US U.S. birth rate hits a 35-year low - Bad news for all you Kiwis out there who want to find a mate and procreate

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/498724-us-birth-rate-hits-35-year-low

The number of children born in the United States has hit its lowest level in 35 years, according to new federal data, as demographers worry that a baby bust that emerged after the Great Recession is becoming permanent.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a report Wednesday that 3.7 million children were born in the U.S. last year, down 1 percent from 2018 and the lowest total number of births since 1985.

Birth rates dropped among women of virtually every age and race group, though they rose among women in their early 40s, the CDC found. Birth rates among teenagers dropped substantially, hitting record lows. The rate of teenagers giving birth has dropped by a whopping 60 percent since 2007, and by 73 percent since 1991.

Since the recession, the birth rate has risen year-over-year only once, in 2014. Now, demographers tracking the declining birth rate say the trend is beginning to look like a longer-term pattern.

"The fact that births and fertility continued to decline in 2019 despite the booming economy suggests that this is a permanent shift to a lower fertility regime in the U.S.," said Cheryl Russell, a demographer and contributing editor to the journal American Demographics.

Studies have shown the overall decline in birth rates is being driven by steep drops among Hispanic women and women who do not belong to religious organizations. A 2018 study by the demographer Alicia Munnell at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College showed the rising number of women who attain college degrees and a shrinking wage gap between women and men are contributing factors, too.

The decline in birth rates is widespread among American women of every racial group. There were fewer births in 2019 among white women, black women, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Hispanic women than in 2018, the CDC data shows.

Now, demographers say the birth rate is likely to plunge even more in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic recession accompanying it. Birth rates have historically fallen in times of economic hardship, the data shows.

"Although some have predicted a coronavirus baby boom in 2021, that seems unlikely," Russell said. "It’s more likely that young women will delay becoming pregnant during this time of uncertainty, so we could see a bigger drop in births and fertility rates in 2021."

 

[Salad Dodger]

To be fair I look at a lot of parents who don't have enviable lives and I can understand why some people don't want that for their future.

 

[haurchefant]

Because I get to enjoy myself, I get to play my video games, I get to eat my food, I get to buy some ice cream after work and eat the entire thing.


Those things are far less valuable if you only get to see those kids and enjoy spending time with them once a week at most.

It is a cynical outlook, but we are in the generation that grew up with this as the face of single fatherhood.


Oh Snide Snarkyness, that is a -great- way to solve the problem, in another generation when "White America" has backslid like "Black America" has after the destruction of the Black Family I am sure your magical Snark wand will give people incentive to change.

Stop being so easy to make fun of then rofl. This was a sad post to read I thought you'd have something less feeble to say.

Spoiler: Long post

On some level, I think you're right. I understand why many men are reluctant to have children in the current environment, but not having children is not without its costs either. "Focusing on your career" or "focusing on personal development" and racking up material successes and individual accomplishments is admirable, but most people will not feel fulfilled if those things are their sole sources of meaning in life.
Even an exceptionally accomplished bachelor/bachelorette, someone who has "made it" in terms of material wealth and social status, will probably not be remembered for those accomplishments for any longer than a single generation (if that). Once their peers have all died, their data footprint faded/receded into the background, their possessions drifted off to new owners, there will be nothing left to indicate that they had ever existed.
If you want your reputation and the memory of your personal deeds to stand out amidst the massive historical sea of individuals living and dead, you would have to accomplish something extraordinarily noteworthy. Like become a famous author, start a multibillion dollar company, circumnavigate the globe, commit mass-murder, etc. 99% of people will never do that, and will essentially become dust in the wind not long after they stop breathing.
If you successfully raise children, however, then you are securing a legacy for at least one generation. If they have children, it becomes two, and so on and so forth. It's one of the only surefire ways to ensure that you leave some sort of impact on the world, and that you won't become forgotten/irrelevant. A potential antidote to nihilism older and more powerful than any religion or ideology.
To put it another way, every person alive today is standing at the summit of an uninterrupted chain of struggle/survival that stretches back millenia. One that has survived every major crisis and outlasted every major civilization since the dawn of human history. For many (if not most) people, their bloodline will probably be the most important/impressive thing in which they ever participate (in the grand scheme of things anyway). To cut it off at the present generation will most likely condemn both yourself and all of the individuals who came before you to ultimate irrelevancy, but to carry it forward is to secure your place in history. There are individuals who died ages ago, but have thousands (or more) of descendants alive today. For example, modern European populations can trace their existence back to a handful of Yamnaya men whose names, faces, personalities, and life stories have been swept away by time, but whose existence(s) have been immortalized through procreation. Nothing that these people could have done with their time other than reproduce could have been even close to comparably significant.
I wouldn't begrudge anyone who chooses not to have kids, especially if doing so would not be financially possible or medically/genetically desirable (and especially considering the absolute state of marriage in 2020), but I also know that some of the many people who make that choice would end up much happier if they chose differently. The atomized, materialistic brand of individualism promoted in the West today definitely undervalues things like family, bloodline, parenthood, etc and I worry that in 20-30 years we will see a whole generation of Dax Herreras drinking alone to pass the time in their overpriced vanity homes, remniscing/bragging about past accomplishments and sexual prowess in order to stave off feelings of insignifiance and of having thrown away an opportunity that they will never get back.

This post is better than anything I've had to say on the subject so I'll just redirect people to this from now on

 

[Bunny Tracks]

Those things are far less valuable if you only get to see those kids and enjoy spending time with them once a week at most.

With all due respect, I fail to see how they would.

Your love, and enjoyment for your children shouldn't diminish just because you can't see them often. If anything, you'd cherish both them, and the time you get to spend with them more because you, unfortunately, don't get to see them as much.

 

[Salad Dodger]

With all due respect, I fail to see how they would.

Your love, and enjoyment for your children shouldn't diminish just because you can't see them often. If anything, you'd cherish both them, and the time you get to spend with them more because you, unfortunately, don't get to see them as much.

I think that's a bit simplistic. Yes, you'd cherish what time you had but you'd also mourn deeply not being able to be there for the minutiae. Then there is the guilt. It's more than just a case of absence makes the heart grow fonder.

 

[Bunny Tracks]

I think that's a bit simplistic. Yes, you'd cherish what time you had but you'd also mourn deeply not being able to be there for the minutiae. Then there is the guilt. It's more than just a case of absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Now that I completely understand.

 

[#zzz]

Because I get to enjoy myself, I get to play my video games, I get to eat my food, I get to buy some ice cream after work and eat the entire thing.


Those things are far less valuable if you only get to see those kids and enjoy spending time with them once a week at most.

It is a cynical outlook, but we are in the generation that grew up with this as the face of single fatherhood.


Oh Snide Snarkyness, that is a -great- way to solve the problem, in another generation when "White America" has backslid like "Black America" has after the destruction of the Black Family I am sure your magical Snark wand will give people incentive to change.

Don't forget the face of the married man

Oh sorry thats just another one of the jokes about Homer being replaced.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Stop being so easy to make fun of then rofl. This was a sad post to read I thought you'd have something less feeble to say.

Why, I enjoy my life minus one very large gripe, Oh noes I don't have a whelp, I live comfortably, no debt, all the free time in the world, no responsibility and before this Covid Horseshit I was saving money to move somewhere that doesn't have the bullshit we call winter.

You brought up Jordan Peterson earlier, and all of his stuff never answered the "Why should I live that way." he just says "Well your monkey brain tells you to so do it." You called my post feeble? I still have yet to see one real reason out of you why I should alter my dating standards when really, I don't need to date.

Your love, and enjoyment for your children shouldn't diminish just because you can't see them often. If anything, you'd cherish both them, and the time you get to spend with them more because you, unfortunately, don't get to see them as much.

It is less diminishing the enjoyment out of the time you get to spend, and more having to endure the time you aren't with them. Most of the Divorced men I've known personally very much love their kids and enjoy any time they get to spend with them, however they also work themselves to the bone for a significant amount of their paycheck to be taken out as child support.

And there is no proper guarantee you get to see said kids, I dunno what economic back round you came from but the area I grew up in was pretty poor to lower middle class, so spending a few years paying off a house and a car..just for divorce to pull the rug out from under you basically puts you in the poor house, and if you are poor..visitation rights can be difficult to maintain. One of the 3 Divorcees I knew got to see his kids one weekend a month, it wasn't very often he would come in after the weekend looking like shit only to tell us that his Baby-Mama decided the kids were going with her for that weekend because she wanted to take them somewhere..and the courts would tell him to fuck off.

He busted his rump working full time, lived in a cheap ass project apartment with one bedroom, basically spent his entire month waiting for that one weekend to see his kids and she would just take it from him because she could, and he didn't have the money to take her to court over it. I pitied the dude.

The system is broke, has been for a long time. Shit like the birth rates tanking is just a symptom of it, and it is a problem. If populations level off things like pensions and social security are going to have issues (Not that they aren't on that path anyways, but a Pyramid Scheme collapses if you stop growing the base, and Pensions/Social Security are Pyramid Schemes)

Haurchefant can say I am "easy to make fun of" but I live damn good life and I don't see a reason to risk that because people think that I should listen to some biological imperative., and many of the "marriage age men" say the same thing, and you aren't going to change that by shaming men into getting married. They will keep "pumping and dumping." until everything falls to shit, because the incentives just are not there for the lower class to engage in long term relationships anymore.

((I've focused on men here, but there are incentives for women to avoid marriage as well. Foodstamps and WIC are terrible programs that are in desperate need of reworking from the ground up.))

 

[haurchefant]

Why, I enjoy my life minus one very large gripe, Oh noes I don't have a whelp, I live comfortably, no debt, all the free time in the world, no responsibility and before this Covid Horseshit I was saving money to move somewhere that doesn't have the bullshit we call winter.

You brought up Jordan Peterson earlier, and all of his stuff never answered the "Why should I live that way." he just says "Well your monkey brain tells you to so do it." You called my post feeble? I still have yet to see one real reason out of you why I should alter my dating standards when really, I don't need to date.



It is less diminishing the enjoyment out of the time you get to spend, and more having to endure the time you aren't with them. Most of the Divorced men I've known personally very much love their kids and enjoy any time they get to spend with them, however they also work themselves to the bone for a significant amount of their paycheck to be taken out as child support.

And there is no proper guarantee you get to see said kids, I dunno what economic back round you came from but the area I grew up in was pretty poor to lower middle class, so spending a few years paying off a house and a car..just for divorce to pull the rug out from under you basically puts you in the poor house, and if you are poor..visitation rights can be difficult to maintain. One of the 3 Divorcees I knew got to see his kids one weekend a month, it wasn't very often he would come in after the weekend looking like shit only to tell us that his Baby-Mama decided the kids were going with her for that weekend because she wanted to take them somewhere..and the courts would tell him to fuck off.

He busted his rump working full time, lived in a cheap ass project apartment with one bedroom, basically spent his entire month waiting for that one weekend to see his kids and she would just take it from him because she could, and he didn't have the money to take her to court over it. I pitied the dude.

The system is broke, has been for a long time. Shit like the birth rates tanking is just a symptom of it, and it is a problem. If populations level off things like pensions and social security are going to have issues (Not that they aren't on that path anyways, but a Pyramid Scheme collapses if you stop growing the base, and Pensions/Social Security are Pyramid Schemes)

Haurchefant can say I am "easy to make fun of" but I live damn good life and I don't see a reason to risk that because people think that I should listen to some biological imperative., and many of the "marriage age men" say the same thing, and you aren't going to change that by shaming men into getting married. They will keep "pumping and dumping." until everything falls to shit, because the incentives just are not there for the lower class to engage in long term relationships anymore.

((I've focused on men here, but there are incentives for women to avoid marriage as well. Foodstamps and WIC are terrible programs that are in desperate need of reworking from the ground up.))

Lol oh my. Well at least its verbose even though its overly defensive. This is what I actually said:

It's not immoral to not have any children, I'm not saying that. Everyone should be free to live their lives as they see fit so long as they don't hurt themselves or others. But doing something strictly out of fear or out of ideological reasons often leaves people broken and alone.

So I think you're whining to a projection about how extremely not mad you are and how totally cool you are with your position.

It's perfectly fine that you don't want kids. I'm just pointing out that this stuff falls apart rather easily under scrutiny.

However that still doesn't make anyone a bad person if they decide to opt out of having children. It doesn't hurt themselves or anyone else so its a morally neutral choice.

Deeper thoughts should read this first:

I usually try not to essaypost on this site, but there is a lot to be said on this topic.

Spoiler: Long post

On some level, I think you're right. I understand why many men are reluctant to have children in the current environment, but not having children is not without its costs either. "Focusing on your career" or "focusing on personal development" and racking up material successes and individual accomplishments is admirable, but most people will not feel fulfilled if those things are their sole sources of meaning in life.
Even an exceptionally accomplished bachelor/bachelorette, someone who has "made it" in terms of material wealth and social status, will probably not be remembered for those accomplishments for any longer than a single generation (if that). Once their peers have all died, their data footprint faded/receded into the background, their possessions drifted off to new owners, there will be nothing left to indicate that they had ever existed.
If you want your reputation and the memory of your personal deeds to stand out amidst the massive historical sea of individuals living and dead, you would have to accomplish something extraordinarily noteworthy. Like become a famous author, start a multibillion dollar company, circumnavigate the globe, commit mass-murder, etc. 99% of people will never do that, and will essentially become dust in the wind not long after they stop breathing.
If you successfully raise children, however, then you are securing a legacy for at least one generation. If they have children, it becomes two, and so on and so forth. It's one of the only surefire ways to ensure that you leave some sort of impact on the world, and that you won't become forgotten/irrelevant. A potential antidote to nihilism older and more powerful than any religion or ideology.
To put it another way, every person alive today is standing at the summit of an uninterrupted chain of struggle/survival that stretches back millenia. One that has survived every major crisis and outlasted every major civilization since the dawn of human history. For many (if not most) people, their bloodline will probably be the most important/impressive thing in which they ever participate (in the grand scheme of things anyway). To cut it off at the present generation will most likely condemn both yourself and all of the individuals who came before you to ultimate irrelevancy, but to carry it forward is to secure your place in history. There are individuals who died ages ago, but have thousands (or more) of descendants alive today. For example, modern European populations can trace their existence back to a handful of Yamnaya men whose names, faces, personalities, and life stories have been swept away by time, but whose existence(s) have been immortalized through procreation. Nothing that these people could have done with their time other than reproduce could have been even close to comparably significant.
I wouldn't begrudge anyone who chooses not to have kids, especially if doing so would not be financially possible or medically/genetically desirable (and especially considering the absolute state of marriage in 2020), but I also know that some of the many people who make that choice would end up much happier if they chose differently. The atomized, materialistic brand of individualism promoted in the West today definitely undervalues things like family, bloodline, parenthood, etc and I worry that in 20-30 years we will see a whole generation of Dax Herreras drinking alone to pass the time in their overpriced vanity homes, remniscing/bragging about past accomplishments and sexual prowess in order to stave off feelings of insignifiance and of having thrown away an opportunity that they will never get back.

 

[#zzz]

((I've focused on men here, but there are incentives for women to avoid marriage as well. Foodstamps and WIC are terrible programs that are in desperate need of reworking from the ground up.))

Arguably the incentive through the state is to marry and divorce or have children to several men to keep the child payments rolling in.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

There may be a glut of new "we were bored during lockdown" babies in 9 months or so, but what about the coming years? We're already looking at a society that thinks touching other humans in any physical way is a sin because you might catch a headcold. How are today's teens going to handle dating and mating when that is the message they're going to be fed for years to come?

 

[FunPosting101]

Lol oh my. Well at least its verbose even though its overly defensive. This is what I actually said:



So I think you're whining to a projection about how extremely not mad you are and how totally cool you are with your position.

It's perfectly fine that you don't want kids. I'm just pointing out that this stuff falls apart rather easily under scrutiny.

However that still doesn't make anyone a bad person if they decide to opt out of having children. It doesn't hurt themselves or anyone else so its a morally neutral choice.

Deeper thoughts should read this first:

That post your quoting is quite heartfelt and a good argument based on emotion, it also does nothing to address the problem that marrying and having kids in the modern era is a bad idea from a pragmatic standpoint for the average man currently. As @Honka Honka Burning Love is clearly saying. Calling him defensive, whether true or not, does not change the fact that him and others like him have a point. I'll say again that I personally think the family court situation is a secondary problem compared to more pressing economic factors when it comes to people settling down and having kids, but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem there at all.

 

[haurchefant]

That post your quoting is quite heartfelt and a good argument based on emotion, it does nothing to address the problem that marrying and having kids in the modern era is bad idea from a pragmatic standpoint for the average man currently. As @Honka Honka Burning Love is clearly saying. Calling him defensive, whether true or not, does not change the fact that him and others like him have a point. I'll say again that I personally think the family court situation is a secondary problem compared to more pressing economic factors when it comes to people settling down and having kids, but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem there at all.

I never said that this isn't a valid point. I've agreed with you and others multiple times saying that the divorce courts are firmly stacked against men. I'm honestly not sure why you're still acting like I'm disagreeing with you when I never have at any point throughout this thread. Me pointing out the potential personal cost of these decisions is not the same thing as saying "divorce courts don't real."

Are you reading my posts? Are any of you reading my posts?

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

I didn't have any children thinking my siblings would, but they didn't, so now we're all just kind of waiting for death. Not sure who we're going to give all our shit to, as we're not particularly close with our cousins, so I guess all of our family photos and memorabilia gets thrown in the trash when we die. With some of us it was hedonism, some, apathy, and with others it was a failure to launch that motivated our decision to remain childless, but it seems less like a conscious choice than something we all stumbled into. Those of you who don't want kids because the family court system is an endless stomach chewing men up and spitting them out, I can understand why you feel the way you do. The world is circling the drain, and once the Reproductive System gets fucked with (once productive people no longer have any incentive to reproduce and the non-productive people do,) then a Society is not long for this world.

I really wish I had been born in a different time, but I guess that's not something you can have any control over. I should be happy I wasn't born during the Holodomor or 1940's Berlin...

 

[FunPosting101]

I never said that this isn't a valid point. I've agreed with you and others multiple times saying that the divorce courts are firmly stacked against men. I'm honestly not sure why you're still acting like I'm disagreeing with you when I never have at any point throughout this thread. Me pointing out the potential personal cost of these decisions is not the same thing as saying "divorce courts don't real."

Are you reading my posts? Are any of you reading my posts?

Potential personal costs? Sure, but the problem there is that those potential costs are being weighed against the very real costs associated with a marriage going south. That's what is leading men to make these decisions and avoid marriage, even if they have sex/relationships etc. I suppose you could always have children out of wedlock to avoid these problems if you live in an area with no common law marriage rules, but even then there is the issue of child support to consider if the relationship ends.

 

[haurchefant]

Potential personal costs? Sure, but the problem there is that those potential costs are being weighed against the very real costs associated with a marriage going south. That's what is leading men to make these decisions and avoid marriage, even if they have sex/relationships etc. I suppose you could always have children out of wedlock to avoid these problems if you live in an area with no common law marriage rules, but even then there is the issue of child support to consider.

This is what we already have, lots of people have children out of wedlock, it invariably ends with women raising their kids on welfare as single moms for one reason or another. So obviously its not a good solution lol

 

[FunPosting101]

This is what we already have, lots of people have children out of wedlock, it invariably ends with women raising their kids on welfare as single moms for one reason or another. So obviously its not a good solution lol

I never said it was a good solution, but it may be better for the guy involved in the relationship in question. Which is kinda the problem, really.

 

[majorlyPickled]

I would attribute it more to fearmongering from female centric media + the fact that men have made absolute assclowns of themselves on social media. Women get most of their news and social interaction from Twitter and Instagram and other spaces and the problem is that social media is saturated with coomers screeching about censorship of titty games, incel posts, and tantruming endlessly about feminazis. Women are heavily risk adverse and they take those posts as What Men Really Think. r/AITA is interesting browse because there are always posters there claiming to be women stating how completely and utterly put off they are by male behavior every time the paternity rights question comes up.

IMO its all a long game played by feminists who want every day women to think that men are violent, argumentative, rapey, and that they only want to beat, murder, oppress, violate, and scream at women for daring to be individuals. And there's always a pack of useful idiots Kramering in to enforce this idea which means a lot of innocent guys who aren't autistic get painted with the same brush because again, women are very risk adverse.

Well, you managed to convince me women's rights were a mistake, good job.

 

[haurchefant]

I never said it was a good solution, but it may be better for the guy involved in the relationship in question. Which is kinda the problem, really.

Big shrug. Everyone has to choose their path in life. We already know that this isn't the good path to raising kids but since everyone seems hellbent on doing it anyway we'll just have to sit back and see where it leads.

Just make sure it's worth it.

Well, you managed to convince me women's rights were a mistake, good job.

If this is true than you're even more of a brainlet than I thought imagine getting your opinions on Kiwifarms of all things

 

[majorlyPickled]

Big shrug. Everyone has to choose their path in life. We already know that this isn't the good path to raising kids but since everyone seems hellbent on doing it anyway we'll just have to sit back and see where it leads.

Just make sure it's worth it.



If this is true than you're even more of a brainlet than I thought imagine getting your opinions on Kiwifarms of all things

Yes, I am literally not going to sleep until every woman is barefooted and in the kitchen.

 

[haurchefant]

Yes, I am literally not going to sleep until every woman is barefooted and in the kitchen.

foot fetishists will also hang on the day of the rope my friend...