Posted on 07/27/2018 5:58:41 AM PDT by Kaslin
Sometimes a society's values change sharply with almost no one noticing, much less anticipating the consequences. In 1968, according to a Gallup survey, 70 percent of American adults said that a family of three or more children was "ideal" -- about the same number as Gallup surveys starting in 1938. That number helps explain the explosive baby boom after Americans were no longer constrained by depression and world war.
Those values and numbers didn't last. By 1978, Gallup reported that only 39 percent considered three or more children "ideal." The numbers have hovered around there ever since, spiking to just 41 percent in the late-1990s tech boom.
The change in values and behavior took time to register. Just before the 1972 presidential election, then-President Richard Nixon and a Democratic Congress goosed up Social Security benefits. They figured the baby-boom generation was just delaying producing a baby boom of its own. Wrong. Social Security has needed patching up ever since.
Similarly, the 1970s showed sharp increases in female workforce participation, divorce and singe-parent households, as well as decreased participation in voluntary organizations -- all unanticipated.
Is a similar values shift happening now? Maybe so, suggest George Mason University associate professor Philip Auerswald and Palo Alto hedge fund manager Joon Yun in an article in The New York Times. They point out that the American fertility rate -- the number of children per woman age 15 to 44 -- has hit a post-1970s low. Birth rates typically drop during recessions and rise a bit during booms. They did drop notably from 2007 to 2009. But the latest data don't show a rebound, despite significant growth and record-low unemployment. CARTOONS | Henry Payne View Cartoon
The trend varies among demographic groups. Native-born Hispanics and blacks used to have birth rates above the replacement rate (2.1 births per woman). Now they're below replacement, almost as low that of as native-born whites and Asians, which are down only a bit. The immigrant birth rate remains above replacement level among blacks, but only barely above among Hispanics, and below among whites and Asians.
One possible consequence: Those often-gleeful predictions that whites will soon be a minority will not be realized so soon, or maybe ever. Nor is it clear, as sociologist Richard Alba has suggested, whether often-intermarrying Hispanics and Asians will see themselves as aggrieved minorities. They might just blend in, like Italians and Poles.
Also, the sharp drop in the Hispanic birth rate combined with the sharp drop of Hispanic (especially Mexican) immigration post-2007 means a lower proportion of low-skill immigrants competing for jobs with low-skill Americans. Asian immigrants may outnumber Hispanics and arrive with significantly higher skill levels. So may immigrants from African countries like Nigeria and Ghana. Their capacity for expanding the economy rather than competing for low-skill jobs may point to unexpected growth. And neither group arrives with grievances rooted in slavery and American racial segregation.
Other familiar trends may be reversed. Demographer and Institute for Family Studies research fellow Lyman Stone, citing various data, argues, "The decline in fertility is mostly due to declining marriage," as downscale women have had difficulty finding suitable spouses. They might have more success if the recent increase in downscale wages continues.
Similarly, fewer young people would get caught in the trap of incurring huge college debt for worthless degrees or none at all if, as the Manhattan Institute's Aaron Renn suggests, enrollment in higher education, already declining, starts plunging precipitously around 2025. Might young people bypass college and find constructive jobs and marry and raise families as their counterparts did in the postwar years?
That's suggested by a recent trend reversal. During the sluggish 2008-2013 economy, young Americans stayed put in tiny child-unfriendly apartments in hip central-coastal cities like New York and San Francisco, and paid high rents resulting from stringent environmental restrictions. This was hailed as a move toward progressive attitudes. But evidently not. As Newgeography proprietor Joel Kotkin has noted, since growth returned, young people have been heading to child-friendly suburbs and exurbs, ditching subway cards for SUV fobs.
All of which raises the possibility of current stubbornly low birth rates being on the verge of a rise, away from the economically and culturally divided low-birth-rate society described in Charles Murray's "Coming Apart," and toward something suggested by Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again."
For the moment, these countertrends are just possibilities. But since persistently low birth rates lead to population loss, economic stagnation and low creativity, let's hope some of them come true.
You’re right; they aren’t succeeding in trying to shame young men into marriage. Thanks to a half century of leftist propaganda, the very concept of marriage is regarded as obsolete.
Unfortunately most people who still view sex in that context are Muslim; technology thankfully has made it easier than ever to find like-minded potential mates online, though I don’t know much about that (whether it works or not).
We are encouraged by the young families in our church with four or more children being brought up in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4). Many of them are being home schooled. That will be a blessing to our country.
Search for ‘Amish population boom.’
Freegards
Pre-born genocidal propaganda, feminism, male-hating, and what is it with kids being too expensive? Explain this to me? Not willing to adjust the budget? Put multiple kids in a bedroom? Seriously. Explain it to me how the average family cannot afford 3 or 4 children.
Western Europe has been desperately trying to bring families back for decades; people simply don’t want the burdens and responsibilities of families. Like Western Europe, economic insecurity is a big driver of this.
Toxic incentive patterns can be reversed...
Doing my part also; five children, all healthy and active.
My best friend in Texas, near Ft Hood has 18. Yes, 18, from one mom. 17 of them are active, smart, and going to be a great addition to whatever community and place they end up. My Africn friends go totally crazy when I show them this.
Generally, the more prosperous the country, the lower the birthrate. There are many reasons for it, but the idea that a country must have an ever increasing population to have a viable economy, just doesn't comport with the facts.
Again, Western Europe has been trying unsuccessfully for decades; when government policies meet leftist atheism propagated by “mainstream culture”, the government loses.
“There are many reasons for it, but the idea that a country must have an ever increasing population to have a viable economy, just doesn’t comport with the facts. “
It’s not that advanced nations with low birthrates will not have a viable economy, it’s that they will be out-competed by other cultures on their own land. It is the Christian, capitalist culture that made the West grow and prosper. Cultures that come from Africa and the Middle East are failed because they don’t have the background that enables them to flourish once they come to the West. Instead, they live in unassimilated no-go zones. What happens when the native Western culture dies out? The nation is irrevocably changed. Take England, for example. As the Muslim mayor of London said, “Terrorism is the new normal. Get used to it.” (Oh, the joys of diversity, eh?)
The 1965 Immigration Act changed the demography of the US forever. Non-Hispanic whites will be 50% of the population in 2043, down from the current 63% and 89% in 1970. By 2023 the percentage of foreign born will be the highest in our history. Immigrants and minorities vote more than two to one Democrat. The status quo on legal immigration will make the Dems the permanent majority party within a decade.
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Certainly not by me. I don’t have the slightest desire to have kids...never have, never will.
Russia reversed its declining birth rates from 1.5 up to roughly 2.0. This did this by no longer incentivizing abortion and encouraging a culture of life.
The nation of Georgia did so through a deliberate pro-life message of its religious leader, and he personally became the god-father of all third and later children born in the small country. Their birth rate is up despite a decline in illegitimate births.
Conversely, government inducements do NOT work. Nations with the most expensive perks from a year of parental leave to cash for kids don’t see a real spike in birth rates, simply accelerated arrivals of planned first and second children. The more they spend as a percentage of GDP, the lower the birth rate because, overall, the high tax rate and regulatory environment discourages large families.
This is why the MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) movement is gaining traction. It is the direct response by men to being pushed too far by feminists and a legal system that favors women over men, often destroying men's lives based solely on the word of the woman.
I think it was Gloria Steinem who said, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Well, men are now saying that if a woman doesn't need a man, then perhaps it's time for her learn to swim on her own or sink to the bottom.
No. The education system. Feminism. The extreme advantage a woman has in court against a man. The education system guarantees that nothing can change so long as public schools exist. There is no possibility of improvement there. The left owns the teachers colleges. We are a feminine society in that females control the direction even if men are at the top politically. They are answerable ultimately to women.
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