America’s falling fertility rate is the root cause of many of our problems — and it’s only getting worse
Conservatives like to think that if we could just provide the right tax incentives for childbearing, then Americans might go back to having children the way they did 40 years ago. Liberals like to think that if we would just be more like France—offer state-run day care and other programs so women wouldn’t have to choose between working and motherhood—it would solve the problem. But the evidence suggests that neither path offers more than marginal gains. France, for example, hasn’t been able to stay at the replacement rate, even with all its day-care spending.
Which leaves us with outsourcing our fertility. We’ve received a massive influx of immigrants from south of the border since the late 1970s. Immigration has kept America from careening over the demographic cliff. Today, there are roughly 38 million people in the U.S. who were born elsewhere. (Two-thirds of them are here legally.) To put that in perspective, consider that just four million babies are born annually in the U.S.
If you strip these immigrants—and their relatively high fertility rates—from our population profile, America suddenly looks an awful lot like continental Europe, which has a fertility rate of 1.5., if not quite as demographically terminal as Japan.
Relying on immigration to prop up our fertility rate also presents several problems, the most important of which is that it’s unlikely to last. Historically, countries with fertility rates below replacement level start to face their own labor shortages, and they send fewer people abroad. In Latin America, the rates of fertility decline are even more extreme than in the U.S. Many countries in South America are already below replacement level, and they send very few immigrants our way. And every other country in Central and South America is on a steep dive toward the replacement line.
Blowback
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I read an intriguing idea somewhere: one of the reasons for plummeting birth rate is that so many people in their 20′s and 30′s can’t afford children because they’re suffocating under debt from college. (Indeed a lot of them can’t afford to get married, either.)
Steven Den Beste on February 2, 2013 at 8:32 PM
Supporting a dog is rough enough. Furbeast cost me $380 today for his annual check-up. :/
Jeddite on February 2, 2013 at 8:35 PM
55 million children have been aborted over the last 40 years.
W don’t have a fertility problem.
catmman on February 2, 2013 at 8:36 PM
In the old days you had a lot of kids to help you run the farm and take care of you when you were old – because Uncle Sam didn’t do those things for you.
Now he does – so why have kids? The entitlement state killed fertility and when the entitlement state collapses the fertility rate will return to what it was.
HondaV65 on February 2, 2013 at 8:36 PM
Women are putting off marriage until they are in their declining years (28-32) as far as fertility goes. Of course the birth rate is going to drop. Many do not in fact marry at all, and this in addition to no-fault divorce, creates an unstable environment that is not conductive to creating a family.
sharrukin on February 2, 2013 at 8:40 PM
Blame Obama. I am sure a lot of people would love to have children but the economy sucks so bad that can’t afford to.
The Notorious G.O.P on February 2, 2013 at 8:43 PM
Worse yet is that the producers aren’t breeding but the moochers remain in full orgy mode.
Responsible taxpayers worry whether they can afford one or two kids and the time away from work to raise them properly.
Welfare queens crank them out like puppies and let the streets raise them since it’s all racked up as entitlements using OPM anyway.
viking01 on February 2, 2013 at 9:02 PM
Social Security is the ROOT cause of the falling fertility rate.
People do in fact worry about their future old age years… But because government has replaced children with money taken from other peoples children, the incentive to have children has decreased. Because government takes this money from people in the child bearing years, it add a further disincentive to having children.
There are other reasons. But I consider social security the ROOT cause of pretty much most of our problems.
Marriage not doing well, that is because the CHILDREN are no longer the target of marriage.
Gay Marriage. See above.
Poor education system… if parents were expecting to rely on their OWN children’s earning is security in old age, I can assure you they would care more.
deficit spending? Not leaving any children behind, so who the hell cares, SPEND IT ALL!
Keep your precious Social Security, it will destroy our heritage forever.
astonerii on February 2, 2013 at 9:06 PM
No, W and Laura had two daughters :^D
But it would be interesting to know what the birthrate would be if say, only half a million had been aborted.
adoubledot on February 2, 2013 at 9:14 PM
figure 4 million births a year on average, 1.3 million abortions a year. That is 1 of every 4 pregnancies… Or, if there were no abortions, and all those babies were created and born, a 33% increase in fertility.
astonerii on February 2, 2013 at 9:20 PM
Fixed.
FloatingRock on February 2, 2013 at 9:24 PM
Or, a 2.1 fertility rate becomes 2.8 overall, with a non-foreign fertility of 1.5 becoming 2.0. Problem pretty much solved, no?
besser tot als rot on February 2, 2013 at 10:04 PM
HondaV65 on February 2, 2013 at 8:36 PM
Heh, the muzzies and Meskins didn’t get your message.
Schadenfreude on February 2, 2013 at 10:25 PM
ROTFLOL. What a simpleton. ~55 abortions says we aren’t having any trouble conceiving, not at all.
No, the problem is that we’ve devalued marriage to something either for the idealistic or for suckers. And the people saying we can’t afford to get married are also right.
There’s also the fact that the groups having the most children (Democrat minority voters) are also the least productive. I won’t go into all the implications of that because it could be considered threadjacking, but suffice it to say they are not good at all.
Want more young people getting hitched? Torpedo no-fault divorce, put a clamp on outsourcing, put pressure on businesses hiring illegals, get some taxes off our backs! Blaming fertility problems (I can barely type that without laughing) is tommyrot.
MelonCollie on February 2, 2013 at 11:00 PM
Here is a way to solve the problem. You don’t get Social Security or Medicare unless you produce two children and at least one of those children has grown up and has been paying taxes for five years. The more children you produce that have grown up and have paid taxes for at least 5 years the more social security and medicare coverage you get, along with other government benefits. Also the higher the amount taxes the children pay the more social security and medicare the old geezers who produced them will get.
If you fail to reproduce…no entitlements for you. This will encourage people to make kids, it will encourage the father and mother (even if not married) to at least work to make sure the children grow into functioning adults, also to get better jobs that pay more (therefor more benefits for them), and to get those children into the workforce faster which should help produce a better work ethic for America’s future.
Might as well use America’s entitlements to our advantage to reward productivity because it is clear it is going to be much harder to get rid of them.
William Eaton on February 2, 2013 at 11:16 PM
I was wondering when the ultra-right-wing breeder tyrants would show up.
How about you lot go back to paying for your own children? Vouchers for education and not a penny more. I seem to recall that arrangement worked pretty darn well for…oh…most of American history.
It would actually leave you with more money if your tax dollars didn’t do an inefficient round-robin through government hands before FINALLY landing in the hands of people you deemed worthy. Scrap entitlements, cut taxes accordingly, and watch the benefits.
MelonCollie on February 2, 2013 at 11:27 PM
Make it so!
MT on February 2, 2013 at 11:42 PM
The Philippines, with no government-provided safety net, has a high birth rate. Folks depend on their kids to care for them in their old age, & abortion is illegal.
Their economy is growing dramatically.
Dump Social Security, make abortion illegal, & the problem is solved.
But that would never happen here.
People are too selfish to do what would serve them best.
itsnotaboutme on February 3, 2013 at 12:00 AM
LOL! That is the first time I have ever been referred to as (1) “ultra-right-wing”, (2) “breeder tyrants”…really! Heck I was the guy calling for us to support Marco Rubio’s immigration plan and I am deist so I am not motivated by religion by pushing this. I would not call me “ultra right wing”, or at least I don’t think that is now part of the “ultra right wing” party platform of they have a platform (really do they?).
The reason why I am pushing for this is because Americans simply refuse to give up social security or medicare. Look at the polls! Conservatives can keep screeching about fighting the good fight against entitlements and what has that gotten us over the last 50 years? More entitlements! You are going to have to find some way to get Americans off the entitlement drug.
By pushing for retirement entitlements like Social Security and Medicare to be linked to producing children or adopting children who then grow up to be productive adults who pay into the system, it will force Americans to question the whole system to begin with, but at the same time they won’t reject the idea outright like they would going cold turkey. It is drug addiction folks, nobody gives up the drug without going through lots of help and treatment. I have relatives (baby boomers) who have told me outright that they did not want kids because they liked their “toys” and my generation (born 1976) was going to pay for their retirement anyway. We have to break that cycle.
Plus it will solve our demographic problems at the same time. It is funny some of you attacked me for being “pro-immigrant” for supporting Rubio’s immigration plan and yet here I come up with a plan in which we can do away with needing any immigration in the first place, and now instead of being a bleeding heart who loves Mexicans…I am now a ultra right wing fruit cake.
I am so confused!
William Eaton on February 3, 2013 at 12:58 AM
the higher taxes the less money there is too raise kids the less kids there are.
cut taxes decrease government the fertility rate will take care of itself.
unseen on February 3, 2013 at 7:16 AM
Again, the 800Lb gorilla in the room is ignored. Birthrates among Muslims are around 8! They no longer need to conquer lands for their moon god. They just have to wait around for the rest of us to go extinct.
Odysseus on February 3, 2013 at 7:58 AM