For the first time in US history, babies born to racial and ethnic minorities collectively outnumber those born to white parents, a new study cited by ABC 7 finds. Researchers at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell analyzed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention records on 33 million births nationwide from 2016 to 2024. They found that white births accounted for 49.6% of the total, while births to Hispanic, Black, Asian, and other nonwhite mothers together reached 50.4%, per the study published on JAMA Network. Study co-author Dr. Amos Grunebaum described the shift as a historic milestone, noting that "minority women were now the majority" of those giving birth in the US for the first time.
The study links the change largely to differences in when and how many children women have. According to Grunebaum, Hispanic women tend to have children at younger ages and have more children on average, while white women are more likely to delay childbirth and have fewer children. Grunebaum also argues the findings have policy implications. He points to persistent gaps in maternal health outcomes for women of color and criticizes efforts to tighten immigration rules and reduce Medicaid spending. Those moves, he says, disproportionately affect the women driving US birth numbers. "If you really want to increase birth, if you want to have more babies, as this government has repeatedly said they want to, then we need to address these issues," he said. A physician not involved in the research tells the Washington Times more study is needed to understand the trends.
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