u/Njere

It is hard to pinpoint what triggered the nosedive. But one potential explanation is that the shift toward waiting longer to have children — what demographers call the “postponement transition” — began to play out in Vermont much earlier than elsewhere. 

Vermont is a highly educated, left-leaning state with comparatively low rates of religion. The first groups to delay childbearing en masse coming out of the women’s movement? Secular liberals who attended college and used their early twenties to earn degrees and launch their careers. 

Whatever the reason, Vermont’s birth rate remains far below the national average. Vermont recorded 5,023 births in 2024, more than 1,500 fewer than annual tallies from the late 1850s. The state’s fertility rate is 41.5 per 1,000 women of childbearing age, lagging the national average of 53.