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Despite some hope that the pandemic might bring the country a baby boom, we had a bust. Total fertility in 2020 was the lowest rate on record since the government began tracking it in the 1930s, and total births were the lowest since 1979, well below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman. Economic and health concerns weighed on the minds of those who chose not to have a child this past year. But the plummeting numbers fit with a multi-year trend: American women are simply having fewer children and are waiting much longer to marry than women just...

People To Have More Babies Republicans must become not just the party of workers but also the party of families. They should do it by upping Joe Biden’s proposed child tax credit into something bigger.As the Republican Party charts its path during a Joe Biden presidency, there will undoubtedly be calls from the corporate wing to return to the neoliberal orthodoxy that defined it under the Bushes, Mitt Romney, and Paul Ryan. This would be a profound mistake.President Donald Trump has repositioned Republicans as the party of workers with his focus on trade, industrial, and immigration issues. By crafting an...

As 2017 drew to a close, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) urged Americans to have more children. To keep the country great, he said, we’re “going to need more people.” “I did my part,” the father of three declared. Ryan’s remarks drew some eye rolls at the time, but as new data about the country’s collapsing fertility rates has emerged, concern has deepened over what’s causing the changes, whether it constitutes a crisis that will fundamentally change the demographic trajectory of the country — and what should be done about it. Women are now having fewer babies and at...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Fertility rates in the United States are plummeting, driven primarily by non-Hispanic white women and Hispanic women who are bearing fewer children. In a report released on Thursday, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that non-Hispanic white Americans are dying at a faster rate than they are being born for the second time in American history. Hispanic women are having fewer children, partially due to how economic weakness has slowed immigration. Hispanics and whites make up approximately 80 percent of the nation's population, and their childbearing patterns weigh heavily on the nation's overall picture. Hispanics have seen their...

Young women just aren’t that crazy about babies any more, shunning the diaper changes and midnight feedings for dubbed-in family members that don’t demand as much care: dogs. And not just any type dog — specifically, those that weigh less than 25 pounds. “I’d rather have a dog over a kid,” said Sara Foster, 30, the proud owner of a French bulldog named Maddie, the New York Post reported. “It’s just less work and, honestly, I have more time to go out. You … don’t have to get a baby sitter.” Her view is being repeated across the nation by...

The fertility rate of women in the United States fell to a record low for the second year in a row in 2012, according to data released last week by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Also for the second year in a row, 40.7 percent of the babies born in the United States were born to unmarried mothers. The fertility rate is the number of births per 1,000 women aged 15-44. In 2012—according to the Dec. 30, 2013 CDC report “Births: Final Data for 2012”—the U.S. fertility rate was 63.0. That was down from 63.2 in 2011,...

Global demographics, not domestic policy, will control who comes and who goes. In Washington, politicians are trying to reform America's immigration system, again. Both President Obama and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are proposing "paths to citizenship" for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. Other proposals abound, including finishing the border fence, creating a better E-Verify system for employers and passing the last Congress' Dream Act. All of these ideas, however, fundamentally misunderstand immigration in America: Future immigration is probably going to be governed not by U.S. domestic policy choices but by global demographics.... --snip-- ...that Puerto Rico's fertility rate...

Do We Love Kids? Five years ago, on a quiet, leisurely Thursday night, my husband and I sat at the dining room table with a yellow notepad, discussing when we should start having kids. "See, here's how it works," he said, drawing a graph. "With a dog, you put in a medium amount of work, and you get a medium amount of reward. If you were to, say, purchase a lion, you'd put in a lot of work, but you'd get pretty much no reward - and you might even get eaten. Horrible deal." He paused, drawing a straight...

We can thank Providence that the earthquake was not 150 miles closer to Tokyo, else Japan's dead might number in the millions. Prime Minister Naoto Kan calls it the worst crisis since World War II. Yet, horrendous as it is, it does not, thus far, compare with that. For the earthquake dead are not 1 percent of those who perished in World War II. Between 1942 and 1945, Japan was stripped naked of an empire that embraced Formosa, Korea, Manchuria, the entire China coast, all of French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia),...

snip Americans are having fewer babies snip “It’s the recession,” said Andrew Hacker, a sociologist at Queens College of the City University of New York. “Children are the most expensive item in every family’s budget, especially given all the gear kids expect today. So it’s a good place to cut back when you’re uncertain about the future.” In 2007, the number of births in the United States broke a 50-year-old record high, set during the baby boom. But last year, births began to decline nationwide, by nearly 2 percent, according to provisional figures released last week. Those figures from the...

Thousands of couples in India who agreed to put off having babies for at least two years after their wedding will collect cash payments this month as health officials attempt to curb the country's rapidly growing population. Neighbouring China shows the first signs of relaxing its strict policy of one child per couple in the face of an ageing population, India is searching for a way of restricting the size of families as the battle over scarce resources grows. The country's population stands at 1.2 billion and is expected to reach 1.53 billion by 2050. But increasing pressure on resources...

California had 14,570 fewer births in 2008 than in the previous year, a 2.6 percent drop that surprised demographers with its size. It was the first annual decline in births since 2001, when the state was last mired in a recession. While the economy is one likely cause, the migration of young Latinas in their prime childbearing years out of California, and a slowdown of illegal immigration, are ongoing factors that could cut into the state's future population growth if they continue. "In the kind of economy we have, it's possible that people are opting not to have children that...

Shanghai authorities are urging eligible couples to have a second baby, after years of following a one-child policy, amid concerns about a lack of young workers to support its ageing population. snip The problem is particularly acute in Shanghai. Zhang said its fertility rate was 0.88 in 2008 – far below the national average of around 1.8 – and that which is needed simply to keep the population at the same level. snip Xia Xueluan, a professor of sociology at Peking University, said family planning had many advantages, but applauded the new policy. "They should have done this earlier, and...

Since Estonia regained independence, the birth rate of Estonians has been negative, but in 2008, nearly 600 Estonians more were born than died, writes EPL Online/LETA. The birth rate of the entire population of Estonia remained negative, however – in 2008, Estonia lost 647 residents. In the year 1992 – the first year after regaining of independence – Estonians' birth rate was minus 755, a year later the birth rate among Estonians had fallen to minus 2,731. The year 1994 was the worst one in terms of birth rate since regaining of independence – 4,323 persons more died than were...

There were an estimated 17.14 million children under the age of 15 in Japan as of April 1, marking a record low for the 28th straight year, according to a government report released Monday. The report by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, released a day ahead of the Children's Day national holiday, showed that children's share of the population was 13.4 percent, declining for the 35th consecutive year. The latest figures continue to show the country is experiencing a declining birthrate and an aging population. As of April 1, the proportion of people aged 65 and older was...

PARIS (AFP) France cemented its status as Europe's fertility champion on Tuesday when fresh statistics showed women are having on average more than two children each, an increase from last year's birth rate. The second most populous country in the European Union after Germany, France began 2009 with 64.3 million inhabitants, 366,500 more than in 2008, according to the national statistics agency INSEE. While there are fewer women of child-bearing age in France, the birth rate has continued to climb, with 2.02 children on average born to every woman in 2008, up from 1.98 in 2007. Last year, more than...

Dear Colleague: Seventeen European nations are now having so few wee bairns that there is little prospect of a demographic comeback.  Cardinal Trujillo is among those who recognize that Europe's days could be numbered. Steven W. Mosher President PRI Weekly Briefing   3 March 2006  Vol. 8 / No. 9 Facing the Facts of Europe's Suicide By Joseph A. D'Agostino Will the Muslims inherit Western Europe?  "If [Western people] don't do something, probably," replies Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Senior Fellow in Economics at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. "That's a very probable outcome.  The West doesn't...

BRUSSELS: A European Union study has shown that most European couples would on average like at least two children but end up having only one because of worries about financial costs. The study, funded by the EU Commission and based on data from 30,000 people in 14 European countries, said that more than half of all those questioned – male or female – wanted to have two or more children. But it said many stopped after one child because they did not want to see a decline in their standard of living. Couples desiring more than two children lived in...