The U.S. Teen Birthrate Has Dropped to an All-Time Low

The country's birthrate is declining, and some experts worry about what that means for the U.S. if the trend continues.

New early data from the National Center for Health Statistics for 2016 show there were 3,941,109 births that year, dipping 1 percent from 2015, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday.

Between 2015 and 2016, the teenage birthrate (ages 15 to 19) dropped 9 percent, and the birthrate for women ages 20 to 24 dipped 4 percent. The birthrate for women ages 30 to 34 ticked up 1 percent, while the birthrate for women ages 35 to 39 increased 2 percent.

If the birthrate declines enough, that could mean there aren't enough new people to step in for aging labor or to provide tax revenue to stabilize the economy, reports The Washington Post.

So, what exactly is going on?

For teens, "data [from previous years] really suggests it is access to contraceptives and use of contraceptives that has really led to these kind of changes," Dr. Elise Berlan, a physician at Nationwide Children's Hospital, told CNN.

It's unclear whether millennials are putting off having babies until later or planning on not having kids.

Not everyone thinks the report should incite panic. The U.S. fertility rate is still relatively high in contrast to developed countries such as Germany and Italy; the U.S. labor force is increasing; and there are more births than deaths, William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer and senior fellow, told The Washington Post.

Frey attributes the declining birthrate to women's "lifestyle" choices and an out-of-whack economy. "Every year I say when the economy is getting better then we'll start having more children," he told the Post, "and I'm still expecting that to happen."