Thread: Renewing America

Renewing America
Tuesday, January 1, 2008

There is good news from the National Center of Health Statistics. In 2006, for the first time in 35 years, fertility among Americans rose to what is known as the replacement level, making the United States one of the very few industrialized nations today to have achieved this favorable status. Rising fertility promises a more youthful and vital, if also changing, workforce in the future.

The National Center for Health Statistics, a federal government agency, calculates the replacement fertility rate to be 2.1 children born each year for every woman in the population between the ages of 15 and 44. The nation's total fertility rate fell below this level every year from 1972 to 2005. USA Today notes that the decline occurred soon after the introduction of birth control pills and the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. It quotes Stephanie Coontz, director of research and public education at the Council on Contemporary Families, as explaining, "It's not so much that abortion lowered the birthrate but abortion, coming on top of the birth control pill, really made it much more clear to women — and to men — that childbearing was a choice."

Most Americans would agree that they should be able to exercise reproductive choice. But individual choices have social consequences. As USA Today notes, when fertility rates fall below replacement, there are fewer people to fill jobs and support the elderly. Eventually, the population in nations with below-replacement fertility levels will decline in number and grow older on average. This is a looming problem for nations like Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan and China that have had below-replacement level fertility rates for decades. Like the United States, they now face the difficult social problems that result from having fewer workers supporting more retirees.

But as Bill Butz, president of the non-profit Population Reference Bureau, told USA Today, "Many policymakers and decision-makers in Europe, whether they talk about it or not, are envious of the U.S. fertility rate ... because our social security issues will not come as fast as theirs." Butz also notes that young people are the source of creative ideas that keep economies humming.

Thus it is a good thing that the nation's total fertility rate has been edging upward in recent years. In part, says Ms. Coontz, this is a reflection of rising prosperity and improved maternal leave policies in many American offices. But it is also a result of the nation's growing Hispanic population and changing racial and ethnic mix.

According to the preliminary federal estimates, the fertility rate for "non-Hispanic whites" — the great majority of the nation's population — remains below replacement at 1.864. For African-Americans the rate is just over 2.1. But for Hispanic Americans the rate is 2.959, guaranteeing a rapidly growing Hispanic population even without immigration. The nation is changing. Adjusting to these changes in coming years will be a major challenge.
http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/jan ... rica26316/

There is a reason for the higher Hispanic fertility rate.


People wait to have children until they feel that they can support them at the same standard that they experienced themselves.


The more people that there are with a particular skill set the lower the amount they can make.


People gain skills over the course of their careers with younger people proportionately less likely to have obtained a high level of remunerative skills.


Much of the Hispanic population in the US are minimally skilled people from underdeveloped countries in Latin America.


Many of the young Americans of non Hispanic background are in occupations which are oversupplied with labor as a result of immigration.


Since the Latin American communities immigrants are coming from are so poor an American minimum wage can produce a subjective comfort level for them to have children.