US birth, fertility rates plunge amid Covid-19 pandemic

[Klaralven]

WASHINGTON - The Covid-19 pandemic caused birth and fertility rates in the United States to plunge in 2020, and much of 2021 is not expected to be different.

The decline, however, is not anomalous but rather a downturn in a steady decline in birth rates since 2007.

Just over 3.6 million babies were born in the US in 2020, down 4 per cent from 2019, data shows.

Birth rates declined for women across all races and in all age groups, with the steepest decline among those aged 15 to 19.

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/us-birth-fertility-rates-plunge-amid-covid-19-pandemic

A decline in birth rates among those aged 15 to 19 would be a good thing.

[Scrivener7]

1. A decline in birth rates generally is a good thing. But in the graphs, it looks like

there is a sharp INCREASE in the number of better educated women giving birth. Am I reading that wrong?

[Phoenix61]

2. 15-19 would be high-schoolers

Can’t cut class and get in trouble if there’s no class to cut. Add in the odds that at least one parent is home at all times and those raging hormones don’t have an chance.

[nycbos]

3. Every time there is a headline about "dealing birth rates..."

... It's intended to seem like this awful problem.

The reasons for it are almost always good like a decline in birth amounts teens. That is a good.

[smirkymonkey]

4. I think it's a great thing.

There are too many people in the world. I wish this would happen on a global scale. If it doesn't then Mother Nature will start taking care of the excess population in her own way and it will be much more brutal.

[PortTack]

6. ☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️

[Elessar Zappa]

7. It's a great thing for the planet

but it may cause economic problems in countries where’s there’s a lot more elderly than young people as a result of declining birth rates. There won’t be the tax base to take care of the retirees. So we need to figure out a way to solve that.

[smirkymonkey]

8. I know, I thought about that, and it will be a problem for a little while until the population

balances out (i.e., until those low birthrates stay consistent so that there are enough young people finally supporting the elderly). In the mean time, government may have to step in and subsidize the shortfall for a few generations.

We could do that if we taxed corporations and the very wealthy at an appropriate rate.

There are actuaries who would need to figure out the specifics, but it's doable and I am tired of hearing that it isn't.

We can also cut the defense budget by a huge amount. Not by screwing over the enlisted and skimping on veteran care, but by cutting off the endless grift and lax budget oversight. Applying a little discipline there would save us billions that could go toward human welfare.

From Rolling Stone:

"Ahead of misappropriation, fraud, theft, overruns, contracting corruption and other abuses that are almost certainly still going on, the Pentagon’s first problem is its books. It’s the world’s largest producer of wrong numbers, an ingenious bureaucratic defense system that hides all the other rats’ nests underneath. Meet the Gordian knot of legend, brought to life in modern America."

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/pentagon-budget-mystery-807276/

[seaglass]

5. This seems like a dumb article. Tell me how, since stay at home did not start until March that

covid caused the birth rate to decline in 2020? Mid December 2020 is 9 months after the start of stay at home - so 2 weeks in Dec. 2020 saw a decline in birth rate?

This is just not credible. I'll wait to see what the numbers are at the end of 2021 before I would even start to conclude that covid has anything to do with birth rate.

[gulliver]

9. We need more legal immigration for our economy.

Countering climate change problems through population control is a fools errand. I used to think ZPG was a good idea, but I now think it's simplistic and infeasible. Population growth, as we see in the OP, starts to drop as a population's wealth and women's rights grow. So there's already a fairly obvious, positive way to control population. Bring wealth to people and increase women's rights where needed.

Unfortunately, with wealth increase comes higher carbon footprint, greater pollution, more environmental degradation, etc. That's what we need to counter. Biden's election is a watershed moment in the conversion of the planet to sustainable per capita material wealth, imo. Hope we Dems have the drive to keep our feet on the gas pedal of progress in renewable energy. (See what I did there.)

[Klaralven]

10. Immigration just results in more Americans living a high ecological impact lifestyle

The would-be immigrants will produce less CO2 emissions if they stay in their country.