Chicago Births, 1968-2023

October 18, 2024

For racial and ethnic groups, we have data starting in 1979

Total Fertility Rate #

Total Fertility Rate is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if:

• she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates through her lifetime
• she were to live from birth until the end of her reproductive life.

The replacement total fertility rate is about 2.1

The Chicago total fertility rate has been below 2.1 since 2001, according to data from the Chicago Department of Public Health. and other sources.

The total fertility rate for Hispanics and African Americans fell below replacement around 2010.

Sources #

Detailed data on babies born to Chicago residents come from a number of sources:

• The Illinois Department of Public Health publishes demographic details on babies born to Chicago residents by year from 2009 through the present.
• The Chicago Department of Public Health published data on total births from 1999-2008.
• Births by race and ethnicity from 2009-2014 were received from a FOIA request.
• CDPH, Births in Chicago, 1999-2009
• Birth data from 1995-2004 was published in a 2007 Chicago Department of Health Report
• IDPH, Births by County of Residence, 1990-1999
• Illinois Data Portal, All Live Births In Illinois, 1989-2009
• birth outcomes and infant mortality in Chicago, 2006
• Total Births by Race in Chicago
• Births from 1968-1989, and the total fertility rates from 1979-1999, are calculated from the National Center for Health Statistics natality files. For the fertility rates, the number of Chicago women at each age comes from the 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010 censuses, interpolated between census years. Asian births were inconsistently coded before 1987, so the Asian fertility rate starts in 1987.

I’ve compiled this data into a spreadsheet.