County-Level Birth Data 1982-2024
Project Description
The National Center for Family & Marriage Research with the Center for Family & Demographic Research present county-level birth counts, crude birth rates, and general fertility rates for over 3,000 counties in the United States for the years 1982 through 2024.
Suggest Data Citation:
National Center for Family & Marriage Research (2026). County-, state-, and national-level birth counts and fertility rates, United States, 1982–2024 (Version 1.0) [Dataset]. Marriage, Divorce, & Birth Data Compass. Bowling Green State University. Retrieved from http://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/original-data/county-level-birth-data-1982-2024.html
Data and Documentation
Data Files
The birth data are provided as Excel files in both wide and long formats. Wide-format files facilitate descriptive analyses, visualization, and use in software that requires one record per geographic unit, while long-format files are intended for longitudinal and panel-based analyses. Each file includes annual values for births, population denominators, derived rates and unique geographic identifiers.
Wide-format Files
Three wide-format files are provided, corresponding to county-, state-, and national-level data. In each file, there is one record per geographic unit, with annual values stored in separate columns for each year.
Long-format File
The long-format file has one record per county-year. The file includes annual data for all U.S. counties and county-equivalents, their states, and the nation.
Codebook and Technical Documentation
This codebook documents the county-, state-, and national-level birth count and fertility rate data, including data sources, variable definitions, geographic coverage, file structure, and notes on data quality and limitations.
The maps (below) present geographic variation in county-level general fertility rates in the United States by quartile. The numerators represent counts of resident live births, and the denominators are derived from the U.S. Census Bureau's intercensal and postcensal Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates by age and sex. General fertility rates represent the number of live births per 1,000 females aged 15-44.
Publications and Presentations
Westrick-Payne, K. K. (2026). The crude birth and general fertility rate: Geographic variation, 1982-2024. Family Profiles, FP-26-02. Bowling Green, OH: National Center for Family & Marriage Research. https://doi.org/10.25035/ncfmr/fp-26-02
Other NCFMR Data Compass Data
Updated: 04/27/2026 11:28AM