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The Demographic Cliff: How will our society survive as it becomes older and numbers become fewer?
American Thinker ^ | 12/04/2012 | Jerome Koch

Posted on 12/04/2012 10:09:40 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Lost within the tsunami of campaign reporting was a study released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on October 3, 2012. The report, titled "Births: Preliminary Data for 2011," passed through the 24-hour news cycle with hardly a mention. The only reason I heard about it was due to a short blurb carried by a local outlet, which reported a significant drop in teenage births. This news item was, of course, reported as positive. But the full report and its tables of statistics reveals nothing positive whatsoever.

According to the CDC numbers, 2011 was a banner year. It recorded the lowest birthrate in our national history.

In March of 2011 I penned a short essay for American Thinker, "Where Have All the Children Gone?" which considered the worldwide trend of falling birthrates. This essay will cover the recent declining birthrates inside the United States, as well as economic repercussion that fall entails. According to the report, the General Fertility Rate (GFR) for the U.S. in 2011 was 63 births per 1000 females (ages 15-44). This was a 1 percent drop from 2010. The decline among Hispanic American females was 6%; the decline among non-Hispanic blacks was 1%, and there was no change among non-Hispanic whites.

Nineteen states saw drops in live births, including both Blue states (California, Illinois, and New York) and Red states (Texas, North Carolina, Utah, and North Carolina). Among the different age cohorts, the number of births dropped 10% for females 15-19, 5% for females 20-24 (the lowest number of births ever recorded for that cohort). For females 25-29 the birthrate declined just a tad under 1 percent. The birthrate for females 30-34 remained unchanged, while the age group 35-39 saw a 3% increase in their birthrate. The birthrate for females 40-44 remained essentially unchanged.

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


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: demography
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1 posted on 12/04/2012 10:09:46 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

If trends continue, the United States will follow Japan (whose population is now shrinking at 250,000 people a year), Germany (which will lose 25% of its population during the next 50 years), and Russia (in which over 1000 villages are abandoned each year). What should have been the number one issue of the 2012 elections wasn’t even mentioned by either candidate. The funding (or lack thereof) of our generously bloated welfare state has to come from somewhere.

Our federal budget deficits are not only a symptom of a political class that refuses to say no — they are also a reflection of our inverted demographic status. Two of our largest entitlement programs (Social Security and Medicare) depend solely on large cadres of younger workers earning sufficient incomes to keep everything going. The deficits we shall face in coming years will tower above what we’re running now. There will be too many elderly retirees and too few younger workers.


2 posted on 12/04/2012 10:10:27 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Just look at Europe. Same is happening here.


3 posted on 12/04/2012 10:11:16 AM PST by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: SeekAndFind

not just that

but the government subsidizes the killing of numerous babies too


4 posted on 12/04/2012 10:13:59 AM PST by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)
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To: SeekAndFind

Japan will be fine because they didn’t destroy their culture.

God help the rest of us...


5 posted on 12/04/2012 10:14:36 AM PST by DwFry (Baby Boomers Killed Western Civilization!)
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To: SeekAndFind

On the bright side I see Muslim women with numerous kids in tow all over the place.

/s


6 posted on 12/04/2012 10:16:01 AM PST by Aria ( 2008 & 2012 weren't elections - both were a coup d'etat.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Obama death panels will help cull out the growing senior population.
Need a heart! Too bad. Need a lung, too bad, need a kidney, too bad.
Need a blood transfusion, too bad.
The DC elites now will have the power to decide who lives and who dies.
Conservative? Too bad. You don’t get the treatment u need to live.

This once great nation has crossed the point of no return.


7 posted on 12/04/2012 10:18:45 AM PST by tennmountainman
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To: SeekAndFind

well the government giving everybody Free Birth Control is certainly gonna solve it /sarc


8 posted on 12/04/2012 10:21:33 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: SeekAndFind

It won’t.

Conseravtives will die, and they will not be replaced in any significant number to matter versus the drones being manufactured out of our children.

I would say that hopefully some future society learns from our mistakes, but that will not happen. As a society reaches a certain level of comfort, complacency sets in, its citizens think that circumstances that allowed such advancement are guaranteed when they are not. Meanwhile the enemies of that society plot relentlessly, and they will succeed.

What I have learned in my time on this rock is that mankind is not capable of defending his freedom neither from his enemies nor himself.


9 posted on 12/04/2012 10:29:13 AM PST by chris37 (Heartless.)
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To: SeekAndFind
If trends continue, the United States will follow Japan (whose population is now shrinking at 250,000 people a year), Germany (which will lose 25% of its population during the next 50 years), and Russia (in which over 1000 villages are abandoned each year).

Absolute nonsense. We are going to add 130 million more people in the next 40 years. Since 2000, our population has increased by 32 million or about the current population of Canada. The idea that we are going to lose population is absurd. Our current fertility rate is 2.06 and when you add in annual immigration, we will be fueling a population increase. It will not be in the too distant future that we will be approaching half a billion people in the US.

The U.S. adds one international migrant (net) every 46 seconds. Immigrants account for one in 8 U.S. residents, the highest level in more than 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. In a decade, it will be one in 7, the highest level in our history. And by 2050, one in 5 residents of the U.S. will be foreign-born.

Currently, 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year; 350,000 immigrants leave each year, resulting in net immigration of 1.25 million. Since 1970, the U.S. population has increased from 203 million to 313 million, i.e., over 100 million. In the next 40 years, the population will increase by 130 million. Three-quarters of the increase in our population since 1970 and the projected increase will be the result of immigration. The U.S., the world’s third most populous nation, has the highest annual rate of population growth of any major developed country in the world, i.e., 0.9% (2012 estimate), principally due to immigration.

An Older and More Diverse Nation by Midcentury

10 posted on 12/04/2012 10:31:16 AM PST by kabar
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To: SeekAndFind
Once all the ‘makers’ are gone... the ‘takers’ will have to remember (if they ever knew) how to be productive and then, how to lead.

By that time, the functional models for ‘making’ and ‘leadership’ will be so far removed from living memory that this new group of will have to wing it! That's where humanity reverts to type and puts abjectly greedy and unscrupulous people in the position of total control!

I say, good luck to them... I'm glad I'll be gone.

11 posted on 12/04/2012 10:32:52 AM PST by SMARTY ("The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings. "Henri Frederic Amiel)
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To: SeekAndFind
Birth rates do not necessarily only move in one direction. The term "baby boomers," for example, suggests the actual upward swing in the birthrate, after World War II.

Around 1900, it looked like the falling birthrate among American Indian tribes, might indicate their eventual extinction; but they rallied back up.

Whatever is coming, Conservatives need to get both their priorities & tactics in much clearer focus. (See Whither American Conservatism.

William Flax

12 posted on 12/04/2012 10:42:37 AM PST by Ohioan
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To: SeekAndFind
Extrapolating out the birthrate reduction during a recession does not seem valid to me.

The entire world population is eventually going to top out and start declining, but that may take close to a 100 years or so.

In the meantime we are doing much better than most advanced countries in the population increase area because of our comparatively liberal immigration policy, along with our de facto support of illegal immigration.

There are a lot of reasons why people not born here might want to settle here: lots of coastal property, varied climates and topographies, decent economy, generally free, etc. So if and when we need to entice young people to move here to support the old folks, we will be able to do so.

It would be nice if the people we enticed here were people who could support themselves and represented a true slice of humanity and not a rather narrow slice of those who happen to be living next door.

13 posted on 12/04/2012 10:57:28 AM PST by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: kabar

“Our current fertility rate is 2.06 and when you add in annual immigration, we will be fueling a population increase. It will not be in the too distant future that we will be approaching half a billion people in the US.”

The US population will hopefully remain stable. The current immigration rate will drop as worldwide fertility declines.


14 posted on 12/04/2012 11:06:10 AM PST by JCBreckenridge (Texas is a state of mind. - John Steinbeck :))
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

“The entire world population is eventually going to top out and start declining, but that may take close to a 100 years or so.”

Try 20. The UN’s low population estimate is optimistic, and assumes that nations with negative fertility rates magically trend upwards.


15 posted on 12/04/2012 11:08:03 AM PST by JCBreckenridge (Texas is a state of mind. - John Steinbeck :))
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To: chris37

Christian homeschooled kids are politically active at a 14X rate of the general population.
Christian homeschooling households usually have 5 or more kids.


16 posted on 12/04/2012 11:11:37 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: MrB

Well, as you can see, that is making all the difference in the world.


17 posted on 12/04/2012 11:17:35 AM PST by chris37 (Heartless.)
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To: SeekAndFind
How will our society survive as it becomes older and numbers become fewer?

Answer: It won't.

In the Southwest, hispanics are filling the vacuum by breedling like rabbits, as are the middle easterners in the upper Midwest.

Look alongside the streets of most communities... the mothers, the babies in strollers and the kids trailing behind aren't of the Caucasian persuasion.

I predict within 50 years, hispanics and muslims will be fighting over the landmass of the former America.

18 posted on 12/04/2012 11:22:11 AM PST by ScottinVA (I've never been more disgusted with American voters.)
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To: SMARTY
Once all the ‘makers’ are gone... the ‘takers’ will have to remember (if they ever knew) how to be productive and then, how to lead.

No.. they'll go even more feral and slaughter each other at an increasing rate for what they have. What you see in southside Chicago will be far more widespread.

19 posted on 12/04/2012 11:26:17 AM PST by ScottinVA (I've never been more disgusted with American voters.)
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To: ScottinVA

“What you see in southside Chicago will be far more widespread.”

Yup!

That’s a petri dish environment and perfect for a bloodthirsty tyrant who will make “O” look like a broken-glass Republican.


20 posted on 12/04/2012 11:36:11 AM PST by SMARTY ("The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings. "Henri Frederic Amiel)
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