Houston keeps growing. New residents continue to arrive, neighborhoods are expanding and the region remains one of the nation’s major population centers.
But Houston’s population boom masks other trends that have been unfolding for more than two decades: Women here are having fewer children and having them later.
New research from the Houston Population Research Center at Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research shows fertility rates declined substantially across Harris, Fort Bend, Montgomery, Brazoria and Galveston counties between 2003 and 2024. The shift could have implications that reach far beyond the delivery room, affecting everything from school enrollment and health care needs to housing and the size of Houston’s future workforce.
“Houston continues to grow, but the source of that growth is changing,” said Karen Goolsby, co-author of the study and a researcher with the Houston Population Research Center. “With fertility rates falling, births are contributing less to population growth than they once did. At the same time, people continue to move to the Houston area, helping the region grow despite lower fertility. Understanding both fertility and migration together gives us a better sense of where Houston is headed and what these changes could mean in years to come.”
By the numbers
The decline was widespread across the Houston region, but the study also found a significant shift in when women are having children:
- 29%: Harris County’s total fertility rate fell from 2.4 births per woman in 2003 to 1.7 in 2024.
- 32%: Brazoria County recorded the largest fertility decline among the five counties studied.
- More than 70%: Teen birth rates fell by more than 70% in every county. In Harris County, the rate dropped from 62.1 births per 1,000 females ages 15-19 in 2003 to 18 in 2024.
- Later motherhood: Fertility declined sharply among women ages 20-24 while increasing among women in their late 30s and early 40s in most counties.
- Ages 30-34: By 2024, women in this age group had the highest fertility rates across the region.
By 2017, all five counties studied had fallen below the replacement-level fertility rate of about 2.1 births per woman.
Those numbers reveal more than fewer births, said the researchers. They point to a broader change in how families are forming across the greater Houston area.
The pattern mirrors a broader national shift toward later childbearing, but the Houston findings offer a closer look at how that transformation is unfolding in one of the country’s largest and most diverse metropolitan areas. Fertility declined across every racial and ethnic group studied, although Hispanic women continued to have the highest total fertility rates across the five counties in 2024.
For Houston families and communities, the effects may eventually become visible in everyday places, including classrooms, hospitals and workplaces.
“Demographic change often happens gradually, but its effects can be felt for decades. Fewer births today mean fewer children entering schools in the years ahead and fewer young adults entering the workforce later on,” Goolsby said. “At the same time, Houston continues to grow as people move into the region. Looking at fertility trends helps us understand how these different forces are reshaping Houston and what they could mean for the region in the years ahead.”
Houston’s continued population growth adds another piece to the demographic puzzle. Even as fertility has declined, people moving into the region have helped sustain its growth, making migration increasingly important to Houston’s population trajectory.
The study analyzed birth data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Vital Statistics System from 2003 through 2024.