Posts

U.S. Birth Rate Reaches a New Low

/0 Comments/in , /by

The U.S. fertility rate declined in 2018 for the fourth consecutive year, reaching a record low 59.1 births for every 1,000 women able to bear children, the National Center for Health Statistics announced on Wednesday.

The fertility rate has been on the decline since the 2008 recession, with a slight rebound in 2014. Typically, economic crises lead to a decline in fertility rates, but the current decline has not reversed even as the economy has recovered.

“It is hard for me to believe that the birthrate just keeps going down,” University of New Hampshire demographer Kenneth Johnson told to the New York Times. . .

The median age at which women give birth has increased continuously over the past several decades. William Frey, a senior demographer at the Brookings Institution, said the median childbearing age in the 1970’s was 21 for women and 23 for men, while data from the Census Bureau show that the median childbearing age in 2018 was 28 for women and 30 for men. The number of women giving birth under the age of 35 has also steadily declined, with more women giving birth in their 30’s and 40’s. (Read more from “U.S. Birth Rate Reaches a New Low” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Vladimir Putin Calls On Russian Families to Have Three Children

/1 Comment/in , /by

. . . Mr Putin lauded recent measures to give cash payments and other benefits to mothers having a second child. Current birth rates show an average of 1.7 children are born to each Russian woman, but the president urged a huge leap in family-building.

New payments for those having a third child would begin next year, he said. “Demographers affirm that choosing to have a second child is already a potential choice in favour of a third,” he added. “It’s important that families make that step… I am convinced that the norm in Russia should become a family with three children.”

To achieve that goal, he said, women needed to be provided with the opportunity to continue work, so that they “did not fear that having a second and third child would close the path to a career”.

Mr Putin has long equated Russia’s demographic decline over recent decades with a potential threat to security. On Wednesday, he added: “In order for Russia to be a strong and sovereign country, there must be more of us and we must be better in morality, in our competences, our work and our creativity.”

To applause, the president said there were already signs that Russia’s long term demographic decline was reversing, and the population had grown by 200,000 in the first nine months of this year. “The birth rate is at last above the mortality rate,” he said.

Read full story HERE.