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More Women Than Ever Are Childless, Census Finds
New York Times ^ | August 18, 2008 | Katie Zezima

Posted on 08/19/2008 6:54:24 AM PDT by reaganaut1

Women are waiting longer to have children, and more women than ever are choosing not to have children at all, according to a new Census Bureau report.

Twenty percent of women ages 40 to 44 have no children, double the level of 30 years ago, the report said; and women in that age bracket who do have children have fewer than ever — an average of 1.9 children, compared with the median of 3.1 children in 1976.

“A lot of women are not having any children,” said Jane Lawler Dye, a Census Bureau researcher who did the report, which looked at women of childbearing age in 2006. “It used to be sort of expected that there was a phase of life where you had children, and a lot of women aren’t doing that now,” Ms. Dye said.

Women with advanced degrees are more likely to be childless, the study found. Of women 40 to 44 with graduate or professional degrees, 27 percent are childless, compared with 18 percent of women who did not continue their education beyond high school, the data show.

The numbers are consistent with a 2006 report Ms. Dye issued on the same subject. While year-by-year change is slow, Ms. Dye said, the data show that women of the baby boom generation are continuing to transform the American family.

Hispanic women are the only group bucking the trends found in the study, averaging 2.3 children each by their 40s. The number of children a Hispanic woman has decreases sharply, however, depending on how many generations her family has lived in the United States, the data show.

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


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: census; childfree; demographics; genx; hispanics; women
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To: Cloverfarm

It’s like that here in north San Diego County, also. Lots of larger families (3, 4, and 5) and traditional homemakers. I for one think it’s the conservative Republican politics and Christian faith.

My wife (B.A., History) also missed the memo. We have three and would’ve had at least one more but then we turned 40.


61 posted on 08/19/2008 8:00:35 AM PDT by tom h
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To: varyouga
"It’s pretty hard to find a “non-career” woman with above average intelligence today. People consider it almost a sin for a girl to be family orientated. At least here in the PRNYC."

30 years ago, when I was a teenager, there was an old adage, that if you want to find a traditional gal to marry, go the Midwest.

It's still true today.

Get a one-year posting from your employer in some part of flyover country, or get an agreement take a sabbatical (so you have a job when you come back). I know that New Yorkers find Kansas City, Cincinnati, Des Moines, and Peoria to sound awfully boring, but you will have a wonderful time as long as you don't act like an arrogant New Yorker (I don't say that accusingly) and you will meet some awfully nice, traditional ladies.

Spoken by someone raised in Los Angeles, who married a Kansas City gal 21 years ago. I'm still in love, she's still gorgeous, she's still a doll, and we have three wonderful children.

62 posted on 08/19/2008 8:06:09 AM PDT by tom h
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To: wmfights; Alter Kaker; reaganaut1
The sons and daughters of the new immigrants (legal & illegal) will marry children of other ancestry.

This assertion is doubly FALSE. First: the children of the aboriginal peoples of Mexico will NOT [on average] marry into other races [and especially they will not (on average) marry Caucasians]. Second: the girls of the aboriginal peoples of Mexico will NOT, on average, even bother to MARRY IN THE FIRST PLACE before making their children - already, the illegitimacy rate in the aboriginal community is soaring past 50%.

The country has always thrived on new blood.

Sometimes "new blood" has helped this country.

Other times, "new blood" has given us the likes of Emma Goldman, Al Capone, and Joseph P Kennedy Sr, and has proved decidedly harmful to the country.

Sadly, the aboriginal peoples of Mexico bring no known qualities to the table which can be of any use whatsoever to existing Americans:

The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayer
by Robert E. Rector and Christine Kim
May 21, 2007
heritage.org

...When the costs of direct and means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services are counted, the average low-skill household had a fiscal deficit of $19,588 (expenditures of $30,160 minus $10,573 in taxes)...


63 posted on 08/19/2008 8:06:47 AM PDT by KayEyeDoubleDee (const Tag &referenceToConstTag)
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To: reaganaut1

I am just old enough to know dozens of former feminist pigs, newly converted to women, who regret chasing the feminist goals at the cost of family and children. Now, over 50, they face retirement without children and grandchildren. They are truly sad women.


64 posted on 08/19/2008 8:06:56 AM PDT by Righter-than-Rush
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To: reaganaut1

“Twenty percent of women ages 40 to 44 have no children”

And just where would a man find one of these women?


65 posted on 08/19/2008 8:10:10 AM PDT by Grunthor (Dems want to destroy America, Republicans just want to be Dems.)
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To: wmfights; tom h

I heard a great “litmus test” for a good wife.

Watch her relationship with her father. If she is respectful towards her father, even (or especially) outside his presence, go to that father immediately and plead your worthiness to court his daughter.

I heard another example the other day -

a man, with no intentions on the young lady, noticed her carriage, her modest dress and hair style, and approached her - “young lady, can you promise me something?”

She responded that she couldn’t promise anything without her father’s permission.

He said, “well, ask your father if you can promise to always dress, walk, and act just the way you do now.”


66 posted on 08/19/2008 8:12:01 AM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: unixfox

“It could’nt mean that MEN are waiting longer to get married, now could it.”

What does marriage have to do with having kids?


67 posted on 08/19/2008 8:12:24 AM PDT by Grunthor (Dems want to destroy America, Republicans just want to be Dems.)
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To: tom h

“45 million abortions since Roe v. Wade, a huge number”

Yes, last year it was only 35 million :)


68 posted on 08/19/2008 8:13:20 AM PDT by ar15lib
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To: driftdiver
You're right. Rampant homosexuality is usually the symptom of the cultural decline but not the cause of it. Dennis Prager did a brilliant thesis on the issue one time, and he linked rampant homosexuality with (1) prosperity, (2) loss of social mores, and especially (3) no demand in society that men be responsible for their offspring (! consider the welfare society). Once life was easy, and men were free of social constraints, sex became the number one focus. And, because free and unbridled sex is not your average woman's goal, then men did it with men.

That's why the ancient Greek and Roman societies, and others, had huge surges in homosexual activity above the 1-2% we know is typical.

Kinda puts a lug wrench in the left's thesis that homosexuals are born, not made, doesn't it?

69 posted on 08/19/2008 8:14:21 AM PDT by tom h
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To: reaganaut1

Don’t get me started on the women in their 30s-early 40s who were too damn picky in finding a man in their younger years, so decide to have a child for “companionship” via a sperm donor. Thankfully, these ladies only have one kid, therefore only dropping one socially dysfunctional spawn per woman.


70 posted on 08/19/2008 8:16:59 AM PDT by Clemenza (No Comment)
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To: reaganaut1

I just spoke to a friend of mine who teaches 2nd grade in a public school that is in a rural part of South Carolina. She is very frustrated over the number of her kids (15 out of 21) who cannot read more than 10 words on a 1st grade level. Several cannot even spell their names- and this is 2nd grade. She said after meeting the parents, she understands- her class is proof positive of the apple not falling far from the tree and too many people who cannot provide for themselves are procreating at unbelievable rates.


71 posted on 08/19/2008 8:20:04 AM PDT by MissEdie (On the Sixth Day God created Spurrier)
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To: ken21
the u.s. birth rate reached 1.7 in the late 1970’s due to the feminist movement. boomer women who came of child-bearing age in the mid-sixties didn’t have kids..

Being born in 1976, it may be hard for some folks to imagine what it was like to have so few children around to play with. Between the low birth rate and the "razor blades in candy" scare, Halloween was all but dead in the early-mid 1980s. Now it has become "dress like a slut" day.

Since there was another baby boom in the late 80s-early 90s, there are so many Gen Ys/Millenials entering the workforce, or about to enter the workforce. Us GenXers are WAY outnumbered by both the boomers above us and the Yers/millenials below us. It sucks!

72 posted on 08/19/2008 8:20:28 AM PDT by Clemenza (No Comment)
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To: Morgana

Female engineers are surrounded by men all day. I have two female friends who are in said profession, and they have their choice of men. Unfortunately, engineers (male AND female) tend to be very picky.


73 posted on 08/19/2008 8:22:08 AM PDT by Clemenza (No Comment)
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To: reaganaut1
More Women Than Ever Are Childless, Census Finds

This may be interesting information, but what does it have to do with the apportionment of Representative to Congress?

I wonder how many here think this is the sort of thing the Federal government is legally allowed to do, or maybe don't think about it at all.

ML/NJ

74 posted on 08/19/2008 8:25:40 AM PDT by ml/nj
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To: reaganaut1

Statistical blip that won’t carry over to the next generation.


75 posted on 08/19/2008 8:28:05 AM PDT by Tanniker Smith (Teachers open the door. It's up to you to enter.)
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To: napscoordinator
Did Rome REALLY fall because of homosexuality???? I think that is a myth.

Probably not. But it didn't help. Social degeneration in general is what eventually killed the Empire.
76 posted on 08/19/2008 8:28:56 AM PDT by Antoninus (McCain/Palin in 2008!)
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To: tom h
Christian women have more children than tatooed, pierced babes on the West and left coasts.

Lots of fat, tattooed ladies in central PA and in the lower midwest/south popping out babies as well. I tend to find the single moms in this "class" of ladies tend to stick with one or two, and if they do get married it doesn't last.

In suburban San Diego, where we live, there are huge numbers of college-educated white women having three and four children (Mrs Tom H and I have three). Ditto for the Mormons.

Believe it or not, there has been a baby boom over the past few years among affluent families in the New York area. This is why you see strollers all over the higher-end nabes in Manhattan these days. The women take off to push the kids around Central Park, while the husband works 80 hours a week at the hedge fund/private equity fund.

77 posted on 08/19/2008 8:31:52 AM PDT by Clemenza (No Comment)
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To: Grunthor
And just where would a man find one of these women?

Law offices and accounting firms.

78 posted on 08/19/2008 8:34:12 AM PDT by Clemenza (No Comment)
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To: Antoninus

The core institution of any stable society is a family consisting of

1 Husband
1 Wife
However many children they are blessed with

Anything that denigrates or undermines this institution is furthering the destruction of society.


79 posted on 08/19/2008 8:34:31 AM PDT by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: Clemenza

“And just where would a man find one of these women?
Law offices and accounting firms.”

Thank you, I’ll begin the hunt.


80 posted on 08/19/2008 8:35:20 AM PDT by Grunthor (Dems want to destroy America, Republicans just want to be Dems.)
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