Experts sound the alarm on declining birth rates among younger generations: "Its a crisis"

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New data is confirming a baby boom that some doctors expected was actually a "baby bust." Health departments in more than two dozen states provided records to CBS News, showing a 7% drop in births in December — nine months after the first lockdowns began. 

Researchers say it continues a much bigger plunge in fertility in recent decades.

The number of babies the average woman in the U.S. is expected to deliver has dropped from nearly four in the 1950s to less than two today. 

The drop could present an entirely different risk to society than one that was first warned about decades ago — when an apocalyptic fear gripped America in the 1960s and 1970s.

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The U.S. is already below the so-called "replacement level" by some measures, meaning fewer young people to support the country's otherwise aging population.

Myers said of the decline, "That's a crisis."

"We need to have enough working-age people to carry the load of these seniors, who deserve their retirement, they deserve all their entitlements, and they're gonna live out another 30 years," he said. "Nobody in the history of the globe has had so many older people to deal with."

The coronavirus pandemic is also making the problem worse — despite what some people previously thought.

"We thought, oh, we would see a baby boom. But we just haven't seen it," said Dr. David Jaspan, chair of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia.

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