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posted by janrinok on Thursday November 28 2019, @02:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-guys-know-what-the-solution-is dept.

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Fertility Rate in U.S. Hit a Record Low in 2018

The rate of births fell again last year, according to new government data, extending a lengthy decline as women wait until they are older to have children.

The number of births per 1,000 women in the United States has been declining even as the economy has recovered from the downturn of 2007-8. 

The fertility rate in the United States fell in 2018 for the fourth straight year, extending a steep decline in births that began in 2008 with the Great Recession, the federal government said on Wednesday.

There were 59.1 births for every 1,000 women of childbearing age in the country last year, a record low, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The rate was down by 2 percent from the previous year, and has fallen by about 15 percent since 2007.

In all, there were 3,791,712 births in the country last year, the center said in its release of final birth data for 2018.

Fertility rates are essential measures of a society's demographic balance. If they are very high, resources like housing and education can be strained by a flood of children, as happened in the postwar Baby Boom years. If they are too low, a country may find itself with too few young people to replace its work force and support its elderly, as in Russia and Japan today.

In the United States, declines in fertility have not led to drops in population, in part because immigration has helped offset them.

The country has been living through one of the longest declines in fertility in decades. Demographers are trying to determine whether it is a temporary phenomenon or a new normal, driven by deeper social change.

Fertility rates tend to drop during difficult economic times, as people put off having babies, and then rise when the economy rebounds. That is what happened during and after the Great Depression of the 1930s. But this time around, the birthrate has not recovered with the economy. A brief uptick in the rate in 2014 did not last.

"It is hard for me to believe that the birthrate just keeps going down," said Kenneth M. Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire.

Mr. Johnson estimated that if the rate had remained steady at its 2007 level, there would have been 5.7 million more births in the country since then.

The decline in 2018 was broad, sweeping through nearly all age groups, and reflected a long, gradual shift in American childbearing to later in the mother's life. The rate fell most steeply among women in their teens — down 7.4 percent from the year before. Births to teenagers have fallen by more than 70 percent since 1991.

Women in their 20s had fewer babies last year as well. Historically, women in their late twenties usually had the highest fertility rates of all, but they were overtaken in 2016 by women in their early 30s, reflecting a trend of later childbearing throughout American society.

The only age groups that recorded increases in fertility rates in 2018 were women in their late 30s and early 40s.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by deimtee on Thursday November 28 2019, @08:23PM (15 children)

    by deimtee (3272) on Thursday November 28 2019, @08:23PM (#925751) Journal

    Historically, yes. But there is a saturation point. You can only eat so much food, drive so many cars, and watch so many screens before you say "I don't want any more".

    Currently we average what, 30 or 40 years of work per person? Hell, add unemployment and extra schooling, unemployables, etc. and call it 20 or 10 years. It doesn't matter. At some point automation will provide a lifetimes worth of food, goods, and services for an input of less than that 10 person-years of work. At that point you have to have either make-work or unemployment. What about when it gets down to 1 year's worth of work? 90% unemployment?

    --
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 28 2019, @11:16PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 28 2019, @11:16PM (#925794) Journal

    Historically, yes. But there is a saturation point. You can only eat so much food, drive so many cars, and watch so many screens before you say "I don't want any more".

    You'd think. But somehow we've figured out more to want.

    At some point automation will provide a lifetimes worth of food, goods, and services for an input of less than that 10 person-years of work.

    What makes you think we're not already there? A few items are driving most of the costs. Drop those and we're pretty close.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29 2019, @03:20AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29 2019, @03:20AM (#925890)

      It might be higher than the civilised world, but there is a limit to how much even Americans can eat.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Friday November 29 2019, @03:59AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 29 2019, @03:59AM (#925915) Journal
        But they can eat better quality and prepared meals made of more exotic ingredients.
  • (Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday November 28 2019, @11:28PM (5 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 28 2019, @11:28PM (#925800) Journal

    Historically, yes. But there is a saturation point. You can only eat so much food, drive so many cars, and watch so many screens before you say "I don't want any more".

    Funny how we haven't found it yet.

    At some point automation will provide a lifetimes worth of food, goods, and services for an input of less than that 10 person-years of work.

    The question is will that be what people want by that time? Indications are that they'll want more than that.

    • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday November 29 2019, @03:16AM (4 children)

      by deimtee (3272) on Friday November 29 2019, @03:16AM (#925889) Journal

      Given the number of "Simplify" and "De-clutter" movements going on we are getting close.
      50 years ago most people didn't throw out things just because they had too much stuff.
      150 years ago most people would have thought you were insane for throwing out just about anything.

      Funny how we haven't found it yet.

      You only hit a saturation point once. That's why it's called a point.

      --
      If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 29 2019, @04:04AM (3 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 29 2019, @04:04AM (#925916) Journal

        Given the number of "Simplify" and "De-clutter" movements going on we are getting close.

        Those movements are reactionary. That means that there's some more materialistic aggregate they're reacting against.

        You only hit a saturation point once.

        Or like in logistic curves, you never hit the saturation point at all.

        My view is that we're way off from any sort of saturation point. How long do those "Simplify" and "De-clutter" people live again?

        • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday November 30 2019, @01:29AM (2 children)

          by deimtee (3272) on Saturday November 30 2019, @01:29AM (#926217) Journal

          Those movements are reactionary. That means that there's some more materialistic aggregate they're reacting against.

          Yeah, they are reacting against their dwellings being too full of stuff they don't use.

          Or like in logistic curves, you never hit the saturation point at all.

          We are talking macro-economics and you invoke Zeno's paradox. Really?

          My view is that we're way off from any sort of saturation point. How long do those "Simplify" and "De-clutter" people live again?

          The ones I know are normal people who have simply decided they don't want a house full of junk. I assume they live pretty much as long as everyone else.

          Just thought of it ; the tiny house phenomenon is another indicator that some people are starting to say "I've got enough".

          --
          If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 30 2019, @03:16AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 30 2019, @03:16AM (#926255) Journal

            We are talking macro-economics and you invoke Zeno's paradox. Really?

            No, it's a property of the logistics curve. You never hit the saturation point.

            My view is that we're way off from any sort of saturation point. How long do those "Simplify" and "De-clutter" people live again?

            The ones I know are normal people who have simply decided they don't want a house full of junk. I assume they live pretty much as long as everyone else.

            So in other words, they don't live very long. Longevity is one of those avenues of growth you're ignoring when you claim that we're at saturation.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 30 2019, @02:45PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 30 2019, @02:45PM (#926389) Journal
            Let me elaborate on my previous post. Too often economic growth is purely seen as more people, more stuff, more running around, or more units of currency. Ultimately though, it's more value. And there's plenty of wants beyond merely food, shelter, and stuff.

            Longevity is one of the biggest of those wants, but far from the only one. There's travel, the obtaining of knowledge, bringing the entirety of humanity out of poverty, setting up new businesses, etc. Doesn't make sense to speak of saturation when we're not even close.
  • (Score: 2) by dry on Friday November 29 2019, @03:13AM (5 children)

    by dry (223) on Friday November 29 2019, @03:13AM (#925887) Journal

    War seems to be the usual solution. Break a bunch of stuff that needs rebuilding, employ people to kill or build killing machines etc.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 30 2019, @02:46PM (4 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 30 2019, @02:46PM (#926391) Journal
      A "usual solution" that hasn't been employed in the developed world for more than 70 years. Perhaps the model doesn't actually work?
      • (Score: 2) by dry on Saturday November 30 2019, @04:45PM (3 children)

        by dry (223) on Saturday November 30 2019, @04:45PM (#926440) Journal

        Yes, you're right. America spends fuck all on their military and hasn't had a war since 1945.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 30 2019, @04:56PM (2 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 30 2019, @04:56PM (#926446) Journal
          "America" is not the only place in the developed world. The rest seems to do quite well economically with lower military budgets.
          • (Score: 2) by dry on Saturday November 30 2019, @10:18PM (1 child)

            by dry (223) on Saturday November 30 2019, @10:18PM (#926565) Journal

            Quite a few developed countries sell arms, others do resource extraction to sell to the ones creating arms.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 01 2019, @05:31AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 01 2019, @05:31AM (#926645) Journal
              You're reaching. For example, US sales or transfers of military arms [wikipedia.org] is on the order of 0.1% (well really less than half that) of its GDP. Same goes for the other countries on the list in the link.

              And what does "others do resource extraction to sell to the ones creating arms." mean? Is Norway spending a huge fraction of its oil/hydroelectric revenue on foreign military gear?