Posted on 03/16/2021 7:29:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
At the start of the pandemic, many expected the lockdowns and quarantines to lead to a “baby boom.” Well, the data is in. Instead of a “boom” it’s been a “bust.”
As CBS recently reported, records from more than two dozen states show a “7% drop in births in December — nine months after the first lockdowns began.”
While 7% might sound like a small dip, it’s not. As The New York Times puts it: “The pandemic’s serious disruption of people’s lives is likely to cause ‘missing births’ — potentially a lot of them. Add these missing births to the country’s decadelong downward trend in annual births and we can expect consequential changes to our economy and society in the years to come.”
As the Times pointed out, this “baby bust” is, in reality, a pre-existing condition of COVID, not created by the virus but made worse. While some of us have talked about the ongoing birth dearth for years now, a major news outlet reporting on it is itself newsworthy.
Until recently, most media outlets have insisted the problem is overpopulation, that too many humans were literally destroying the planet. However, as USC demographer Dowell Myers told CBS, America’s shrinking fertility rate and its economic impact is nothing less than a “crisis.” Fewer babies means a smaller workforce in the future, which means lower economic productivity and a smaller tax base. This, in turn, means additional stress to Social Security, and fewer people to take care of a rapidly aging population.
If COVID isn’t the cause, how did we get here? Ideas … bad ones with consequences and victims.
At the top of the list is the “Population Bomb” myth. In 1970, Paul Ehrlich, the author of the book of that name, predicted that “Sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come ... an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity.”
That didn’t happen, but here’s what did. Within 15 years of Ehrlich’s prediction, nearly every developed nation, along with many developing ones, had embraced some version of his stark theory and declared war on human fertility. As a result, birth rates dropped below replacement rates.
In addition to that ecological myth, there’s an anthropological one, too. For decades, women were told that their bodies were in the way of their progress. If women wanted equality, they would need to be liberated from their own procreative potential. The tragic irony is that once women were, in fact, disconnected from their bodies, transgender men stepped in and appropriated all of the equality and all of the rights promised to women. And now, climate change has been added as the latest reason to forego child-rearing.
The postponing and foregoing of childbirth has corresponded to the postponing and foregoing of marriage. Since 1980, the median age of first marriage has gone from 24.7 for men and 22 for women to 30 and 28, respectively. The additional six years for women correspond almost exactly with their peak fertility.
It’s impossible to over-emphasize the role of culture in all this. When was the last time marriage and childbearing, at least in their traditional forms, were celebrated on TV or in film? When was the last time they were celebrated in church?
Israel is a notable exception to the global COVID-19 “baby bust” trend, with a birthrate twice that of the United States. Even non-religious Israelis are having children above replacement level. The cultural attitude toward marriage and family there is just as distinct as the results. As anyone who’s been to Israel knows, Saturday dinner is a sacrosanct family event, for religious and non-religious Israelis alike, and children figure prominently in Israelis’ definition of “life, liberty, and happiness.”
Christians, of course, should hold at least as high of a view of marriage and fertility. After all, God never revoked the command to be fruitful and multiply, and Jesus’ command to let the little children come to Him implies there are children around in the first place. Scripture is clear that “children are a heritage from the Lord.” Next to the Gospel itself, children are the greatest gift we can give future generations.
That’s going to hurt the workforce in 18 years.
Fewer college students (if colleges still exist)
Fewer recruits for the Armed Forces.
Fewer paying into Ponzi aka “Social Security”.
The wide and accepted use of contraception. Most people would rather have more stuff than more kids.
Bill Gates WANTS billions fewer babies in the world.
Choice? Not in their lexicon.
Hookup culture is harder when you can’t mingle at a bar, concert, or park.
In 2019, before the pandemic started, the birth rate for foreign born women in the USA dropped to 2.02.
That is below the replacement rate, which has never happened before.
Native born USA women have a birth rate around 1.7.
They have been below replacement rate for many years.
The only increase is in food babies!!! And that is a massive increase during Civid lockdown. lol
I’m coming to accept that we will need more immigration to prevent the economy from collapsing. Our younger native born generation is nihilistic, due to indoctrination by schools and pop culture. We like to blame politicians for everything but this is on US.
Woke soi bois can’t get it up.
the hook up culture isn’t producing babies these days. My college age daughters tell me that their friends are all on long acting birth control ( known as Larcs) Allowing for sexual freedom and the added benefit of not having a period..for months or even years.
This also explains the rise in STD’s.
**At the start of the pandemic, many expected the lockdowns and quarantines to lead to a “baby boom.”**
Well, it just can’t happen when everyone is “social distancing”! :-)
It’s hard to breed in captivity.
I was talking to a friend of the family recently. He’s in his early 70s and he and his wife have three children. Two sons and a daughter and none of them are married. He has five nieces and nephews from his siblings. Two of the five are married but none have children. All of the members of this next generation are at least 32 years old; they’re all between 32 and 40.
My friend concluded that his family is probably dying out with this next generation after him.
I should also mention that all of them were professionally employed, own homes, and do not have drug problems or any other issues in life that would prevent them from being good parents. They simply are not interested in marriage and children.
I’m sure the over population Environmentalist’s are thrilled.
No doubt Gender reassignment /transgender’ism is contributing to the decline in births. .
Everyone bought puppies last year instead of having babies.
Larcs = iud’s
The same happened in much of the world. East Asia saw births decline also 3-5% last year, depending on country.
China’s, at 10.48 live births per 1,000 people, was the lowest since 1949. By comparison, the rate in the UK was 11.1 last year, the lowest since records started in 1938.
Singapore’s birthrate, one of the lowest in the world, is 8.9 per 1,000 people.
The USA is about 11.9 per 1,000 people.
On the other hand - Niger, with one of the highest birthrates in the world, saw 46.5 births per 1,000 people in 2017 - according to the World Bank.
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