Ensuring a healthy growth in population (can political pollicy encourage childbirth?)

The Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | August 19, 2007 | Jonathan Last

[kabar]

Fortunately for us, the United States is in a better position than these other countries - for now. Buoyed in part by immigration, our fertility rate sits just below replacement (2.09).

Thanks to immigration, legal and illegal, the US has one of highest annual population growth rates in the developed world, i.e., .89% a year. Since 1970 we have added 100 million people; since 1990, 53 million, and since 2000, 21 million. In the next 23 years [2030] our population will increase 62 million, the equivalent of the current population of the UK, and by 2050 our population will be 420 million or 118 million more people than we have now.

It is debatable as to whether this is good news or not given the increased requirments of infrastructure, water, energy, roads, etc. Moreover, the demographics of the country will change dramatically.

In 1965, the United States was overwhelmingly composed of whites of European descent (89% in 1965), with the only minority group of significant size being blacks (10%). By 2050, non-Hispanic whites will be 50% of the population and falling fast. Today, half of the children ages 0-5 are minorities. This massive demographic change in less than 100 years is the result of legal immigration policies and porous borders. What is of particular concern is that Hispanics and blacks have the highest high school dropout rates by far. The social pathology of what is happening is disturbing. We are creating a permanent underclass and the gap between rich and poor is growing as wages are depressed at the lower end of the wage scale by this influx of cheap, exploitable labor.

Hispanics were 1% of the population in 1950. By 2000 they were 12.6%. Today they are over 15% and by 2050 they will be 24.4% of the population. The question is can we assimilate such numbers or will we become Balkanized along linguistic and cultural lines?

Bureau of the Census Population projections 2000-2050

[Greg F]

Gentlemen, start your engines.
Ladies, you know what to do.
______________________________________

Heh. I like ya’ Mrs. Don-o. If I were an unmarried papist and you were available . . .

Falling societies have always had fertility problems. Roman emperors tried to encourage Roman fertility (unsuccessfully). I think it comes from a lack of allegience to anything outside of the self. Building a family is not obviously the right move for an epicurian, and by the time a person realizes what they’ve given up, it’s too late for them, and they are too old and too much of a fuddy duddy for the hedonistic or epicurian youth to take them seriously if they say they should have had a family. Besides, why should an old epicurian who made a mistake waste the little time left to him trying to save others from making the same lonely mistake he made?

[absolootezer0]

but they’re already not paying taxes, they’d get no new benefits.

[Knitebane]

10% income tax cut per child.
25% income tax cut per child if one parent stays at home.

Illegitimate children not eligible. Tax breaks available to married couples only.

[Froufrou]

will we become Balkanized along linguistic and cultural lines?

I'd say Balkanization is inevitable. It's alarming the vast difference in cultural values as they are applied to the concept of procreation. Hegemony, begging for humor ping!

[Mrs. Don-o]

Uh, if you, uh, keep it under wraps...

[Mrs. Don-o]

It’ll catch up with your Social Secuirty about 8 years from now.

[kabar]

I'd say Balkanization is inevitable. It's alarming the vast difference in cultural values as they are applied to the concept of procreation

You've got that right.

Unless the life chances of children raised by single mothers suddenly improve, the explosive growth of the U.S. Hispanic population over the next couple of decades does not bode well for American social stability.

The dimensions of the Hispanic baby boom are startling. The Hispanic birthrate is twice as high as that of the rest of the American population. That high fertility rate – even more than unbounded levels of immigration – will fuel the rapid Hispanic population boom in the coming decades.

By 2050, the Latino population will have tripled, the Census Bureau projects. One in four Americans will be Hispanic by midcentury, twice the current ratio.

It's the fertility surge among unwed Hispanics that should worry policymakers. Hispanic women have the highest unmarried birthrate in the country – over three times that of whites and Asians, and nearly 1 ½ times that of black women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Every 1,000 unmarried Hispanic women bore 92 children in 2003 (the latest year for which data exist), compared with 28 children for unmarried white women, 22 for unmarried Asian women, and 66 for unmarried black women.

Forty-five percent of all Hispanic births occur outside of marriage, compared with 24 percent for whites and 15 percent for Asians. Only the percentage for blacks – 68 percent – is higher. But the black population is not going to triple over the next few decades.

The only bright news in this demographic disaster story concerns teen births. Overall teen childbearing in the U.S. declined for the 12th year in a row in 2003, having dropped by more than a third since 1991. Yet even here, Hispanics remain a cause for concern. The rate of childbirth for teens from Mexico, part of the fastest-growing immigrant population in the U.S., greatly outstrips every other group.

[Yo-Yo]

Regular readers will recall that we are on the verge of a population problem. Fertility rates have been falling across the globe, and in nearly every industrialized country are already below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman.

In the 1970s when I was in high school, it was the population time bomb that was going to get us all. Isn't this population 'problem' a good thing?

[NeoCaveman]

Testosterone levels are down something like 20% from a generation ago.

Sperm counts are down worse than that.

Even if we got our priorities straight, it might not matter anyays....

[Froufrou]

You know the p.c. police will never allow breaks for married only.

Sure, married get better breaks - for now. But I don’t think we can even approximately guess the number of illegitimates we have. “There’s a sucker born every minute” may be closer to the truth than we want to know.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Folks, I have been wondering about this for a long, long time; and I ask for your comments and ideas because of my ignorance.

Right now, as the argument goes, there are not enough births to pay for what appears to be some (many?) of the socialistic aspects of our society. What seems to be our “savior” is immigration from other countries (forget illegals). If our population went down, wouldn’t there be some kind of forced adjustment? It sounds to me this hysteria is similar to global warming type thinking, and I don’t say this out of criticism to those who are worried.

Any comments would be extremely welcomed.

Thank you.

[NeoCaveman]

Uh, if you, uh, keep it under wraps...

And here I thought wrapping it was part of the problem....

[Mrs. Don-o]

The article makes the point that “actual” childbearing falling short of “desired” childbearing is a widespread phenomenon. There are lots of couples that would have welcomed #3 but only had two, etc.

So the key is to make it more possible for married couples (I emphasize marriage)to have the children they want. Marrriage being a public signal that their commitment is serious and not just notional.

The major cause of couples having tiny families is that they don’t start childbearing until the wife is already in her 30’s and well past her peak fertility.

So I think one of the most important things would be to make it more feasible for recent college-grad couples to marry. That means dealing with college debts and downpayments.

[Knitebane]

You know the p.c. police will never allow breaks for married only.

Yep.

But the question was how to encourage a rising childbirth rate. My answer would do it. If we embrace political correctness then we deserve to fade away.

Force the PC police out of power and encourage families. If not, last one out please turn out the lights.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Pollicy, schmallicy...Lawsy, there must be some way to keep the world safe from my typos... 8^/

But phallusy would be better than fallacy ;o)

[Hegemony Cricket]

I have heard that if your parents never had any kids, in all probability, you won’t either. :-)

[Mrs. Don-o]

Actually, welfare recipients and young immigrants have comparatively low voting rates. Married people and older people have far higher voting rates.

[TChris]

can political pollicy encourage childbirth?

I don't know about "pollicy", but four-wheel-driving on a bumpy dirt road sure can!

[Froufrou]

Hispanics remain a cause for concern. The rate of childbirth for teens from Mexico, part of the fastest-growing immigrant population in the U.S., greatly outstrips every other group.

Within the families, there is no apparent regard for health and welfare concerns of the individual. There are specific health issues related to underage mothers that are ignored. Then they dump the baby on their mother or grandmother and go out and make more bambinos. It's wrong and it's creating generations that will naturally devalue themselves.