Let’s Discuss: Fertility and Birth Rate
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We’re discussing this article (and beyond) on Corporette® today too, but the conversation has a different flavor over here!
Did you catch the story in The Wall Street Journal [gift link] a couple of weeks ago that addressed falling birth rates? The WSJ reported that the birth rate among American women has fallen to 1.62 per woman — the lowest since the 1930s when the government began keeping track. (The article does note this: “The figures are provisional and likely to adjust slightly when final data are released later this year.”)
One more striking stat: In 1950, in the midst of the baby boom, the crude birth rate was 24.1 per 1,000 people, and by 2018, it had dropped to 11.6, according to Pew Research. This is a major issue for other industrialized countries as well — today CNN reported that South Korea’s fertility rate (a bit different than birth rate) is so low at 0.72 in 2023 that the government may create a Ministry of Low Birth Rate Counter-planning. (Hmm, that feels a bit Handmaid’s Tale.)
We thought we’d use the WSJ article as a jumping-off point for a discussion today.
Here are two key excerpts from the WSJ article:
The decline reflects a continuing trend as American women navigate economic and social challenges that have prompted some to forgo or delay having children. A confluence of factors are at play. American women are having fewer children, later in life. Women are establishing fulfilling careers and have more access to contraception.
At the same time, young people are also more uncertain about their futures and spending more of their income on homeownership, student debt and child care. Some women who wait to have children might have fewer than they would have otherwise for reasons including declining fertility.
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The long-term effects of lowering rates could shape the economy, programs including Social Security and other facets of American life, said Phillip Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley College. “It has the ability to have a significant impact on the way we live for a long time to come,” he said.
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Whether or not you’re already a parent, just thinking about the most likely factors becomes daunting: the the current and future impact of climate change, the crises and wars around the world, abortion bans and associated restrictions on maternal care, discrimination against pregnant employees and working mothers, inadequate government support for families, employers providing inadequate paid family leave, and so on.
So, let’s discuss:
When you made the decision to try to conceive your first child, how much did you consider the factors above? Are you generally optimistic or pessimistic about what the country and world will be like when your child reaches, 20, 30, 40? (Have you have the thought, “Well, what if my kid becomes one of the people who help alleviate climate change?” or something equally hopeful?)
For those debating another child, are you waiting longer than you expected? How much are you worried about declining fertility? Did you freeze your eggs before having kids?
How much of your decision on whether to have more kids is based on your age and your health? And how much do your experiences with your first pregnancy and childbirth factor into it?
No. I wanted to have all my kids before 35, if possible, so had them as close together as I could without going insane. If anything we had the last one quicker than expected.
I commented on the main site too – wished I’d had more time with my husband just us, and then wished I’d had more time with my first born just us — got married at 32, had first at 34, second at 37, and everything felt rushed. Too rushed to even think about the “is everybody all here” question that some people talk about when deciding for any/more kids.
I would love a fourth, but we had kids later in life due to several years of infertility. I’d still probably do it if we had younger or more involved grandparents, but at this point we have very minimal family support and it feels not really feasible.
I was lucky enough to meet my husband young (early 20s) and we got married in our late 20s. I wanted to have kids in my early 30s and I did. But even being relatively young in our cohort in having kids, we still had way more resources than if we had them in our 20s – we both finished college and I finished law school, and both had good, high paying jobs, and now have lots of flexibility.
I’m generally fine with a falling birthrate – I don’t think every family having 5-6 kids is realistic or sustainable nowadays. I personally don’t think I can handle more than 2 (can barely handle my 2 sometimes). Contraception has been a lifesaver for women and is generally a positive thing.
As for the world blowing up? Yeah, it’s always been a mess. It scares me, but civilization has survived thus far so people find a way. I hope that caregiving and caregivers are more valued in the future, especially as all the boomers age and realize they need actual humans (not $$) to care for them in their last few years.
Why does the WSJ article talk only about women deciding to have kids instead of couples deciding to have kids? I’m all for calling women women, but there is usually another person involved in the decision.
Met at 30
Moved in at 32
Kid 1 at 34
Kid 2 at 36
Typed out this looks much tidier than it felt. We basically had kids the second we felt roughly ready. Frankly neither of us were ready for a lifetime relationship prior to our very late 20s. I spent my 20s excessively career focused with grad school and an intense first job. My husband was kind of aimless and partying for a while.
Pre-kids my ideal timeline was starting to have kids at 32 and having 2-4 kids. After we had our first, I was good with 1-2 kids. My husband still romanticized about 2-4 kids, but agreed we’d have to majorly change our lives/jobs to have more than 2 and we weren’t willing to do that. Age, health, the toll of pregnancies all weigh into that, but I also think it’s just best for our introverted personalities not to have the chaos of 3+ kids.
Birthrates have major social and economic implications, and declining birthrate will cause challenges, especially if the USG doesn’t want to allow much immigration. Lots of the developed world is concerned about this, and has come up with policies to reduce the disincentives for career-minded people to grow their families. The US…not so much.
In any case, DH and I met and married pretty young, did a lot of adventure travel pre-kids and were ready to settle down, had kids close together because we wanted them close together, and stopped at 3 because that was his limit. We were very fortunate to have stable gvt/adjacent jobs during the Great Recession, no student or consumer debt, and bought a house with a VA loan when we were 27 and I was pregnant with baby #1. Basically we dodged many of the financial perils of our peers by enlisting in the military right out of high school, so we didn’t have any financial or career reason to postpone kids, and fortunately no health reasons either. I definitely feel like an outlier, though. Most of our friends with similar-age kids are 5-10 years older than us, and our neighbors who are our age still have preschoolers and infants