Sustainable Development Goals - 17 Goals to Transform our World

Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

Indicator 16.9.1: Proportion of children under 5 years of age whose births have been registered with a civil authority, by age

Percent of US births registered in all 50 states and the District of Columbia

Sub-categories

Choose categories from the dropdowns below to see different breakdowns of the data. Some will not be available until a higher level is chosen.

Click on the legend to remove individual lines from the chart.

Download Headline CSV Download Source CSV

Headline data

This table provides metadata for the actual indicator available from US statistics closest to the corresponding global SDG indicator. Please note that even when the global SDG indicator is fully available from US statistics, this table should be consulted for information on national methodology and other US-specific metadata information.

Actual indicator available Percent of US births registered in all 50 states and the District of Columbia
Actual indicator available - description Percent of annual births occurring in the United states to residents and non-residents registered by a vital statistics jurisdiction
Date of national source publication September, 2017
Method of computation From UNFPA: Number of births registered within a given period of time after birth (a month, a year, 0-4 years) in a given calendar year / Total number of births in a given calendar year Method of measurement: data should be available and could be obtained from civil registration and vital statistics systems. Civil registration administrative data could be linked to estimates of the expected number of newborns. In countries with deficient CRVS systems, data is collected via household surveys (DHS and MICS). Questions are asked about registration status of children born in the five years preceding the data of the survey. The numerator of this indicator includes children whose birth certificate was seen by the interviewer or whose mother or care-taker says the birth has been registered. Data are also often presented for other age groups such as infants or children under 5 years of age. Method of estimation: currently UNICEF produces and publish estimates of birth registration for children under five using both CRVS and household surveys data. Alternative data sources to be considered are the United Nations Demographic Yearbook and the World Population Prospects produced by UNPD-DESA. A new methodology and set of procedures need to be put in place to produce the desired estimate of birth registration for under one year of age (see justifications below).
Periodicity Annual
Scheduled update by national source September, 2018
U.S. method of computation Estimated percent of births registered by all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Comments and limitations Births are registered by state vital registration systems. Reported births are based on 100% of all birth certificates registered in all states and the District of Columbia. It is estimated that more than 99 percent of births occurring in the US are registered based on previous results of a national test of birth-registration completneness according to place of delivery and race.
Date metadata updated
Disaggregation geography
Unit of measurement
Disaggregation categories
International and national references
Time period 2007-2016
Scheduled update by SDG team

This table provides information on metadata for SDG indicators as defined by the UN Statistical Commission. Complete global metadata is provided by the UN Statistics Division.

Indicator name Proportion of children under 5 years of age whose births have been registered with a civil authority, by age
Target name By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.
Global indicator description From UNICEF: This indicator provides the proportion of children under the age of five whose births are reported as being registered with the relevant national civil authorities. It is calculated by dividing the number of children under the age of five whose births are reported as being registered with the relevant national civil authorities by the total number of children under the age of five in the population. From Goal 16 TST Working Group: The indicator is calculated as the number of children whose births have been registered with a civil authority divided by the total number of children. From UNFPA: Percentage of births that are registered within a certain period of time after birth (one month, one year, five years of age) in a civil registration and vital statistics system or from household surveys.
UN designated tier 1
UN custodial agency UNSD, UNICEF (Partnering Agencies:UNFPA, DESA Population Division)
Link to UN metadata Link opens in a new window
Organisation National Center for Health Statistics/Final natality data
Agency Staff Name Reproductive Health Statistics, Division of Vital Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics
Agency Survey Dataset National Center for Health Statistics/Final natality data
Notes
Title
Link to data source http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/vitalstatsonline.htm opens in a new window

sdg.data.gov

An official website of the Office of Management and Budget, the General Services Administration, and the US Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Looking for U.S. government information and services?
Visit USA.gov