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US Birthrate Plummets To Record Low
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that the U.S. birthrate is at its lowest since 1920, the earliest year with reliable records. The rate decreased to 63.2 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age — a little more than half of its peak, which was in 1957. The overall birthrate decreased by 8 percent between 2007 and 2010, but the decline is being led by immigrant women hit hard by the recession, with a much bigger drop of 14 percent among foreign-born women. Overall, the average number of children a U.S. woman is predicted to have in her lifetime is 1.9, slightly less than the 2.1 children required to maintain current population levels. Although the declining U.S. birthrate has not created the kind of stark imbalances found in graying countries such as Japan or Italy, it should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers, says Roberto Suro, a professor of public policy at the University of Southern California. 'We've been assuming that when the baby-boomer population gets most expensive, that there are going to be immigrants and their children who are going to be paying into [programs for the elderly], but in the wake of what's happened in the last five years, we have to reexamine those assumptions,' he said. 'When you think of things like the solvency of Social Security, for example, relatively small increases in the dependency ratio can have a huge effect.'"
...who said they were illegal, and why would you assume simply refering to an 'immigrant' would result in only illegal immigrants?
Wow, just...wow.
How is being the very lowest it's ever been recorded as being since we began reliably recording it "not a record low"? Which word are we disagreeing on here, "low", or "record", since it certainly qualifies as a "record low" for any definition of either of these words I'm aware of. And if it's only a record low for most of our lifetimes, do tell us when it was lower? Which year? And how and where was that record recorded?
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Seriously, the social security problem is easily solved by actually making the wealthy pay their proportionate share of the taxes. It isn't even a significant factor compared to the effects of uncontrolled population growth on the human race.
Our population is far too high as is and it going shrinking some isn't a bad thing. Just because we've been planning for overcrowding, increasing resource usage, etc doesn't mean should not demand that our population continue it's horrible growth increase to fulfill our fears.
People often like to claim that humans consume without bounds and replicate until all resources are used up and will eventually move on. A stop in population growth would indicate an equilibrium with our environment and disappoint them. Is that really so bad?
However, it's the lowest it's been in 90 years. The US birthrate was very high before the 20th century. The population was relatively small, most people were farmers, and needed all those kids. My mother is 83 and the baby of the family, and she has three brothers and six sisters. Back then, that was normal. before 1900 the average family was even bigger.
This is only a record low for most of our lifetimes.
I'm confused, you claim this isn't a record low because it used to be much much higher 100+ years ago? Your post honestly doesn't make any sense to me. This really is almost certainly a low for the US, since as you yourself point out, before the advent of modern medicine and technology, many women would have 5+ children. They needed to: not only was the help around the farm vital to succeed, but with the death rate being so high, especially among infants, the population could only stay steady if everyone who could had a lot of kids.
Also, I should point out that it is a record low, quite literally: it's the lowest on record, which by definition is a "record low". It may or may not be the lowest ever for the US, but it quite likely is.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
They would always comment about how, when couples back-in-the-day got married, the first thing on their list of wants was children. Now, the list of wants usually starts with a house, two cars, living in a nice neighborhood, better insurance, a bigger TV, a good living room set... One's take on the matter: "America's so selfish nowadays it doesn't deserve children."
I suppose "One's" never stopped to consider that maybe those Americans who make fiscal security a priority over popping out offspring do so for the benefit of said potential offspring.
Sure, the wife and I could have had kids as soon as we got married - and those kids would have grown up in abject poverty as a result. Instead, we decided to focus on getting financially stable first, so any children we do end up having get a better start than either of us did.
Sounds to me like "One's" is the person who doesn't deserve to procreate.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Stop your whining. It was your generation in power that decided that starting multiple wars, deregulating the financial system, and then cutting taxes at the same time was a good idea. Your generation doesn't deserve shit for retirement compared to how your generation looted and pillaged the country thinking that your kids would clean it up.
The world's population doesn't need to be as big as it is now. There are benefits to large populations (certain cultural output that can be replicated cheaply scales almost perfectly with population), but there are also downsides (natural resources must be divided). Exponential growth must eventually hit a limit, and presumably there is some optimal range for population. Why does everybody always assume that it's "what we have now, forever", for every value of now ever?
Anyway, I don't think the United States population is even on a decline, even with a 1.9 birthrate, because of immigration.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/11/30/187246/us-birthrate-plummets-to-record-low#
(How is it selfish to not have children until you live in a nice neighbourhood with good insurance and creature comforts? Why isn't it considered selfish to have the kid first and then have to scramble to provide for it?)
This is not a critique of you, I don't know you or your situation personally so obviously I cannot and will not judge, but:
This is a kind of selfishness. You indicate that you think of having children entirely around how it would impact you, personally, and what you want. The problem with this is that having children is fundamentally not about you. It's about the potential children you could have, and about their well-being and prosperity, even if it is extremely costly and a tremendous sacrifice to you personally, and at a slightly higher level the economic and demographic well being of the country, which relies on a steady stream of young people to work and produce for society, and of course at the highest level it is simply about the continuation of the species and making sure humanity survives and prospers. That is why animals, all animals (humans included) have children. It isn't for your own pleasure or well-being, although I should point out that having kids actually does make you live longer, and happier, and in the long term more stably, since you have children to support and help you once you grow old.
The mindset you exhibit is extremely common. It's the whole reason the US isn't having enough kids to sustain itself, and the reason the Japanese are probably going to collapse in a few decades from a population implosion. That attitude will destroy the country in which it becomes widespread, almost inevitably (hell, it's part of what destroyed Rome all those years ago).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Overpopulation is a problem that is getting worse, the selfish ones are the ones that have lots of children.
Seriously? This is an issue?
It's an economic bubble. Our country is based on debt, which is based on inflation, which is based on population expansion. More hands out means more hands to put money into which means more debt which means more money in the money system which means you can keep collecting interest. Issued debt grows and grows, but work gets done.
Now when people start working their way out of debt and paying on assets, stop taking loans, etc, that fails. Stop taking mortgages? Credit crunch, recession, depression. Stop taking student loans? Credit crunch. With a credit crunch, we don't have as much money in the system. That means less money flowing around to pay off loans, making it harder for people to get high-paying jobs to pay down their debt, meaning defaults on debt, meaning people are foreclosed on and banks are left with worthless assets and lose money. Loss of money means the federal government doesn't get paid back, and banks fold, and the taxes go up--or the banks raise interest rates and add fees to take more money away from people. Economic damage.
The whole system is based on population expansion. More population, more credit issue, more debt, more money flow. Stable population means suddenly a lot of things don't work. Thing is the population is basically an economic bubble--it grows, it shrinks. It can't grow and grow and grow any more than the spot price of AAPL.
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I say this as someone who just had a child, but I think those who have children do it out of selfishness, too. You want to be the one to improve the world and help humanity (and make yourself feel good about yourself and boost your ego), so you do it by having a child. There is also the even more selfish ones who do it out of longing to have a family, the joys of parenthood, and maybe even so they hopefully have someone to take care of you.
Most people have selfish reasons for their decisions, that is just human nature (as is altruism).
Having children just to sustain the US is selfishness (and ultimately unsustainable). Having children to support you once you get old is even more so. Having children if you don't want them, is stupidness. Most people have children because they are supposed to, just like animals. Actually choosing to have or have not children seems thoughtful. That you disagree, and call it selfish, is thoughtless.
1. Advanced material wealth and higher education suppress birth rates.
2. Advanced material wealth and higher education attract immigrants.
3. Emigrating is difficult under the best and most legal circumstances. Therefore, immigrants tend to be more ambitious and harder working than average.
4. Consequently, immigrants can supplement native birth in broadening the economic base, while simultaneously adding economic dynamism via their own ambition and the more generalized effects of cultural diffusion.
5. Profit!!!
6. GOTO 1.
As a father of an unplanned daughter, who at one point thought a lot like you, I can tell you that there's simply no practical reason to have kids. It's purely emotional. That being said, It's hard to put into words why you might want to have kids, but I'll try.
There's the times when I pick her up at daycare, and she runs into my arms and says "daddy daddy!" That just makes any bad day better. :-)
Other times, I get to thinking how maybe she'll get married one day, or have her own baby. I imagine when that time comes, I'll look at her and feel something like I felt when I held her right after she was born. I'll think how she's just this little girl that we brought to life, that we gave a chance to. When I get time to think of it, I'm deeply fufilled in knowing that my wife and I brought someone into this world. That we gave someone else a chance to know what life is all about, begining to end.
At night, when she's not doing well or is sick, and calls for us, it's an overwhelming feeling of dependance, of importance. It's not replicated anywhere else in my personal or professional life. The notion that someone else's life depends entirely on us, gives me a sort of peace and direction I never otherwise had.
Don't get me wrong. Having kids is hard, sleepless, exhausting work. No one tells you how hard it really can be. But, you know, I just started to embrace the challenge. And I realized it's the most important thing I'll ever accomplish. It's very hard to describe how that feels.
Personally, I would'nt have it any other way.