Childless [strike]Europeans[/strike] Americans

dann

Penultimate Amazing
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Since at least one active member of the ISF is preoccupied with childlessness, I am surprised that we don't have a thread that deals specifically with this, and it occurred to me again when I was watching a recent episode of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah:
A Toddler Rides an Airport Conveyor Belt and America’s Fertility Rate Plummets:



For some reason it didn't get as much attention when it was reported on NBC in May:

The numbers are part of a decadeslong trend toward fewer and fewer babies being born each year — which means we’re getting further away from the possibility of having enough children to replace ourselves, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Birth rate in U.S. falls to lowest level in 32 years, CDC says (NBC News, May 15, 2019)
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The Daily Show refers to this article from CNN:

When examined by race, the data showed that fertility rates declined 2% for white and black women, and 3% for Hispanic women, between 2017 and 2018.
The data also showed that the teen birth rate, for ages 15 to 19, fell 7% from 2017 to 2018. When examined by race, the data showed that teen births declined by 4% for black teenagers, and 8% for white and Hispanic teens.
US fertility rate falls to 'all-time low,' CDC says (CNN, July 24, 2019)
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Births and Natality (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

On average, women had 1.2 biological children and men had fathered 0.9 children.
Fertility of Men and Women Aged 15–44 in the United States (National Health Statistics Reports, July 11, 2018)
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This is what Wikipedia has to say about people who are childless/childfree:

Overall, researchers have observed childless couples to be more educated, and it is perhaps because of this that they are more likely to be employed in professional and management occupations, more likely for both spouses to earn relatively high incomes, and to live in urban areas. They are also less likely to be religious, subscribe to traditional gender roles, or subscribe to conventional roles.
Being a childfree, American adult was considered unusual in the 1950s. However, the proportion of childless adults in the population has increased significantly since then. The proportion of childlessness among women aged 40-44 was 10% in 1976, reached a high of 20% in 2005, then declined to 15% in 2014. In Europe, childlessness among women aged 40-44 is most common in Austria, Spain and the United Kingdom (in 2010-2011). Childlessness is least common across Eastern European countries, although one child families are very common there.
From 2007 to 2011 the fertility rate in the U.S. declined 9%, the Pew Research Center reporting in 2010 that the birth rate was the lowest in U.S. history and that childfreeness rose across all racial and ethnic groups to about 1 in 5 versus 1 in 10 in the 1970s. The CDC released statistics in the first quarter of 2016 confirming that the U.S. fertility rate had fallen to its lowest point since record keeping started in 1909: 59.8 births per 1,000 women, half its high of 122.9 in 1957. Even taking the falling fertility rate into account, the U.S. Census Bureau still projected that the U.S. population would increase from 319 million (2014) to 400 million by 2051.
The National Center of Health Statistics confirms that the percentage of American women of childbearing age who define themselves as childfree (or voluntarily childless) rose sharply in the 1990s—from 2.4 percent in 1982 to 4.3 percent in 1990 to 6.6 percent in 1995.
Voluntary childlessness: Statistics and research (Wikipedia)
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Could this be the reason why some states in the USA seem to be hellbent on putting a stop to abortions and also don't seem to be very interested in promoting education?
 
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We should add it to the list of what's required for Making America Great Again:

1) Abortion of any kind is illegal.
2) Education is discouraged.
3) Grownups unaccompanied by children are denied access to Disney World.
 
Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out that Americans have a greater rate of childlessness than Europeans? Baylor would not be amused, although I'm sure he would be able to somehow spin it (fake news, fake media, alternative facts - the usual crap)
 
traditionally, there were sites were you could rent a child (with a sufficient degree of handicap), to take to Disney with you so you could jump the cues.
Capitalism at its best!
 
Less kids. Less emissions, saves planet for weirdos who think the world is going to end in 15 years from climate change.
 
smartcooky said:
Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out that Americans have a greater rate of childlessness than Europeans? Baylor would not be amused, although I'm sure he would be able to somehow spin it (fake news, fake media, alternative facts - the usual crap)
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Well, the US birth rate is lower than Sweden and France, I think.
And it's in the same ball-park as much of the rest of Europe.
 
Spoiled? Greedy? Don't want the cost of child rearing to put a crimp in their style- new car, bigger house then any two people need, all the toy. vacations, expensive evenings? Which attitude is why they went to college, up the ladder too? The "ME" generations? Don't expect it to get better with all the helicopter moms spoiling their only child.
 
casebro said:
Spoiled? Greedy? Don't want the cost of child rearing to put a crimp in their style- new car, bigger house then any two people need, all the toy. vacations, expensive evenings? Which attitude is why they went to college, up the ladder too? The "ME" generations? Don't expect it to get better with all the helicopter moms spoiling their only child.
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Is this a joke?

Young people are damned if they do, damned if they don't. Seems that the older generations are bound to criticize the spending habits of young people no matter what they do. If they spend too much on dinner, they're air-headed spendthrifts not planning for tomorrow. If they make the informed decision that they cannot afford children as early and often, they are self-centered losers.

Young people today are spending their early careers working to pay off tremendous student loan debt in an economy that has not had meaningful wage growth in decades. Dual income families are now the default and most cannot tolerate the loss of income that childbearing necessitates. Choosing to not have children, or to delay having children, or to have less children are all reasonable responses to factors outside their control.

Raging about "the Me generation" is probably the most idiotic response to the natural result of decades of failed public policy.
 
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casebro said:
Spoiled? Greedy? Don't want the cost of child rearing to put a crimp in their style- new car, bigger house then any two people need, all the toy. vacations, expensive evenings? Which attitude is why they went to college, up the ladder too? The "ME" generations? Don't expect it to get better with all the helicopter moms spoiling their only child.
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So the ME generation helicopter parenting the children they aren't having because they are greedy?

Yeah this is a pathetic joke of a post.
 
smartcooky said:
Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out that Americans have a greater rate of childlessness than Europeans? Baylor would not be amused, although I'm sure he would be able to somehow spin it (fake news, fake media, alternative facts - the usual crap)
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Who is Baylor?! Is it somebody we ought to know?
:)
 
casebro said:
Spoiled? Greedy? Don't want the cost of child rearing to put a crimp in their style- new car, bigger house then any two people need, all the toy. vacations, expensive evenings? Which attitude is why they went to college, up the ladder too? The "ME" generations? Don't expect it to get better with all the helicopter moms spoiling their only child.
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this


idiocracy was a documentary
 
I don't have kids because I don't want them. What shall I do with all this disposable income, then? Guess I'll just help pay for my nieces' college education. How selfishly wicked of me!
 
I really don't get people who say it is selfish to not have kids. Where did this idea come from? Is absolutely nothing not anyone else's business?

It's hard to imagine how I could be affecting other people less than choosing to remain single and childless, but apparently that's a problem. I seriously hate the world. I ******* hate it.
 
casebro said:
Spoiled? Greedy? Don't want the cost of child rearing to put a crimp in their style- new car, bigger house then any two people need, all the toy. vacations, expensive evenings? Which attitude is why they went to college, up the ladder too? The "ME" generations? Don't expect it to get better with all the helicopter moms spoiling their only child.
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Or you know... can't responsibly afford to have kids and provide healthcare and post-secondary education plus save enough for retirement. I'm 100% in that boat. If people don't want or can't afford to have children why should they exactly? Yeah its going to cause trouble with a shrinking population in the short term, but in the longer term the human race will be better with a smaller population. If we get under a billion it might be time to start worrying.

ETA: god knows how much money I'd have saved right now if it wasn't for the "great recession". I saved and saved and saved in my 20's to see nearly half of it wiped out in 2008-09 (401k, Roth IRA, and a brokerage acct). Then I became insanely risk-averse so I've only averaged a 2 or 3% annual return. If it wasn't for that I'd probably have had kids. So yeah, I blame idiotic policies.
 
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Let's not forget, you know, concern for the future state of the world. I don't think things are headed in a very good direction. Why would I want to bring children into that? I don't know how to navigate a kid properly through such a confusing mess. I can barely handle it myself.

It's genuinely disgusting to me that this is viewed as anyone's business other than mine.
 
isissxn said:
Let's not forget, you know, concern for the future state of the world. I don't think things are headed in a very good direction. Why would I want to bring children into that? I don't know how to navigate a kid properly through such a confusing mess. I can barely handle it myself.

It's genuinely disgusting to me that this is viewed as anyone's business other than mine.
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We're already in a place where a fetus's rights outweigh it mother's, it's only a matter of time before childless women are sued on behalf of hypothetical not-yet-conceived children they should have had. I don't expect anybody will be interested in suing the non-fathers, of course.
 
isissxn said:
Let's not forget, you know, concern for the future state of the world. I don't think things are headed in a very good direction. Why would I want to bring children into that? I don't know how to navigate a kid properly through such a confusing mess. I can barely handle it myself.

It's genuinely disgusting to me that this is viewed as anyone's business other than mine.
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I could not possibly agree with a statement more.

The fact anyone thinks they should be able to tell others how to live, when to have kids or even IF they should have kids is beyond me. If someone tried to tell me or my kids any different I'd tell them to **** right off.

There is no reason to have kids if you don't want them.

People also can't look down on teenage parents and then bitch that kids 15-19 aren't having kids. They shouldn't be having kids. There's no reason for them to be having kids. Life expectancy is significantly longer and if they don't want to have kids until they're in their mid-30's, then they shouldn't. If by that time they feel like they don't want kids then they shouldn't have them.
 
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