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Historical and Projected State and County Births, 1980-2018, with Actual and Projected Fertility Rates by Mother's Age and Race/Ethnicity, 2000-2018

September 2009

Acknowledgments

This report was prepared by Melanie Martindale under the general direction of Mary Heim, Chief, Demographic Research Unit. Evaon Schnagl provided additional support.

Suggested Citation

State of California, Department of Finance, Demographic Research Unit. Historical and Projected State and County Births, 1980-2018, with Actual and Projected Fertility Rates by Mother’s Age and Race/Ethnicity, 2000-2018. Sacramento, California: September 2009.

• County Birth Projections, 2009 Series (.pdf, <1MB)

INTRODUCTION

This report presents actual calendar year 1980-2008 births and projected 2009-2018 births for California and its 58 counties. The report also includes births by mother’s age group and race/ethnicity for the state, 2000-2018. These annually updated projections are used in the Department of Finance's (DOF's) kindergarten through twelfth grade public school enrollment projections.

Highlights

Actual 2008 births (551,567) reflect decline (14,570) from their 2007 value (566,137). This drop is over twice the size of the average annual change in births observed over the last seven years (6,008) and larger than the previous large annual gains in births seen this decade (there were13,211 births in 2000 and 11,582 in 2003). The current series projects gains over the next decade averaging about 5,590 a year. During the next decade, the state's total number of annual births is projected to increase about 56,000 (10.1 percent) from the 2008 level, to total over 607,000 by 2018. If current trends continue, California’s total fertility rate will fall below replacement level (2.1) in 2016.

Three other noteworthy findings stand out. First, although Asians’ total fertility rate (TFR)1 is projected to eventually move upward, this movement will not begin until 2014, after which the rate will climb slowly. Second, although Hispanic births are projected to increase over the next ten years, the groups’ TFR will continue to decline from a decade high of 2.92. Their TFR is projected to be down to 2.39 by 2018. Third, Multirace births are expected to increase more rapidly than in the past, so that their total fertility rate will reach replacement level in 2013.

1 The TFR represents the average number of children that each woman would have during her reproductive life if she bore children at the currently observed age-based fertility rates.

State Overview

Although the number of state births will increase each year over the projection period compared to the current (2008) level of births, the total fertility rate of the California female population is projected to very gradually decrease through 2018, with only a minuscule increase in 2010. The state’s TFR, with a drop to 2.14 in 2008 from 2.22 in 2007, is projected to continue its downward trend, to 2.07 by 2018.

Age and Race/Ethnicity

Though California women’s fertility over the next 10 years will look somewhat similar to the recent past, there continue to be differences in the number of births and the fertility rates of some race/ethnic groups. In general, births to women 25 and older will increase, while those to younger women are projected to drop.

Substantial 2008 age-specific changes in births compared to 2007 have had a noteworthy impact on fertility trends. The percentage decreases in births from 2007 to 2008 range from a low of 1.9 percent for those aged 35-39 to a high of 4.5 percent for those aged 20-24. Percentage drops for the three other age groups under age 40 fell in between these values. In contrast, those aged 40-44 experienced a 2.9-percent increase in births over the same year.

Over the 10-year projection period, as noted, births will decline for women under age 25. The drop will be smaller for women aged 20-24 (down 5.6 %) than for those 15-19 (down 11.7 %) but much larger for the older group in terms of actual births due to differences in mothers’ cohort sizes. On the other hand, there will be a substantial 33.6 % increase in births to women 30-34, outpacing the 9.3-to-10.5 percent increases to be experienced by remaining age cohorts.

In terms of age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs), those for women aged 15-19 will drop a small amount by the end of the projection period, rising or dropping a slight bit from year to year. The decline in ASFR for women aged 20-24 will be a consistent and more sizable drop, going from 91.4 in 2009 to 77.2 by 2018. A somewhat different pattern of rate decline will be observable for women aged 25-29, who will experience larger decreases in rate in the first two years of the projection period following a large rate decrease from 2007 to 2008. The rate difference between the two age groups in their twenties will narrow a few points by 2018. On the other hand, the ASFRs of women aged 30 and over will consistently increase over the projection period. Though the rate change over the period will be larger for those 30-34 than for the older groups, the larger percentage increase in rate will be experienced by those aged 40-44, whose ASFR will increase 18.6 percent. Finally, the size distance between the ASFRs of the age groups will decrease for groups under age 30 but increase for those over that age, especially between those 30-34 and 35-39, given the large rate increase of the younger group.

The ten-year change in annual births will be positive for six of the seven race/ethnic groups of women, although these gains, as well as TFR changes, will vary markedly by race/ethnicity. The increases in births over the decade will range from a 5.8-percent gain for Asian women (to an annual level of 68,421 from 64,672 in 2008) to a 71.8-percent increase for Multirace women (to an annual level of 16,703 in 2018 from 9,722 in 2008). The percent change for Hispanics, at 12.7 percent, will also be substantial (from 287,323 to 323,821 in 2018). The gains for Whites (to an annual level of 165,260 in 2018 from 155,989 in 2008) will be 5.9 percent, virtually the same as for Asians. The annual gains for the two smallest groups will range from 6.3 percent for American Indians (from 2,029 in 2008 to 2,156 in 2018) to 15.7 percent for Pacific Islanders (to 2,865 in 2018 from 2,477 in 2008). However, among Blacks, births are expected to decline by almost 4 percent, representing an annual drop of about 1,100 Black births for the state.

Despite the birth gains, American Indians’ TFR will drop from 1.19 to 1.05. TFRs will also decline for Blacks (from 1.72 in 2008 to 1.59 in 2018), and for Hispanics (from 2.73 in 2008 to 2.39 in 2018). Pacific Islanders’ TFR is expected to stay about the same over the ten years—2.11 in 2008 and 2.12 in 2018. However, TFRs will increase for the other three race/ethnic groups. Asians’ TFR will increase from 1.85 in 2008 to 1.92 in 2018, while that for Whites will go up from 1.65 in 2008 to 1.71 in 2018. The most marked rate change will be observed for Multirace women: their TFR will grow from 1.94 in 2008 to 2.29 in 2018, an increase of almost 18 percent.

When both age of mothers and their race/ethnicity are taken into account, it is possible to develop more specific expectations about future fertility that clarify the state-level shift to increasing births among women of older ages and declines at younger ages. The projections show that only Multirace women will have increased births over the period across the entire reproductive age range 15-44, that is, in all six 5-year age groups. Compared to their experiences in 2008, both 15-19 and 20-24 year-old women in all other race/ethnic groups will experience fewer births by 2018. In contrast, all groups of women aged 25-34 will experience increases in annual births by 2018. And at ages 35-44, only White women will have fewer births in 2018 than in 2008.

Counties

Over the ten-year period, positive numerical and percentage increases are projected for 57 of the state’s 58 counties (Alpine will hold steady over the decade). The highest numerical period increase is over 15,000 for Los Angeles County (to total about 163,000 annual births). The second- and third-ranked numeric gainers will be San Diego County, adding over 4,200 (to total 50,983 by 2018), and Orange County, gaining over 4,000 births (to total 46,511 by 2018). Of California’s 54 other counties, 18 (about 33 percent) will be adding fewer than 100 births to their annual total by 2018. Another 17 counties (about 31 percent) are projected to gain 100-500 births, while eight of the 54 counties (about 15 percent) will be adding between 500 and 1,000 births to their annual total by 2018. The final eleven counties (about 20 percent) are expected to add between 1,000 to about 3,800 births to their annual total by the end of the decade.

Percentage gains projected over the same time frame show that eleven counties (about 20 percent) will grow by 12-14 percent in annual births by 2018, with Sierra heading the list at 14.1 percent (to total 25 in 2018). The percentage increments in births over the period for the other counties with gains range from 6.7 percent for San Francisco (to total 9,710 by 2018) to 11.9 percent for El Dorado (to total 2,030 at decade’s end).

Data

Sources: The California Department of Public Health, Center for Health Statistics provided calendar year birth data for 1990-2008. Denominators for race/ethnic rates and county distributions of births are derived from the distributions of female populations aged 15-44 and county distributions of projected births from the Baseline06 long-term population and birth projections for 2000-2050 produced by the Demographic Research Unit and published in July 2007. The projections are based on the 2000 U.S. Bureau of the Census decennial census counts as processed into the Modified Race (MR) file.

Rounding: Independent rounding may prevent the sum of selected data components from exactly matching the total.

Terms: Births, as referred to here, are unduplicated live birth counts. In this report, ethnicity refers to Hispanic or Latino Origin and is indicated by the term, Hispanic. No other ethnic groups are identified in the report. Race as used here is a classification variable with 6 categories as defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for the display of government data. As defined for use on California birth certificates, in the US Census as well as in other government documents, these official categories are: (1) American Indian/Alaska Native; (2) Asian; (3) Black; (4) Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander; (5) White; and (6) More than one race. In this report, terms used for these groups are American Indian; Asian; Black; Pacific Islander; White; and Multirace. Age is defined as mother's age as reported on live birth certificates and assumed to be age at last birthday. Ages are processed in total years and, for analysis purposes, are put into 5-year age groups for ages 15-44. Mothers older or younger than the limits of this range are put into the oldest or youngest 5-year age group within the range. Reported race of mother is used to classify births. No adjustments to the data have been made to account for any data anomalies which may result from differences in the use of race categories by respondents when reporting races of mothers and children on birth certificates. Measures: The fertility rates presented here and defined below are calculated as the number of events per 1,000 population or subpopulation that have occurred or will occur to California residents and its counties during given years. In this report we have calculated the period (in this case, annual) measures.

Age-Specific Fertility Rate:   (TFR)	Number of live births to women in a given 5-yr age grp	X   1,000
	Estimated female population in that 5-yr age grp
Total Fertility Rate: (TFR)	Sum of each ASFR multiplied by 5, result divided by 1,000 (This is the average number of children per woman the current group of mothers would bear if they had children at the given age-specific rates over their entire reproductive lives.)
General Fertility Rate:  (GFR)	Number of live births	X   1,000
	Estimated female population aged 15-44

Methodology

Age-specific, general and total period fertility rates were developed for 2000-2008 using California birth data. From these historical rates, trends were derived for six age groups and seven race/ethnic groups of mothers. In general, recent fertility trends were used for the earlier years of the projection period, with longer term trends projected for the latter years of the period. Resulting fertility rates were then applied to separately projected female population. Births and related changes produced from this process were assessed for reasonableness. Statewide births were allocated to counties based on each county’s current and projected share of births.