Minority births become the majority in the US for the 1st time, study finds

For the first time in U.S. history, more babies were born to racial and ethnic minority mothers than to non-Hispanic white mothers, according to a new national study released this month.

The analysis, published in JAMA Network Open, examined more than 33 million births recorded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2016 through 2024. Researchers found that non-Hispanic white births declined to 49.6% of all U.S. births in 2024, while minority births rose to 50.4%.

The study shows that the crossover was the result of sustained declines in the share of births to non-Hispanic white mothers rather than an increase in overall U.S. births. In 2016, white births accounted for 52.6% of all births, but that share fell steadily over the following eight years. During the same period, total births nationwide declined from about 3.9 million to roughly 3.6 million annually, indicating that the shift reflects changes in who is giving birth rather than growth in birthrates.

Researchers noted that white women experienced larger and more consistent declines in fertility compared with other groups. As white births fell more sharply, the combined share of births to Hispanic, Black, Asian and other racial or ethnic groups increased, pushing minority births above the 50% mark for the first time in the available national data.

Hispanic women accounted for the largest and fastest-growing share of births among all racial and ethnic groups analyzed. The study found that births to Hispanic mothers increased from 23.5% of all U.S. births in 2016 to 27.4% in 2024, making them the largest single contributor to the overall shift. Hispanic women were also the only major group to see growth in both the number of births and their share of total births during the study period.

Asian Americans, while representing a smaller share of total U.S. births, are also contributing to the nation’s shifting birth patterns. The Asian American population has more than doubled since 2000, making it one of the fastest-growing racial groups in the country, according to the Pew Research Center. Provisional federal data show births to Asian mothers increased in 2024, even as overall U.S. fertility remained near record lows.