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US Births Dip To 30-Year Low (npr.org)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The birthrate fell for nearly every group of women of reproductive age in the U.S. in 2017, reflecting a sharp drop that saw the fewest newborns since 1978, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 3,853,472 births in the U.S. in 2017 -- "down 2 percent from 2016 and the lowest number in 30 years," the CDC said. The general fertility rate sank to a record low of 60.2 births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44 -- a 3 percent drop from 2016, the CDC said in its tally of provisional data for the year. The results put the U.S. further away from a viable replacement rate -- the standard for a generation being able to replicate its numbers. "The rate has generally been below replacement since 1971," according to the report from CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. "The decline in the rate from 2016 to 2017 was the largest single-year decline since 2010," the CDC said. The 2017 numbers also represent a 10-year fall from 2007, when the U.S. finally broke its post-World War baby boom record, with more than 4.3 million births.

25 of 571 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Feminism at work by iggymanz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    nah, most feminists have children, 86% of women do. they're just not having more than 2, instead about 1.86 kids on average. That's not enough to keep a population growing.

  2. Having Children is Expensive nowadays by Ayano · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you want to send the kid to college to be a part of the future, else you're all but assuring them knee-capped employment possibilities. There's a higher expectation overall for parenting, especially for middle income Americans that plan this out. Uneducated folk in the lower income brackets however will still reproduce irresponsibly though.

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    I don't read AC
    1. Re:Having Children is Expensive nowadays by BobSutan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This should be higher voted. Women entering the workforce in droves is in large part why wages have stagnated since the 60s & 70s. It's plain old supply and demand, available labor surged so rates went down. Add the glut of "undocumented workers" and all combined you've just solved why it takes a dual-income family to raise kids anymore if you don't want to be raising them in poverty.

      --
      "On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
  3. Re:Feminism at work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does the population need to grow? We keep hearing about how robots are going to take over manufacturing and agriculture and AI will take over service industries, that there will be fewer jobs for humans. Maybe America doesn't need to grow further, but has instead reached a technological level where the machines can sustain our standard of living while we reach a more sustainable population equilibrium with nature.

    Oh, wait, the underclasses will breed like rabbits and immigrants will flood our country because we're rich. Fuck.

  4. Re:Feminism at work by Ayano · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It sounds like someone is in the 'forever single' category and is upset about it, so let's blame feminists for for not having enough babies?

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    I don't read AC
  5. Re:Want us to have kids by ArylAkamov · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or give people an incentive to have kids instead of importing more people and driving down wages so couples can't afford to have kids.

  6. Re:Want us to have kids by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yep. Reasonable working hours, parental leave, sick/personal days, vaca time, so people actually have TIME to care for their families.

  7. Re:Feminism at work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    And they are doing that because they waste their most fertile years pursuing pointless careers and wasting societal resources to Eat, Pray and Love.

  8. Re:Feminism at work by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe the ecahhhhnamy needs to be restructured so it can function even without continuous growth, sprawl, and environmental depredation.

  9. Good by religionofpeas · · Score: 1, Insightful

    There are already too many people on the world. Having less would be a good thing.

  10. Re: Feminism at work by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If you hurl enough sophomoric insults, *someday* a feminist will give you a kiss. Keep trying!

    But don't waste too much time on it - you've still got a lot of capitalist boots to lick today.

  11. Re:Feminism at work by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No one is obligated to breed kids for the good of the country. If women want to work, eat, pray, love whatever, it's their business -- you can't choose others' path in life for them.

  12. Re:Feminism at work by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Naa, that would be rational, fact-based and forward-thinking. Cannot have that, must make America Great Again!

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  13. Re:Feminism at work by gweihir · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You can, and a lot of people try. It is just hugely unethical and has spawned the most evil movements the human race has ever seen. (Organized Religion, Fascism, etc.)

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  14. Re:Want us to have kids by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is not about money. At some time, a society just reaches a state where it does not expand anymore and instead shrinks down slowly to a sane size. Most of the west is already there or getting there fast. It is not really a problem, you just need to manage this instead of ignoring it and sticking to the old recipes. Of course, the leadership of some countries is less well equipped to do that...

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  15. Re: The Trump Effect by TheReaperD · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Feminists normally like to have sex, just on their terms, not when/how men tell them to. I can't say that I blame them.

    --
    "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
  16. Re:Feminism at work by jouassou · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We live on a planet of finite size with finite resources, and it's very unlikely that we'll have the means to ship billions of people into space over the next century. So the exponential growth cannot continue indefinitely, and we might as well start looking for a better economical model today—one that doesn't break down if the population stabilizes.

  17. Re: Feminism at work by Reverend+Green · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Look, I know the MBAs sold us out. They shipped half the jobs in the software industry to India. Then lied to Congress so they could import hundreds of thousands of Indian indentured workers to drive down wages for the remaining domestic software jobs.

    So definitely, let's see the rich private school Progressive capitalists as enemies of the people. But we don't need to be racist towards our Indian brethren. Have you never even once met a *nice* Indian person? I have, many times. They, like us, are but pawns in a bigger game.

  18. Re:Feminism at work by Barsteward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    extreme left and extreme right are both sides of the same coin and both not needed

    --
    "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
  19. Re:Feminism at work by martyros · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While they called themselves "communism", they actually fall under fascism in most respects that matter.

    First of all, it doesn't matter if they were "really" communist or not, you left them out. They were certainly atheists, so maybe you should have called them "organized atheism".

    Second, we could play the same "Are they really X?" game with religion. The people who did the worst atrocities in the Crusades, as with Islam extremists today, often clearly violated the teaching of the leaders in whose name they claim to be acting. So either those people don't count as "organized religion", because they weren't "really" Christians / Muslims / whatever; or, Stalin and Pol Pot and Mao do count as "communists" (and "atheists"), because whatever Marx would have thought of them, they did see themselves as trying to follow his teaching.

    You can't have it both ways: You can't tar me with the Crusades without accepting the black mark of the Killing Fields.

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    TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.

  20. Re:Feminism at work by Ayano · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You're confusing traditional Seneca Falls feminism with the newer 'femi-nazism' that's creeping along social media.

    Feminism is about equal opertunity, true feminists won't mind chivalry but nor will they expect it where a feminazi would want both in their hypocritical mind.

    Also I don't see what your 'social family duties' have to do with this, are you advocating that women should be pressured into marriage commitments and the traditional 'wife' role? You feel like you missed something that required giving women less choice, and more societal pressure?

    From someone who has mentored exemplary young women in a professional environment, I really have no words for that if so. Women can balance work and life goals such as a family on their own terms with a partner, not a caretaker as some groups would advocate.

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    I don't read AC
  21. Re:Want us to have kids by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Weirdly, that's the one taboo I've never felt: living below my means/being "poor", whether it's used cars, used furniture, computers bought off Craigslist. I just don't like the Joneses enough to want to keep up with them - I'd rather watch them run like hamsters and get a coronary before the finish line while I walk comfortably and enjoy the views.

  22. Re: Feminism at work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The Democrats are rushing us towards suicide with mass importation of cheap labor. Not sure why you would attribute this fucking insanity to the guy trying to stop it.

  23. Re:Feminism at work by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No one is obligated to breed kids for the good of the country. If women want to work, eat, pray, love whatever, it's their business -- you can't choose others' path in life for them.

    That s correct. One of the oddest things about this whole matter though is that in all of the stories about the falling birth rate, the focus is very gynocentric.

    Which is a little odd - if you don't consider the other half of the equation, you don't get the whole picture.

    The only time we get any mention of the male aspect of this birth issue is attack pieces on this so-called MGTOW movement, men who have dropped out of the relationship game. And as passive avoidance, it is becoming a problem.

    I guess you might consider "types' of men involved. The divorced and now indigent males who are no longer attractive as support providers, the traditional nerds and otherwise males unattractive to women come to mind.

    But there is a new sub-group of normal men who have simply chosen to opt out of relationships because it offers benefits like less financial drain, avoidance of the divorce trap, and greater overall freedom.

    Coupled with the new demographic in Universities of female to male ratio, largely in favor of the females, and still growing, there are a lot of well educated women in high paying jobs that simply cannot find a male that measures up to their standards. They aren't freezing their eggs because there are men lined up to mate with them. A lot of ladies, and a much smaller pool of acceptable men.

    I suppose the issue of men choosing to remain childless and out of relationships with women doesn't fit the narrative, but not addressing it at all except in hit pieces describing these men alternately as selfish jerks and pathetic weasels isn't helping the women's cause.

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    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  24. Re: Feminism at work by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are the interests of grandchildren of German, Irish, and Eyetalian immigrants in conflict, or are they all Americans at this point?