The U.S. total fertility rate fell to its lowest-recorded level last year and the number of births was the lowest in 42 years, new federal data published on Wednesday revealed.
According to provisional data of the National Vital Statistics System published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the total fertility rate in the United States dropped 4% from 2019 to 2020, reaching a record-low. The general fertility rate and overall number of births also declined by 4% last year, with the number of births at its lowest since 1979.
The total fertility rate – an estimate of the number of births that 1,000 women would have in their lifetimes – was only 1,637.5 births per 1,000 women in 2020, well below the “replacement level” rate of 2,100 births per 1,000 women.
W. Brad Wilcox, senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, called the report “pretty sobering demographic news.”
He added that “we could be on the cusp of a major demographic shift, or almost like a demographic earthquake here in the United States.”
According to the report, the total fertility rate has been below replacement level “generally” since 1971, and “consistently” since 2007.
There might be a number of causes behind the low birth rates, Wilcox said. While demographers have warned of a possible “baby bust” due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic crisis it caused, those numbers would only be revealed in the December statistics at the very end of 2020, he said.
“We would predict that 2021, this year, is going to be even more dramatic” in the declining birth rate, he said, noting that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic could markedly influence the 2021 birth statistics.
“Delays in marriage” are a large driver of the decline, Wilcox said. The rise of technology impacting social life is another, he said, with fewer people socializing and dating in-person. Adults are also more invested in education and work, he said, and are less likely to view marriage and parenthood as “anchors” of adult life.
Full story at Catholic News Agency.
Be a rebel, start a family.
But get married first.
This is Anne TE’s post, but the other anonymousness’s are not mine.
Rarely do people regret having children, but often, and with bitterness, regret not having them.
You make celibacy so unappealing.
If that’s you, own it.
No wonder so many priests are so uptight.
And no wonder so many leftist are hate filled… hopefully they will die out due to lack of progeny …
There are good things and bad things about everything and the grass is always greener on the other side.
It is really best to live the old-fashioned way, even with its down side.
That’s perhaps easier to say if, during those old fashioned days, one were already a strict Catholic who adored priests as revered religious leaders, had educational opportunities while also sacrificing time and reassure for the church or country. Would one be inclined if there were barriers to those opportunities, or if your daughter were taught her value was in her pre-marriage virginity, her looks, and ability to bear and raise children while managing her husband’s home. A pre-Vatican Ii church where the Mass was in Latin, the priests were almost all Irish or Italian, never a person of color except the odd church here and there. When one never heard of pedophile priests, nor of a priest and nun shortage.
It does not matter what religion one is or what language Mass is said in. I think your sarcasm is misplaced. Any woman is better off in a legal marriage especially if it breaks up.
You are an anti Catholic troll, and not welcome here.
If I close heaven so that there is no rain, if I command the locust to devour the land, if I send pestilence among my people,
if then my people, upon whom my name has been pronounced, humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their evil ways, I will hear them from heaven and pardon their sins and heal their land.
1Chronicles 7:13-14
Haven’t enough rosaries been prayed to make that happen? What’s God waiting for?
People to turn from their evil ways.
Isn’t that what the prayers are supposed to make happen?
So… you pray for people to turn from evil, but God is waiting for people to turn from evil before he answers the prayers?
Makes no sense.
Prayers for the conversion of sinners especially the Rosary are answered.
The All-Good, All-Knowing not living up to your standards?
I note that the main word is “demographics” versus “population”. It causes me to wonder if the concern is about not only how many are being born but WHO (i.e. Caucasian, Catholic, etc) are being born. Indeed, a given percentage of people are deciding to marry later, and have few children. Is the church or this readership advocating for more kids (via bans on birth control or actual verbiage from clergy), who must inevitably be born by women? Is the church concerned with a drop in the number of families in the pews or with the demographics of those families? I’ve heard congregants decry concerns about Mass being a “sea of grey hairs and retirees” whose children have left the church and not raising their own children in the church, reducing diocese rolls and tithing. I’ve also heard adults raised in the church but who left as, “if the church would allow married priests, or women priests, or allowed same sex marriage and families, just ONE of those would be a cause for reconciliation. I miss the Mass, the tradition, but not the scandals, bigotry and backstabbing of his Holiness Pope Francis. It seems more of the older uber-dogmatic (clergy and laity) need to pass on before those changes might happen. I will wait”.