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Women are having fewer kids, and demographers don't know why
Washington Examiner ^ | 6-7-2014 | Joseph Lawler

Posted on 06/08/2014 3:07:35 AM PDT by equalator

U.S. fertility is not recovering from the financial crisis — and demographers aren’t sure why.

The fertility rate fell to a record low 62.9 births per 1,000 women aged 15-44 in 2013, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

The total number of births, at 3.96 million, inched up by a mere 4,000 from 2012, the first increase since the financial crisis. But the total fertility rate, or TFR, the average number of children a woman would have during her child-bearing years, fell to just 1.86, the lowest rate in 27 years. TFR is considered the best metric of fertility. A TFR of 2.1 represents a stable population, with children replacing parents as they die off.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: population
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To: equalator; AlexW

Because the Great Depression was a walk in the park compared to what we’re going through now.
*****************************
The Great Depression and NOW are equivalent in government sponsored economic destruction but back then most people had farms and could survive without money ,, today we have jobs and they are paying less every day.


21 posted on 06/08/2014 4:01:08 AM PDT by Neidermeyer
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To: kearnyirish2

“We’ve, as a society, put what women can produce monetarily at such a priority, that everything else is demoted.”

If we weren’t taxed to death it might not be such a problem.


22 posted on 06/08/2014 4:01:49 AM PDT by dljordan (WhoVoltaire: "To find out who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.")
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To: equalator
You pulled the important quotes.

The media is as much the enemy as Obama, Reid and Pelosi.

23 posted on 06/08/2014 4:02:53 AM PDT by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
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To: Chainmail
Not hard to figure out: The difficulty in making ends meet with only one wage earner, the emphasis on women developing careers rather than being a mother, the social pressure against families, particularly large families, birth control availability/abortion, and maybe a realization that parenting is difficult and these latest generations don't like "difficult".

I guess it's a mystery to demographers who want to be published.

24 posted on 06/08/2014 4:05:43 AM PDT by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
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To: equalator

Oh Come on......women AND men don’t want more than 1 -2 kids today because they want TIME FOR THEMSELVES!!!!


25 posted on 06/08/2014 4:07:04 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion.....the Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: dljordan

“If we weren’t taxed to death it might not be such a problem.”

Those taxes are reduced when you breed; when people don’t breed their taxes simply go to someone else’s kids.

I think economic insecurity plays much more of a role in the lack of breeding; people are afraid of layoffs and want the freedom to follow their jobs to another locale if necessary.


26 posted on 06/08/2014 4:09:25 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: equalator

Might the fact this country is circling the drain possibly have something to do with it?


27 posted on 06/08/2014 4:10:30 AM PDT by ScottinVA (Obama is so far in over his head, even his ears are beneath the water level.)
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To: Neidermeyer

” back then most people had farms and could survive without money”
__________________________________________________
Yes, and they were not government dependent crybabies.
The leftist population of today expects the government to take care of them from cradle to grave. The Afros, especially, say that “You owes me”.


28 posted on 06/08/2014 4:12:26 AM PDT by AlexW
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To: equalator

We need to do whatever it takes to make it once again both economically possible and respectable for people to marry and start families at 18 - 22, and not at 30 - 35. That might in fact require some sort of subsidy, so be it, the alternative is bringing in hordes of illegals and paying THEM to have children....


29 posted on 06/08/2014 4:16:54 AM PDT by varmintman (It must really suck to be a Nazi in Kiev these days...)
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To: equalator

I’m thinking I should ask my pastor that is the ratio of funerals:weddings:baptisms in our parish. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s 10:3:1


30 posted on 06/08/2014 4:21:43 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
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To: equalator

Duh. When you murder over a million children in the womb every year, you will have fewer births. All godless countries that kill children have falling population….but of course, ours is trying to get around that by encouraging an invasion of children from Central America. That should work out well>sarc


31 posted on 06/08/2014 4:24:43 AM PDT by txrefugee
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To: equalator

No real faith in God —— putting self first —— contraceptive mentality = NO to life


32 posted on 06/08/2014 4:34:16 AM PDT by SumProVita (Cogito, ergo....Sum Pro Vita - Modified Descartes)
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To: Ann Archy

“Oh Come on......women AND men don’t want more than 1 -2 kids today because they want TIME FOR THEMSELVES!!!”

I think it is as much about money as time; kids or cars?


33 posted on 06/08/2014 4:34:19 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: equalator

My guess is that the smart person now is reconsidering having their kids pay for the moochers that are taking over this country and don’t want them saddled with that burden. I bet the moochers are having baby booms since they get all that “free stuff” and don’t have to work now.


34 posted on 06/08/2014 4:37:58 AM PDT by freeangel ( (free speech is only good until someone else doesn't like it)
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To: freeangel

Plus, people aren’t hopeful about the future. I hate to say it but I say stick a fork in us, America has been done for quite some time


35 posted on 06/08/2014 4:42:10 AM PDT by equalator
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To: Timber Rattler; The_Republic_Of_Maine
Let me take a potshot guess and say that families can’t afford more kids these days, and also because mom has to work long hours now and has no time to bear and raise them?

There was an economic reason for families having a large number of kids in the past. One reason is that in an agrarian society, one needed the kids to eventually help work the farm in order to provide the additional income to grow and sustain the farm and the family or with the industrial revolution and urbanization, go to work at a young age to help support the large family. The other was the high infant and childhood mortality rate. It was not unusual for families to have 10-12 kids but a good half of them didn’t survive to adulthood. Then again, that was sometimes limited by the high rate of maternal death rates during or shortly after child birth.

Now days it is comparatively more expensive to raise kids than it was in the past and it is more of a burden what with in many families, even in two parent, intact families, both the father and mother have to work to make ends meet what with taxes and an overall higher cost of living.

Of course there are exceptions and it comes down to a matter of priorities.

A family today with a lot of kids and a traditional stay at home mom, like my niece and her husband (four little kids including a set of triplets, plus two step kids including one in college), they have to make sacrifices. They drive an old but 100% paid for used van and my niece’s husband drives a company truck and fortunately her husband is multi-talented and works on the van himself when it needs repairs or maintenance; they don’t live in a big house although they sure could use the space, they economize, buying groceries in bulk and at places like Aldi’s, BJ’s, Wal-Mart, etc, they buy kids clothes at second hand stores and consignment shops, they sell or consign the kids “gently” worn clothes and toys when they grow out of them, they don’t go out to eat, rarely go to the movies, etc. They make do with what they have and when the need to buy something they look for bargains. My niece’s husband also works many side jobs in addition to his full time job, which means he’s not around as often as he and his wife and kids would like. My niece worked from home for a time when the triplets were infants as they really needed the extra income and I’m not sure how she found time to sleep.

And my full time college student great niece who lives with her mom and step dad is an exceptional student and has some scholarships but she also works a nearly full time job to pay what her scholarships don’t cover and for her car and other living expenses and helps her mom out a lot at home with her younger sisters.

They make it all work and wouldn’t have it any other way.

My nephew and his wife on the other hand only have two kids, two girls, and don’t plan on having any more, at least for now, although my nephew would very much like to have a son. He has a very good job, making well into the 6 figures and his wife doesn’t have to work, they live in a much bigger and newer home than his sister and her husband, they drive new cars, and he recently bought a Porche, granted a used one, and last year went on a two week vacation to Italy. But they are also great parents and are raising two really great kids in a conservative and loving traditional home. I don’t see them as being materialistic or selfish for only having two kids.

One of the ways God shows His displeasure is by closing up the wombs of women in the disfavored regime.

My mother and father, who were FWIW, devout and very traditional Catholics, only had my brother and I and we were born 12 years apart, although my mother suffered a miscarriage in between. I never knew the reason for this but I am pretty sure my mother and father never used any forms of birth control. Perhaps my mother had infertility issues or they just didn’t have sex that often.

My husband and I very much wanted and desperately tried to have children but I couldn’t. Are you telling me that God was punishing me for who we elected as President, back in the 80’s, i.e. Ronald Regan? Really?

36 posted on 06/08/2014 4:43:04 AM PDT by MD Expat in PA
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To: varmintman

“We need to do whatever it takes to make it once again both economically possible and respectable for people to marry and start families at 18 - 22, and not at 30 - 35. That might in fact require some sort of subsidy, so be it, the alternative is bringing in hordes of illegals and paying THEM to have children...”

I’m sure enough meaningless tripe can be cut out of education so someone has a good four years of job training by 20.


37 posted on 06/08/2014 4:43:54 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: ConservativeInPA

All that soy is working, eh?


38 posted on 06/08/2014 4:44:51 AM PDT by huldah1776
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To: equalator

I’m sure they would have loved to use more baby-making as an excuse for the decline in workforce participation.


39 posted on 06/08/2014 4:47:13 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: equalator

The correct headline should be “Productive and Responsible Women Having Less Children, The Dependent and Irresponsible Women in America Are Breeding Like Rabbits”.


40 posted on 06/08/2014 4:49:57 AM PDT by Ponyexpress9790
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