Over the past decade, the birthrate among women in their twenties has dropped significantly both in Montgomery County and nationwide as education and career moved up on the list of priorities, write Sabrina Tavernise, Claire Cain Miller, Quoctrung Bui, and Robert Gebeloff for The New York Times.

The birthrate is falling fastest in urban counties, where the higher number of available jobs is giving women more incentive to wait than in rural counties.

From 1996 to 2007, the birthrate in Montgomery County increased by 3 percent compared to the previous decade. But from 2007 to 2019, the birthrate plummeted by 10 percent compared to the previous period.

At the same time, the number of women between 15 and 44 in the county slightly increased from 152,100 to 152,900.

This puts Montgomery County in third place among Philadelphia’s collar counties with the highest drop. Chester County recorded the highest drop at 13 percent, followed by Bucks County with a 12 percent drop. Delaware County had the lowest drop at six percent.

Read more in The New York Times.