The cultural deprioritization of children and families leads to fewer of them. Shocking.
The new data is one of the clearest indicators that the drop in fertility during the Great Recession was not just a temporary delay, as often happens in recessions. Instead, it seems to have coincided with a broader shift in what women wanted, and increased access to contraception.
The analysis combined reports and surveys from the National Center for Health Statistics; abortion data from Guttmacher; and estimates of total pregnancies and miscarriages.
The data is from before two seismic events that affected fertility: the pandemic, followed by the Dobbs decision that ended the nationwide right to abortion. It’s unclear what long-term changes those will bring. There is early evidence that at the beginning of the pandemic, many people delayed getting pregnant. There could also be an increase in the share of unwanted or mistimed births in states with new abortion bans.
The United States has long had one of the highest rates of unintended pregnancy in the industrialized world. It has declined 23% in the last three decades, and 46% of pregnancies are now unintended. In Western Europe, by comparison, 36% are unintended, and the rate has not changed much.
The new analysis suggests that during the period of the study, American women rapidly gained more autonomy over their family planning, and had fewer abortions because of it.
The data indicates that “far fewer individuals were becoming pregnant in 2015 than in 2009, and that abortion incidence went down because individuals did not get pregnant, not because their pregnancies continued to a birth instead of an abortion,” wrote the paper’s authors, Guttmacher researchers Kathryn Kost, Mia Zolna and Rachel Murro.
In 2015, just under a quarter of women said their pregnancy came too soon, a decline of 18% from 2009. There was also a slight decline of 5%, to 17%, in the share of pregnant women who said they did not want a baby at all. These declines were driven by younger women having significantly fewer unwanted pregnancies.
Are these surgical or chemical pregnancies which are ‘reduced’?
Regardless, it’s long been predicted that US fertility would drop seriously in the 21st Century, and lookie here!!
I have never really thought that US fertility was in trouble, it is the growing fear that schools and Government teaches and instills in its subjects. Fears of not being able to afford a family, having a Government that has proven itself our enemy with every single decision they make, etc. Not wanting to bring a person into a world under a fascist Government, a crumbling climate, our terribly polluted food tanks known as oceans, our lack of fuels, cleanliness, lack of housing, our plenitude of theft and murder, our perceived racism and sanctioned rioting, blah, blah, blah. Only the most dedicated to parenthood WANT to bring children into this world today.
When the western world turned away from our millennia old model of one primary provider and one primary nurturer per family, the push to have children for the nurturer to raise went drastically downward. And with an overpopulated planet, it was necessary to make that change, so I am good with it. If the US wants to keep on raising their population, ie not have a negative population growth, maybe they need the borders to be open.
Really, which one do you want to complain about? Because to complain that the borders are open (population increase) AND that we have a negative national fertility rate (population decrease) is either disingenuous or it comes from racism. You are really saying you want more “American” children in the US, not just more citizens.
There’s nothing racist about preferring the good governance of legal immigration that targets the needs of the nation over throwing open the borders to a thinly veiled invasion guaranteed to stall assimilation and all but ensure even more tribalism. Good governance can identify needs and satisfy them without regard to race and still affect a more rapid assimilation process that BENEFITS the immigrants as well as the nation.
The goal here is to recruit and repopulate another semipermanent underclass constituency for the Democrats. The current lawless process leaves these illegals living in fear, poverty, and relative isolation. They’re being fed a hope that will take generations to achieve by this process. This is where they want these people to stay. If it didn’t benefit the Democrats it wouldn’t be happening. Prosperity for the least of us doesn’t work to their advantage. At all.
And with an overpopulated planet,
Define “overpopulated.” Then show evidence of same. Please don’t cite the Club of Rome bullcrap.
FYI, the entire population of the USA in 1970 could fit into the State of Texas. One-third of the State would have comfortable single-family housing; another third would have industry/commerce; and the last third would have governmental, school, and administrative buildings. You can look that up.
“Industry/Commerce” above includes farmland (crop-and-cattle raising).
The fertility rate across the board, T, is what was mentioned. ALL age groups and ethnic groups are included, and the rate is off by about 20%.
Please be careful about using the “RAAAAAAAAAAAAACISSSS” slur. It betrays a mindset which is Not Good.
> The goal here is to recruit and repopulate another semipermanent underclass constituency for the Democrats.
I agree completely and that is why I have stated multiple times that Democrat officials are by far the most racist people in the US. They purposely create Ghettoes designed to keep certain races in perpetual need and outrage. You can’t have a non-racist society run by racists. My real point was that Reps here are complaining about population increases and decreases instead of, say, how Dems, are perpetrating racism al while successfully blaming republicans and conservatives for being the racists.
> Define “overpopulated.” Then show evidence of same.
I think it was a study by a man named Tucker(?), but he made a good argument for how the optimum sustainable population for the earth is 3 to 3.5 billion. If you need me to find it I could. If you are interested in the subject, let me know. If you can ask without being disparaging I will find it for you. Can the earth maintain 8 billion, sure, but the plastic islands in the ocean will grow and the ocean population will continue to shrink and the current estimated 10% of the world growing up in poverty and hunger will continue to grow too. The report wasn’t on whether the earth could handle this many people. ‘What is overpopulation’, is more of a perspective not a factual statement because there are too many factors to quantify, in my opinion.
At best it matters what facts you want to use. There is the undeniable fact that we are quickly approaching 8 billion and the world is still here, and will be at 9 billion as well. On that fact alone, you win. I think it is also pretty obvious that the world is suffering from the population excess, and if you want to deny it, then we can agree to disagree or turn specifically to that discussion. What parameter are you setting for the the world population maximum? On what basis are you saying it is not overpopulated? i.e. how far apart are we:)? And we could start from there, if you like.
> The fertility rate across the board, T, is what was mentioned. ALL age groups and ethnic groups are included, and the rate is off by about 20%.
>>Retrieved May 19, 2023, from http://www.marchofdimes.org/peristats. Of all live births in the United States during 2018-2020 (average), 23.7% were Hispanic, 52.1% were white, 15.2% were black
The black US population percentage is 12.5%, but they had 15.2% of all US live births. I disagree that African Americans are declining as a group, or Hispanics for that matter. Whites are still about 65% of the US population and their rate is very much lower at 52%, but is it because whites are less fertile or is it from fear of the problems, expenses, etc of having a child combined with the effectiveness of birth control?
> Please be careful about using the “RAAAAAAAAAAAAACISSSS” slur. It betrays a mindset which is Not Good.
Meh, your opinion. Calling the real racists out is impossible anyway. What is a list of reasons that you consider a negative fertility rate so bad and also freer immigration laws so bad? (I do not believe the birth rate decline is a bad thing, but I do believe the level of immigration law relaxation is bad, primarily from the perspective of how they are being used politically) I can tell you the media perception is exactly my original statement. Dems are successfully blaming the racism that they perpetuate on Republicans with reasoning like mine in my first comment.
Merlin’s answer was good, but it doesn’t really account for the fact that we have virtually no good Governing in the US today and his argument began with “There’s nothing racist about preferring the good governance of legal immigration…” . The fact that Trump is considered the best option for President kind of shows that doesn’t it? There are no great Governors or Senators that are such bastions of good governance that you can immediately come up with even a short list of names to compete with him as the best Rep candidate.
For the liberals that support their Party, I believe the racism is being perpetrated by them as they are enabling it. The greatest Rep guilt in the area of racism is in letting it continue unabated virtually without a word. And why? Because they fear being branded racists by the lib media. I viable excuse, I guess.
the optimum sustainable population for the earth is 3 to 3.5 billion
“Optimum”, eh? Meanwhile, population has doubled that number and Earth is still rotating around the Sun and on its axis. The world will end when God decides it’s time. AlGore and his acolytes–with or without Ph.D.’s–will have nothing, I repeat NOTHING to say about it.
Your site, March of Dimes, includes the following link: https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2018/10/31/americas-fertility-rate-continues-its-deep-decline?utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&utm_source=google&ppccampaignID=17210591673&ppcadID=&utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgoSPhYuK_wIVQODjBx3s3gseEAAYAiAAEgIb-_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
I’ll quote the relevant passage: Last year, the total number of births in the United States fell to its lowest level in 30 years. The general fertility rate dropped to the lowest rate since the United States Centre for Disease Control started keeping records in 1909: to 60.3 births per 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44. The total fertility rate, meanwhile, which estimates the average number of children a woman could expect to have over her lifetime at current birth rates for each age, at 1.76 births per woman, is below the “replacement rate” for fertility. That is the level that keeps populations stable (about 2.1 children per woman). And it is a considerable drop from a decade earlier, when the rate was 2.12 births per woman.
The difference (2.12/1.76) is 16.98%.
But the concern is not merely that number. THIS is the concern:
“… is below the “replacement rate” for fertility. That is the level that keeps populations stable (about 2.1 children per woman)…”
The invasion of the US, now totaling around 15 million people in the last 40 years, has prevented societal collapse, which happens automatically when population implodes. Watch Italy and Japan over the next decade, friend.
As to you calling me a RAAAAAAAAAAACISSSSSSSSSSSS…….then demanding that I not be ‘disparaging,’…….yah, sure.
FYI, the entire population of the USA in 1970 could fit into the State of Texas.
Another fun fact: the entire world population of 7.8 billion could fit in the lower US, with each individual living in a nice 1700sqft home on 1/4 acre. Of course, it would be silly for 3, 4, 5 year-olds to be living by all by themselves. As the avg. world household is a hair over 5 there’d still be room for more.
There no shortage of government land in the western U.S. if you can figure out how to live on it. Mile after mile of nope.
>“Optimum”, eh? Meanwhile, population has doubled that number and Earth is still rotating around the Sun and on its axis.
“Optimum sustainable” Big difference in meanings, but you go ahead and take what words you want from other people. It is always easier to win arguments when you take half the words of the other person and throw them out.
And I am becoming a da29 prophet!
I said: “There is the undeniable fact that we are quickly approaching 8 billion and the world is still here, and will be at 9 billion as well. On that fact alone, you win.”
And you predictably countered with:
“Meanwhile, population has doubled that number and Earth is still rotating around the Sun and on its axis.” Since that is the one fact you want to use on the issue I say again, you win. And your argument seems based on ‘the earth will have reached its limit when God says so’. No point in discussing that any further. When is there too much plastic in the ocean? When God says there is enough, got it. There is not too much of anything on Earth as God would step in if there were. Cool.
So anyway, the relevant passage you quoted proves no decrease in minority ‘fertility’. The majority of the US population is still for the present white, and it is their birthrates that have plummeted. Look it up by race. I guess my biggest beef is for the term ‘fertility’ rather than birth rates. Re-arrange the nation’s whole way of doing business, somehow guaranteeing that one parent can stay home to child-rear and the population will grow markedly. Today the more well off people are the more clearly they can see what they are losing (primarily to Government greed and mis-management) every year and many are afraid to have kids, so they choose not to. They are not infertile.
And if the key concern is “replacement rate”, I ask again, why care so much about immigration. Shouldn’t that be an acceptable Government sponsored way to ‘maintain population’? If it is just how they vote, that is a Republican failing. if there is another non-racist reason for trying to close the borders off, please elucidate. I am guessing there must be, because I do not think of you as particularly racist, it is just an extreme weakness in your presented beliefs on the two subjects and the easy conclusion for an opponent is to point at racism. That is how the Dems are winning on all of the related issues right now.
My blog will have an entry which is germane in the next few hours.
Correction: next couple of days.