Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Path to National Suicide: U.S. fertility rates have dropped over the last two centuries and show no sign of rising
American Thinker ^ | 05/23/2023 | Robert Weissberg

Posted on 05/23/2023 7:32:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Without unrestricted immigration, nations like the United States cannot survive unless women have about 2.1 children each (the .1 reflects women who do not have children).  The bad news is that the U.S. is falling short in reproducing itself. Occasional exceptions such as the Baby Boom aside, U.S. fertility rates have dropped over the last two centuries and show no sign of rising to the 2.1 replacement level. We are currently at 1.6.

The baby shortfall has huge consequences beyond potentially filling the nation with immigrants. An aging population brings higher healthcare costs, budgets devoured by pensions, shrinking tax bases, labor shortages, empty schools and universities, and a stagnant economy.

Moreover, Africa aside, depopulation is worldwide and, apparently unfixable. Countries as diverse as Japan and Russia have tried the “obvious” solutions such as free childcare and subsidies, but to no avail.  Scandinavian countries offer lavish child-friendly policies but likewise fail to move the needle. Between 2006 and 2021, South Korea spent $200 billion for maternity leave, paid childcare, and similar pro-natal measures, but the fertility rate dropped from 1.1 to .81.  

This should be a major political issue regardless of one’s ideology. The Left surely needs a healthy economy to finance its welfare state while businesses depend on factory and service workers. Nobody wants a shrinking workforce whose principal responsibility is to fund a growing geriatric population. 

Our fertility problems acknowledged, what is being done to encourage more children?  Where are educators in this crisis who might help shape a pro-child culture? Schools and the media are certainly relevant.  Recall the popular Dick and Jane elementary school reading books of the 1950s featuring an idyllic family or family-friendly TV-sitcoms from that era.

Amazingly, much of our education establishment is pushing youngsters away from family life


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


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: children; demographics; fertility; population; populationcontrol
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-65 next last
To: SeekAndFind
No signs of rising, indeed.

This has been studied and documented for decades now, but the political blather obscures,

Jean-Claude Chesnais wrote of this in "Population and Development Review," Vol. 27, Supplement: Global Fertility Transition (2001), in an article titled "A March toward Population Recession."

The current crop of European and North American Leftists think this "population recession" can be turned aside by mass immigration, or else their cousin Leftists are busy making themselves wealthy in the short term by "importing labor," which the BS model of politics calls "moderate" conservatism like the Koch family and many RINOs, in collusion with the Left.

In fact, the problem is not political at all, because in the long run it is utterly demographic, with even "immigrants" in Europe and the US not reaching a "replacement rate" number of children per family. The coming "recession" -- depression will be the economic term -- caused by Chesnais' "population recession" can only be stopped by replacement rate breeding.

Standing in the way: Malthus-thinking intellectuals, abortion in the millions, endemic birth control, sterilization through "gender affirming" stupidity as well as sterilizing effects of STDs, and of course death by war and murderous "civil" mayhem.

The answer is simple. And it will be regional. Replacement rate is the only answer to what is unarguably "population recession" is to stop "recessing."

41 posted on 05/23/2023 8:14:42 AM PDT by Worldtraveler once upon a time (Degrow government)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

My sister and I discussed this last week after our 38-year-old cousin lost a baby at nine months.

The priority of young women for a couple decades is to jump right into a career, claw their way up corporate ladders, and wait to have their kids. IIRC, the older a woman is when she has babies, the more risk is involved.

When we were young women in their early twenties, the babies started early on, they were generally healthy, and moms raised them in to school age or beyond. Then moms went to work, if they wanted to.

One more of the unintended consequences of feminism.


42 posted on 05/23/2023 8:15:55 AM PDT by MayflowerMadam (Worrying doesn't take away tomorrow's troubles. It takes away today's peace.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Do we care about fertility rates when there are so many more Americans and more children survive into adulthood? How many is enough?


43 posted on 05/23/2023 8:22:58 AM PDT by newzjunkey (We need a better Trump than Trump in 2024)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

It’s pattern not a guarantee of future patterns. Natural selection will sort it out in a few generations. Those with genetic or social drives to reproduce will do ao and and those who don’t will become less common. As the % of those with these traits increase as part of the population they will bond with each other (isn’t that a nice way of saying it I thought) more frequently and the birth rates will rise again.

We just need to hold the course steady and protect or border and limit legal immigration.

If we do what Brandon and his ilk want which is to allow our native population to drop while we import illegal immigrate guess what we have folks?

REPLACEMENT THEORY

Sleepy Joe can lie or read others lies on his monitor all day as that is what will happen with current trends if they don’t change.

https://www.politico.com/video/2022/05/17/biden-condemns-those-who-spread-replacement-theory-for-power-political-gain-and-for-profit-577430


44 posted on 05/23/2023 8:25:30 AM PDT by Phoenix8
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 9422WMR
So all those Latinos males coming over the border are going to reproduce asexually?

"Of course not, gringo! With the help of Señor Biden, we thrive, eh?"


45 posted on 05/23/2023 8:28:02 AM PDT by COBOL2Java ("Life without liberty is like a body without spirit." - Kahlil Gibran)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

White women don’t want to replace themselves. Minority women want to replace themselves and are.

Whites will be a minority as a result. And they will be plundered via taxation to pay “reparations” and the like.

America is done.


46 posted on 05/23/2023 8:42:41 AM PDT by Trumpisourlastchance
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
I believe every First World society now has reproduction rates that fall below the replacement rate. China's reproduction rate has also fallen below its replacement rate, and even India's wealthier southern states now have reproduction rates below the replacement rate.

This seems to be closely associated with rising rates of prosperity. Poor people have many kids, as an economic necessity for extra labor and security in their old age. Wealthier people don't need to have as many kids. The world is getting wealthier, older and having fewer kids. 2100 will see a smaller world population than 2000.
47 posted on 05/23/2023 8:43:37 AM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: markman46
In Israel, the Orthodox sects like various Hasidic groups have large families, far larger than those of other Jews, even the Modern Orthodox. As a result, those who are called Ultra-Orthodox or Haredi are increasing relative to the total population of Israel. Keep in mind that the Haredi were more likely to become victims of the Nazis because of their inability to blend in with Gentile populations or their lesser financial resources, making emigration more difficult. Therefore, their numbers were vary small at the time of the founding of the Jewish state. They currently represent 12% of Israel's population and if current trends continue, they will represent a third of the that nation's population.

This is not strictly a Jewish or Israeli phenomenon. A survey conducted by Pew Research in 2018 compared Catholics who attended traditional Latin Masses vs. those who attended New Order Masses. This survey covered Catholics in 16 states, in both heavily Catholic states like Connecticut and very Protestant states like West Virginia. The fertility rate for the Latin Mass attendees was 3.6 children per family on average vs. 2.3 for the New Order Mass attendees. Assuming the children of Latin Mass attendees remain traditional Catholics, it means that in the long run, they will be an increasing percentage of the Catholic population.

The bottom line is that demographics is destiny.

48 posted on 05/23/2023 8:44:17 AM PDT by Wallace T.
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

With the Trans/LBGTQQQGNQVOIQN Satanism/insanity, and >20% of young kids being brainwashed into accepting it, that is yet more reason why America is headed this way.


49 posted on 05/23/2023 8:45:37 AM PDT by Trumpisourlastchance
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
According to a 2018 Pew Research Center article, 56% of women voters are (or lean toward) Demonicrats. Any spawn (they don't abort) are not likely to be helpful.

The 37% of women voters that are (or lean toward) Republicans are to a significant degree likely grandmothers, widows, or beyond child-bearing age. Those few in the 18-40 age bracket have their work cut out for them if we are to avoid national suicide.

50 posted on 05/23/2023 8:50:41 AM PDT by Carl Vehse
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 9422WMR

Their birth rate dropped as well.


51 posted on 05/23/2023 9:10:17 AM PDT by nickcarraway
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Japan is getting along just fine without “diversifying” through mass immigration, despite their low birth rates. Don’t buy the globalist neoCON BS about “having” to make up for low birth rates with mass foreign 3rd world immigration. It’s all a scam. All that matters to them is cheap 3rd world labor wages so they can have serfs/slaves.


52 posted on 05/23/2023 9:10:43 AM PDT by imabadboy99
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
Without unrestricted immigration, nations like the United States cannot survive unless women have about 2.1 children each (the .1 reflects women who do not have children).

Not sure I accept this premise. Why can't the USA survive with a dropping population?

53 posted on 05/23/2023 9:19:36 AM PDT by marktwain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: markman46
It’s not just the United States this is happening in it all over the world, Asia, Europe too

It is not happening in Muslim countries.

It is not happening in Africa.

Less clear, but I don't think it is happening in many South American countries.

54 posted on 05/23/2023 9:26:06 AM PDT by marktwain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
Without unrestricted immigration, nations like the United States cannot survive unless women have about 2.1 children each

BS. I refuse to read another wold. If we stop all immigration then US citizens will have a higher standard of living and make more kids. More immigration = less native born.

This screed is an open border GOPe dream.

55 posted on 05/23/2023 9:29:40 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tom Tetroxide
The chart in Post 28 correlates with wages: The constant decline until wealth was shared with the lower classes to build up for WW2, the U.S. being the main world economic engine due to Europe and Japan being destroyed in WW2, the ensuing return to stagnant wages by the 1970s, and the flatline since then.

One could argue that birth rates are exactly where they'd be financially. Who can afford to have children of their own while being forced to pay for others' children?

56 posted on 05/23/2023 9:32:42 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Couldn’t find the date range in this article. When did the drop in fertility rates seem to begin?


57 posted on 05/23/2023 9:38:47 AM PDT by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jim W N
Couldn’t find the date range in this article. When did the drop in fertility rates seem to begin?

Perhaps this CDC chart can help you :


58 posted on 05/23/2023 10:17:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies]

To: Jim W N
Here's a chart taking ABORTIONS into consideration.


59 posted on 05/23/2023 10:21:40 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies]

To: Varda

That’s part of it. But on the other hand, the government sure does know how to grow the population amount other segments of our society.


60 posted on 05/23/2023 10:30:42 AM PDT by skeeter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-65 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson