Baby bust continues: US births down for 4th year

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news.yahoo.com/baby-bust-continues-us-births-down-4th-041403038.html

The article authors don’t seem particularly alarmed or concerned, but I am. I think we’ve tipped over the “Euro edge” and our culture has fundamentally changed to one that won’t recover to replacement total fertility rates in my lifetime (I’m not much over 40). Prior to 2008, the USA was one of the last developed countries on Earth with above replacement rate total fertility. I’m pretty sure this now means that there are NO politically stable, developed countries on planet Earth that have enough babies to replace their populations.

This interesting fact gets lost in the ongoing “overpopulation” alarmism that is based on the dwindling number of third world countries still having high fertility rates. Once the population alarmists “deal with” those countries (and they’re working hard at it), civilization on Earth will begin a long term decline in human populations that will be very hard to reverse given the bankrupt nature of most governments in the industrialized world. Many demographers seem unconcerned, but for the life of me I can’t see why not. Are people REALLY likely to start having more kids right when taxes are hiked, benefits slashed and real estate values enter long term decline? (declining population means excess supply of housing on a long term basis.)

I think these guys are missing the forest by zooming in too much on the bark of trees. Declining population almost certainly means a declining economy. Hard to grow sales when you have fewer customers all the time…
 
I’m reminded of demographer Phillip Longman, who said that falling fertility was occurring in every population except religious conservatives: Orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Christians (including Mormons), and Salafi Muslims. These populations tend to be very fertile, well above replacement.

He basically said that countries seeking to restore fertility have three options:

  1. *]the “Swedish model” unisex welfare state that assumes the responsibility of raising children,
    *]the “Taliban model” return to religious patriarchy, or
    *]the “return of yeomanry” figuring out how to make the traditional family economically viable again.

    Mr. Longman is not a religious conservative himself; he’s a liberal secularist with one child.
 
There is good news in that article. Inceasing births among married woman and decreases among young unmarrieds and teens. Hopefully that is mirroring a similar pattern in pregnancies (and not an increase in abortions). The drop in C-sections is also very good news, since so many are done when they are not medically necessary.
 
Mrs_Sally said:
There is good news in that article. Inceasing births among married woman and decreases among young unmarrieds and teens. Hopefully that is mirroring a similar pattern in pregnancies (and not an increase in abortions).
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Look at today’s culture. Are young unmarried people and teens having less sex?

If they aren’t having less sex, then how are they having less babies?
  1. Contraception.
  2. Abortion.
Both immoral. One of which is murder. These are the sins that young unmarried people and teens are necessarily guilty of, unless they’re having less sex. It’s either one or the other. And personally, as a college student, I can tell you that celibacy isn’t exactly the thing right now. :dts:

[And it’s not that I want people to have children when they’re unmarried. But cmon. Are more of them “waiting until marriage”? Or are more of them showing up at abortion clinics?]
 
Exactly my question. I have though seen surveys which say that teens are having less sex and delaying sex. You may still hear about plenty of it on a college campus, but if high school kids are holding off that’s at least a start.
 
“Individualism” is only bad when people become unromantic, selfish, and intolerant of marriage and kids.
 
Well, the ultimate conclusion from studies like this (at least for us Catholics)… is: yes, we are right to call “overpopulation” as a myth. And, the more Catholics that have large families, the better.

If Catholics don’t step up and have kids for all the atheists, liberals, and secularists who aren’t having children, then our country is ultimately going to peak at a certain population and then start dwindling.

Then there’s going to be a chain reaction: schools will close, businesses will close, the housing sector will shut down. It’s like a very slow version of the Black Plague in Europe. Society will have structures meant to accommodate for a larger population than the one that currently exists.

Pictures of Detroit come to mind…
 
i guess the small town i live in is not the norm then because i work at a retail store and i have seen so many babies come in that are anywhere from a few weeks old to 6 months old. to me, we are having a baby boom! it started over the summer.

if they are down, it is probably because of the economy. i see families come into the store i work at with 4 or 5 children and i wonder how in the world they are surviving in this economy.

hopefully, people are being wise and if they are struggling with the economy they know this is not the right time to have a baby.
 
7_Sorrows said:
i guess the small town i live in is not the norm then because i work at a retail store and i have seen so many babies come in that are anywhere from a few weeks old to 6 months old. to me, we are having a baby boom! it started over the summer.

if they are down, it is probably because of the economy. i see families come into the store i work at with 4 or 5 children and i wonder how in the world they are surviving in this economy.

hopefully, people are being wise and if they are struggling with the economy they know this is not the right time to have a baby.
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For ordinary people, it is always difficult to raise five children from an economic standpoint. Five cost more than one. Not much more to know.

But recession or no recession, for most people who have a number of children, it’s a matter of choices. If you are open to children, you’ll close yourself to a lot of spending you could have otherwise done. It all depends on what you value.

And now, of course, we are living with the residue of the “overpopulation” mythology, and the society as a whole does not value children as it once did. I recall reading that if the child tax exemption was the same as it was in Truman’s day (adjusted for inflation) it would be $20,000 per child instead of the $3500 it is now. But politicians have other priorities for that money than children.
 
ssancho said:
…
He basically said that countries seeking to restore fertility have three options:

  1. *]the “Swedish model” unisex welfare state that assumes the responsibility of raising children,
    *]the “Taliban model” return to religious patriarchy, or
    *]the “return of yeomanry” figuring out how to make the traditional family economically viable again.
Click to expand...

  1. I’m not sure exactly what the “swedish model” is, but it doesn’t seem to work very well. Latest figures from the CIA world factbook put Sweden at a total fertility rate of 1.67, WAY below replacement level.

    France does appear to have a bit of a bounce right now, but I wonder how much of that are babies of uninculturated immigrants? It doesn’t say in the CIA data. For that matter, a lot of the USA’s higher than Euro average numbers may have something to do with our immigrant population as well. At least here, there isn’t as much of an inculturation gulf as there is in France.
 
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