cheryl
Administrator
Staff member
Going Bust - National Review
Americans had just 3.6 million babies last year, which is the lowest number since 1979 and, adjusted for population, represents the lowest birth rate on record.
That decline should be a matter of intense public concern. Attention naturally gravitates toward the immense and mostly negative fiscal, economic, and geopolitical implications. Even those consequences may pale beside the loss of vitality — very nearly a loss of literal vitality — for our civilization.
More immigration cannot supply our lack. The decline in birth rates is global. The average age of immigrants has been rising, and their average birth rate falling.
There are also many good reasons not to expect or even wish for a return to pre-industrial birth rates. The decline of child mortality, the shift away from an agrarian economy, and a hundred other large causes of lower birth rates are not going away.
Americans had just 3.6 million babies last year, which is the lowest number since 1979 and, adjusted for population, represents the lowest birth rate on record.
That decline should be a matter of intense public concern. Attention naturally gravitates toward the immense and mostly negative fiscal, economic, and geopolitical implications. Even those consequences may pale beside the loss of vitality — very nearly a loss of literal vitality — for our civilization.
More immigration cannot supply our lack. The decline in birth rates is global. The average age of immigrants has been rising, and their average birth rate falling.
There are also many good reasons not to expect or even wish for a return to pre-industrial birth rates. The decline of child mortality, the shift away from an agrarian economy, and a hundred other large causes of lower birth rates are not going away.