-Hispanic black women decreased less than 1% between 2002 and 2003; the rate for American Indian women was essentially unchanged.

The percentage of births to minority mothers was 40% or more in seven of the 10 states with the largest number of births.

In all, the percentage of births to minority mothers was higher than the national average in 17 states.

States with % of minority births above the national average

New mothers continued to get older in 2003. The average age of mothers has increased steadily in the United States during the past three decades. This increase occurred despite the fact that more than one-half of all births still occur to women in their 20s.

In 2003, birth rates for women in their 20s, the age at which rates are historically the highest, were 102.6 per 1,000 for women aged 20–24 years and 115.7 for women aged 25–29 years. That's a 1% decrease for births to women between 20 to 24, and a slightly larger increase, 2%, for women between 25 and 29.

The birth rates for women in their 30s and 40s increased more dramatically in 2003. Birth rates for women aged 30–34 years increased 4% to 95.2 births per 1,000 women; aged 35–39 years rose by 6% to 43.8 per 1,000; aged 40–44 years increased 5% to 8.7 in 2003.

This is the first time that births to women older than 40 topped 100,000 in a single year.

The rate for women aged 45–49 years remained unchanged at 0.5. The rates for women between 35–39 have been increasing continuously since 1978; the rates for women between 40–44 have been on the rise since 1985.