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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.
I, for one, welcome our new sexless, soulless, joyless Feminist overlords.
20 years ago "omg we have to reduce the teen pregnancy rate!"
Today "omg where's all the babies at?"
(Insert Grumpy Cat Good meme here)
pay us. Births are dropping because Americans are becoming less religious (so no opposition to birth control, not even the token opposition you get from most Catholics).
To be honest the solution right now isn't to pay us more, it's to bring in more labor from overseas. It's hard to argue with that since it's working. It just sucks if you're a member of the working class.
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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.
I don't read AC
Slashdotters have no chance of meeting a girl to stick their tallywhacker in from their mother's basements. Only an alpha male like Trump has the courage to grab life by the pussy and repopulate the world.
Well, I make entry six figures, can't afford a house, a feminist wife, or to have kids, so there's that.
After all, robots are about to take all the jerbs.
So that's why we need to import more people! To save the environment by using more resources!
Future generations will thank us, because they will know the truth: we had to destroy the planet to save it.
I guess I've been dropping the ball for the past couple of years.
#DeleteChrome
I'm surprised you don't realize that "Feminists don't have sex" is the self-own of a sad boy.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Okay not all of them, but enough of them to skew the stats.
Wellcome to 2008!
BTW, the original article has been edited to correct the date yo 1987.
There are already too many people on the world. Having less would be a good thing.
I have netflix. Why would I want kids?
Between the end-game of Planned Parenthood... the unrestricted leftist media's endless and supportive babble and the far-left feminazi agenda that is on mainstream TV... this is less than expected.
American women are being coerced through the mainstream media... to become self-empowered (nothing wrong with this) and an ideal where they don't have to conform with social norms to be happy (nothing wrong with this). But when they self-identify with people that aren't healthy.. and decide they don't need to marry or have children to be satisfied.. they've strangled the family tree. Again this is their choice.. but it is the actual reason this article even showed up on /.
At least in Japan they have a better excuse than the U.S. mainstream media.. social pressures and the conformist society have led to very many young males (as Otaku... where it is preferable to fantasize about 2d Anime girls instead of interacting with real women) deciding its better to wish for a wife.. than actually pursue one. This leads up to the eventual 3d waifu (google it) that can be more satisfying than an actual relationship for most men.
https://tokyogirlsupdate.com/gatebox-release-201612114708.html
There's an awesome idea: they'll procreate like fuck, go out and get jobs and start paying taxes so that our great republic can continue to be funded.
Oh wait...
In developed countries we've seen the birth rate decline over the last several decades. I suggest that young people are reacting to negative conditions for having kids, by having less kids. Student debt, declining real wages, the rising cost of housing, expensive medical insurance, politics, religion shown to be empty, cultural Marxism; all are perceived by the primitive layers of our brains as the kind of resource scarcity and adverse social conditions that make having kids unwise.
That even today's relatively poor people have more goods and better health care than the rich did a hundred years ago is irrelevant: the reptile layers of our brain translate our collective worry and disconnection into less offspring.
This is positive news, because the birth rate should rise if conditions improve. I ascribe the declining prosperity of recent decades to declining energy returned for energy invested in the extraction of fossil fuels, an effect ameliorated somewhat by automation's productivity increases. Things will continue to get worse until the exponential increase in cheap solar and wind energy overwhelms the decrease in the value of fossil energy; which should happen in the next few years. Once this happens, everyone will start getting wealthier fast, as increasing energy and automation will improve people's lifestyles in tandem.
Cheapening energy means financial security for the young, which leads to affordable housing, health care, food security, reduced conflict and increased social cohesion. Under these conditions, the birth rate will rise.
// DevsVult: The Machines Will It
Either we return to a maintenance level of births, bring in about 740K net immigrants per year, some combination of the two, or be crushed by the weight of our elderly.
Luckily, we're going to be able to see the results of Japan's experiment with the being crushed option before we experience it - and possibly before it is too late to avoid. Even so, the concept of banking on robots to care for the elderly may not fly as well in the US. There's always euthanasia.
Most of these people are exactly the kind that should disappear. This include the hipster-goatee-latte fags who are excited to get a vasectomy, because their homely "progressive" girlfriend is giving them a new Nintendo game, like a complete fucking child.
Less of these people is great news. Both of them are ugly pieces of shit and the only reason they have each other is because nobody else wants them.
Unless your having little green men you shouldn't be having kids.
[($)]
It's a complex issue. There's a TED talk here that explains it pretty well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Just import people, import an insane amount of people, just keep importing people over and over and over, hundreds and hundreds of thousands a year.
Increase your population by over 1% a year, we do! It's fantastic.
Well, it's fantastic for employers and people in government, road toll and public transit operators.
I mean the roads are packed, houses have maintained insanely high prices for over a decade, wages are suppressed super low and employers have their pick when it comes to choices to hire. The government is raking in fantastic money from the high visa fees, more tax payers and the GDP is going up which makes them look great on paper! (But don't discuss GDP per capita, oh no no no, shhh that doesn't exist)
It's the Aussie model, just import import import, prop up a housing bubble, forget about sustainability or quality of living for the people living here now, fuck em! More money folks.
So, open those floodgates, what could go wrong?
Developed countries are in demographic collapse. Most governments are using immigration to cover the shortfall but they know it isnâ(TM)t helping. It is accelerating the damage. Causes are multiple. Only the Japanese arenâ(TM)t using immigration. Have a look at their demographics. The other countries demographics are similar or will become so without immigration or actual useful intervention.
Deny this at your leisure but Japan is chasing robots for a reason. Western democracies are ramping up immigration for a reason. Itâ(TM)s not about mobility of a workforce - itâ(TM)s about covering a massive shortfall. They are hoping the immigrants donâ(TM)t believe in âoeoverpopulationâ. There will be some nasty surprises for societies with current immigration levels as they find they have replaced what made their countries the way they are. Societal norms will change and a lot of what is taken for granted will change and in a lot of ways disappear. Most big business right now doesnâ(TM)t care because they donâ(TM)t want to see anything beyond 5 years but the changes will hit their bottom line in interesting ways. The smart ones are pivoting to take advantage.
The irony of all this is that people who believe that overpopulation is real will become extinct and be replaced by people who donâ(TM)t.
As an old timer I'm curious to know how many of you young men are mgtow or know about it and why it's on the rise (I think based on the falling interest in marriage of young men.)
Don't worry ladies... here i come !!
No worries, they are already working on disallowing rape victims to abort pregnancies. Once they get that through everything will be back to normal in good 'ol 'murrica.
Nothing of value was lost.
Thanos would be pleased.
A decline in population is a good thing every once in a while. It would solve a vast number of the worlds problems.
Are there more people in the US, Japan, Italy, the UK, Germany, etc than there were 100 years ago?
Yep.
After this population decline will there still be more people?
Yep.
Was the US, Japan, Italy, the UK, Germany under populated 100 years ago?
Nope.
so... Problem?
Constantly we get "because there are too many people the EARTH is going to die"... then we get this stupid shit with "Because there are fewer babies freak out."
Which is it? Seems like the newsies just want to turn anything into a story. Numbers go up and the world will eat itself to death... numbers go down and the world will empty of all people.
Both narratives are stupid.
There is no under population or over population issue in the industrialized Western world. We have HOUSING shortages... stressed schools... stressed water and power infrastructure. So... under population? Not really possible.
The story out of Japan is that they have a big problem with low birth rate. Have you seen Japan? Does it "look" under populated? And here you might say "but in 30 years it will be"... no it won't. The trend would have to continue for several generations to actually cause a problem. And whilst it is fun to just take a trend line from a statistic and project it out 500 years a projected statistic gets increasingly less reliable the farther you project it.
Populations are going to go up and down in the future as our societies, our economies, our cultures change.
I mean, who wants to be packed into a coffin apartment in Mega City 1? I don't. Fuck that noise. I want a lawn and a dog. I want a garden where I can putter around in my old age growing tomatoes or something just for fun. If you want to die in a tiny apartment, that's great. Everyone should have what they want. But I think a lot of people want a little space.
I want to spread out a bit. Big concentrations of population have all sorts of statistical problems. The worst schools, the worst crime, the worst corruption, the least political agency, the highest stress... there are reasons to not want it. There are also good things. The best hospitals, the best schools, the most economic opportunities, wonderful museums, concerts, plays, wonderful shops, etc.
Just let what is going to happen happen.
We have a lot of stuff that has changed in our society. The entry of women into pretty much every profession. The changing notion of when you have a family. The changing notion of what it means to be married in the first place. All of that. How could it not have an impact on birth rates? Of course it will.
And this is just going to play out. Probably the most aggressive career seeking women that spend the least energy on trying to get a family will statistically have fewer children. That will play out in time in the population. With the cultural tropes that push that below replacement rate becoming less and less common such that AT LEAST there is replacement. Who thinks that when we made all those changes we got everything 100% right? Of course we didn't. This is an experiment.
We'll see what happens. But there's no population problem up or down in the modern industrialized West. We're fine. And that's before even talking about immigration which is its own little shit show.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
And how bad it is, we already know that and this is a sensitive subject here (well, at least it used to be)
coDe sharing
It's all those abortions!
five... four... three...
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Crunching the numbers properly definitely proves the correlation between the drop in childbirth and the development of the useful TV remote, lessening the need for a continual stream of children to get up and change the channel.
Further, the rapid turnover in media technology and the decline of "regular" TV in favor of on-line, streaming, etc is slowly creating a new demand for tech-savvy youngsters willing and able to find that Matlock rerun series for the aging population. We should be OK unless something like Roku obtains a monopoly level penetration of the idiom.
Since wealth of a society is pretty much defined by women being powerful enough to decide by then selves on their reproduction, you're pretty much spot on.
Future societies will most likely pay women to be mothers. .. if society in general recognizes children as something valuable that is.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Birth is suffering
You can try the Japan model. Very little immigration, watch your population peak and go into decline, then watch your *entire country* becoming a retirement village, with all your young people working to service the old (those who are rich) while paying heavy tax to support old (those who aren't rich).
Enjoy looking forward to a lifetime of work, and then no one to take care of you when you got old.
Feminism to trick women into thinking working their asses off like a man is more rewarding than having and raising kids. Taxing the most productive people to death to discourage having kids while welfare encourages the least competent to have more. Interrupting natural cycles of Darwinism.
Just imaging if the borders were closed! The population still dieing out.. Jobs would be in such demand salaries would raise to the extremes and there would be such a level of prosperity and wealth for the common classes that the women(who are happiest(seriously look it up) having and looking after kids) would start having families again.
But no, import unskilled mooches to support forever and their kids.
Intelligence is hereditary (on a general population scale), Geniuses can popup anywhere but there is a return to the mean over time... Once the population becomes a majority of another race it will 'become' the nation like from once they came.
The world is getting overpopulated so any drop in the birthrate is a good thing.
Continual population replenishment means nothing if they have no jobs to keep pumping money.
Births are dropping because Americans are becoming less religious
Might be a portion of it but I doubt that is the primary reason. The US is still quite religious compared to other peer countries. The most effective form of birth control is educating and raising the standard of living for women. As women get more education they choose to have fewer children and have them later. As their standard of living and participation in the labor force goes up the number of children they have goes down. And to your point as they get the right to control their bodies and reproduction they tend to have fewer children or have them later.
To be honest the solution right now isn't to pay us more, it's to bring in more labor from overseas. It's hard to argue with that since it's working. It just sucks if you're a member of the working class.
We've always been a nation of immigrants. We just have too many folks who are in denial about that fact and think that because they got here first it somehow makes them special and entitles them to be xenophobic.
So, in other words, our population would fall somewhat if we stopped importing people. (Why are we still doing that again? Empty prairies we still need to tame? Plentiful menial jobs? No? Then why?)
We'd have less crowding, pollution, and cheaper real estate.
As quality of life ticked up, birth rate likely would too. Almost like most processes are self-balancing and not runaway.
Not seeing the immediate problem.
One that is sustainable.
Sustainable can mean a lot of things. Clarify the conditions you consider to be sustainable ones.
I don't know the exact number, but I'm pretty sure we're at least an order of magnitude too high right now.
You should have put the period in that sentence after "I don't know". You have no objective basis for your claim that that the global population should be 700 million people instead of the ~7 billion it currently is. Furthermore there is no evidence that our current population is unsustainable. Some of our activities probably are unsustainable but that is a separate issue and not contingent on the population size for the most part.
Than our immigration numbers have been skewed beyond imagination. It's getting downright crowded in a lot of formerly mid-sized cities, and large cities aren't thinning out. The people are all coming from *somewhere*, and a great many of them are younger people. I trust my own eyes over statistics, any day.
Solar is still insignificant on a global scale, especially where it concerns transportation fuels.
What's your point? Yes it's a small percentage today but it is also rising very quickly. Nobody (rational) is under the illusion that solar dominate within a decade.
Tesla is only producing a few thousand fully electric cars in a week, while we have a billion cars driving around using fossil fuels.
Tesla is just the tip of the spear and other companies actually sell more EVs and hybrids. Nobody is arguing that ICEs are going to disappear and time soon. Just that they are going to gradually lose marketshare as electrification happens.
It's going to take more than 'the next few' years to catch up.
Depends on where you set the goal posts and exactly what sort of time scale you are talking about. I don't think saying "next few years" is out of line if you think big picture. You'll (probably) see widespread and increasing electrification of cars (EVs and hybrids) over the next 2 decades with a reasonable approximation of full electrification happening in key markets in probably 40-60 years. Possible it could happen quicker but I doubt it. If you think big picture that's a pretty short time scale. Similar with grid scale solar and wind. They will likely steadily increase as a portion of our power portfolio over the next several decades probably peaking somewhere between 20-40%. I could see them getting higher but that would take a coordinated government policy to get distributed storage (prob batteries) for it to really work and it's unclear that the political will will be there for that.
The poor, undereducated, disadvantaged will still have kids at the same old rate. So we shift our population towards failure.
If that were actually a valid argument then no country could ever improve its standard of living. It doesn't actually work like that as long as there is a reasonable amount of social mobility. Disadvantaged people don't have to remain so forever and as the saying goes a rising tide lifts all boats.
> The results put the U.S. further away from a viable replacement rate -- the standard for a generation being able to replicate its numbers. ...and yet the US population is still rising year on year.
http://www.multpl.com/united-s...
Even though Utah has slowed slightly in the last few years, the uh, fecundity here is off the charts.
I have co-workers in their early 30s who already have 5+ children.
There are lots and lots of young people here, which is strange when I go to the US and see how the average age of people is much higher.
Here in Zion I bet the average age is like 19-21.
The Mormons are planning their takeover, and don't be surprised if they pull it off.
so? this looks good. young kids aren't getting pregnant like hey had been in the past.
all of the categories other than 15-24 year old show that there had been an increase. The ages that declined, at least in my opinion, set you up for a rough life when you have a kid that young.
you need to look at the data in the doc... there was a huge drop in 15-18 year olds... thats probably good. 18-24 year olds dropped too, though not by much... that is probably good also. All other age groups increased.
How could we possibly survive unless we import semites as Europe has? /s
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.
So you're saying that Pol Pot committed his atrocities in the name of atheism?
If not, I don't see what your point is. Its like saying that the Okhlahoma Bridge collapsed because it's designer didn't collect stamps.
Also, by definition all Buddhists are atheists, as Buddhism has no gods. Cambodia was and is, to this day, devoutly Buddhist even if Pol Pot plundered the Angkor temples to fund his state. You need to stop treating "Atheism" like some kind of organisation.
Also it is a huge misnomer (closer to a bald faced lie) to say that Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany were atheist states because they were secular states. Both had a great deal of religious people, even amongst the leadership, some of whom thought that gassing Jews was gods work (to which I do not blame the catholic church for, I'm capable of splitting out a nutter from the mainstream). Russia was mainly Russian Orthadox, Stalin ran to the Russian Orthadox church for support when the Nazis invaded and Nazi Germany, they were 54% prodestant, 40% catholic, 3.5% "gottglÃubig" (literally "believers in god", what is called Agnostic in modern parlance) and 1.5% atheist.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
but I'm in a Red (got dragged here by my parents when I was young and been stuck here ever since) and I'm paying $11k/yr for the first two and then it goes up to $16k/yr for the last at my kids State college. I get a few thousand in grants and a few in tuition waivers (and you lose the tuition waivers if you have to take a break, which if your GPA is
Also, add a car to that. Colleges don't have everything on one campus anymore. At least my Kid's doesn't. Classes are a two hour bus ride apart and you don't get to pick your schedule. If you don't have a card you're not going to school. They'll kick you out in favor of a kid who does.
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they do it in the American South all the time. Do away with Sex Education, ban or make birth control unobtainable. Hammer into kid's skulls that masturbating is a crime (or like they did in Texas make it literally a crime for girls) and blamo, problem solved. Well, except for all the kids people can't afford. But you can take care of that with brutal oppression and a bit 'o the old "Opiate of the Masses" like we and every other civilization's done for centuries
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don't feed them. They bring the whole discourse down.
Also, "Progressive Capitalist"? I suppose it's possible but the folks who sold us out are anything but. Bernie Sanders and Liz Warren would be Progressive Capitalists. Guys like Tim Cook & Bill Gates not so much (and no, donating a tiny fraction of your money to whitewash all the bad things you did does not make you "Progressive" Bill).
Sorry, had to vent. I hate seeing the word Progressive misapplied. I don't think you mean anything by it, but it's easy to pick up negative connotations on the word because there's a constant hum of anti-worker sentiment in this country and Progressives are the pro-worker wing of most parties, so we're always under attack.
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> The results put the U.S. further away from a viable replacement rate -- the standard for a generation being able to replicate its numbers. ...and yet the US population is still rising year on year.
http://www.multpl.com/united-s...
Amazing. How could that be? It's almost like we are importing huge numbers of people.
Of course. Are you suggesting that is worse than breeding the numbers up?
Its not about money with me, maybe I'm pessimistic, but I am ashamed of what society has become, what my generation has failed to do to improve the global community and the lack of political will to correct the wrongs of our generation. While I'd love that kid and strive to do the very best for him, every single day I look at him I would ask him to forgive me for bringing him into this world. I think the responsible, conscious adult chooses not to have a child for many reasons, and I think economics probably is a big factor, but for me it's my child's future and what his generation will be left to face.
I think the more modern a country is, the more the citizens are connected and the more messaging they are subject to and influenced by. We are inundated every day with hate, disaster, climate calamity, politics, etc. Someone living in a place disconnected from global affairs will have an entirely different outlook on the future - their world won't know about the big trash area in the pacific, or the growing CO2 issue, or trashing the rain forests, war in Afghanistan, nuke bombs in north korea, NAFTA, gas prices, how you need crippling debt to afford a quality education that everyone must get etc.etc.. It'd be interesting to know what the birthrate in rural america is vs. urban america.
Government pays you to take care of ot's children, and put their children into another simulated family if they don't like your politics or lifestyle.
That isn't a family.
What responsible human being would subject an innocent child to the dystopian world we're living in today?
Hopefully they will drop more.
That can't possibly be correct. Children don't boost the economy as they do not contribute to production. Production and investment contribute to the economy, not consumption. How about this: How much better of a house could two people afford if they didn't have children?
The tricky part is how to quantify "quality of life". It can easily be argued that children increase quality of life much more than a house can.
Check out the facts.
Birth rates go down as wealth goes up. Its a very simple fact that transcends all cultural, racial, and historical barriers.
People SAY things like "I can't have a kid due to too little time and money," but the FACT is, statistically speaking, if you give that person more time and money, then they are LESS likely to have kids. And if you put that same person in a lower class, the chances that they will breed go up dramatically.
The economic notion of "implicit cost" is key to understanding this phenomenon. Wrapping your head around this economic mindbender helps too: one's money becomes more scarce the more of it one has. The exercise of explaining this is left to the student.
Idiocracy predicted this - yes, that movie.
Smart people manage their reproduction.
It doesn't mean we aren't "practicing" 10x a week, a few times with another person.
The US is going through some big structural/societal changes. It's not some, "I don't want to bring a child into this horrible world" thing -- it's the fact that more people have choices or feel they have choices than they did in the past.
- Fewer women are voluntarily deciding to spend their entire work life raising children. They are better educated overall and the workforce is more open to them. When you go this route, you just can't in good conscience have a huge number of kids because something has to give between work and family. Most good parents I know would rather err on the side of family, but they also know they have a responsibility to work.
- People are less religious: I grew up in a very Catholic area of the city, and I'm not shocked that so many priests and bishops got away with crimes against kids. Back in the day, priests were likely the only people in the neighborhood who went to college, and many people felt they were the representative of God and the Pope, and totally beyond question. Birth control is not allowed in Catholic doctrine and Catholic families used to be HUGE as a result. I know people who have 9 siblings...and I think a lot of it is due to people adhering strictly to their religion's rules.
- Women as a whole aren't just looking to find a husband and take the first situation that comes their way, so they're starting to have kids later in life. And even if they do get married early on, they're way more likely to delay having kids until they're more financially secure.
The interesting thing is whether the expected replacement rate is still too high. We need fewer people, not less, if we want to keep the whole employment cycle going. The thing that will probably keep this from becoming a catastrophe is the US' diversity. For every hard-charging single-by-choice female executive that's 110% dedicated to their career, there's a traditional, religious woman who gets married when they're 21 and has a kid every 2 years until they're 35. This is different in places like Japan where they have almost no immigration and a very homogeneous society...in their case the birth rate is too low and they're going to have to have some huge shifts in the next few decades to deal with it.
We have 2 kids, we both work and that's way more than enough for us. We've done our evolutionary duty IMO and would rather concentrate on turning the kids into people who will contribute something to society. You can't do that when your attention is spread between 2 jobs, your living situation and 5 kids.
The USA during the 19th century EAGERLY recruited immigrants. The homestead act of 1862 allowed immigrants, former slaves and single women to apply.
Is the number reflective before abortions or after abortions?
Ruth Ginsberg did say it was effective at ridding of the undesirables. Statistically blacks are the highest aborters.
Yay to low birth numbers! /sarcasm
Next generation struggling to afford kids will be bad for pensions but good for the environment. The UK is also doing their best to make conditions difficult for parents.
Less little bastards running around yelling and screaming! Kids annoy the hell out of me.
The low numbers in 2010 were likely due to the uncertainty created by the global financial crisis. But, what explains last year?
The economy was/is on a tear. We aren't engaged in any major wars. So, what gives?
And, don't say Trump was to blame because for every liberal hater there is a conservative lover out there. In fact, many people are saying that woman's ovaries are working in overdrive in response to The Donald's virility (@00:01:45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWuc18xISwI).
Pay is low. Rent is high. Medical costs are high. More people work longer hours. Many people have big student debts. A lot of people just can't afford to have kids. So they don't. This is neo-liberal economucs' natural outcome. It was all predicted decades ago.
Only boring people are ever bored.
The book Factfulness has a good, evidence-based write up on the global falling birth rate.
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/hans-rosling/factfulness/
Interesting how many of you blame things on feminists. Saddling young people with exorbitant college debt, giving them low-paying jobs and having expensive housing seems to me to be a better explanation.
Ha ... makes me laugh to think of anyone on slashdot reproducing.
... let alone kids.
The basement dwellers here can't live with themselves