I am greatly puzzled by this report in the Washington Post:
The United States is in the midst of what some worry is a baby crisis. The number of women giving birth has been declining for years and just hit a historic low. If the trend continues — and experts disagree on whether it will — the country could face economic and cultural turmoil.
According to provisional 2016 population data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday, the number of births fell 1 percent from a year earlier, bringing the general fertility rate to 62.0 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. The trend is being driven by a decline in birthrates for teens and 20-somethings. The birthrate for women in their 30s and 40s increased — but not enough to make up for the lower numbers in their younger peers.
To appropriate a recurring theme in some blogs I’m so old that I remember when teen pregnancy was a bad thing.
I simply have no idea how the following issues can be reconciled:
- Too low a rate of teen pregnancy.
- Low family incomes, especially for single parent households headed by women.
- Enough research to believe that in general it’s better for children if they live with both of their biological parents.
- Everyone should get a college education.
- Robots are taking all the jobs.
- Our experience with AFDC.
- Hiring and pay should be based on merit (including experience, education, and seniority as merit).
- Equal work—equal pay.
If anyone can cut that Gordian knot, I’m all ears.
It certainly sounds to me as though we have seriously conflicting objectives.
It’s easy to solve those issues, but first we simply to permanently solve the minimum wage issue once and for all, right after a round of media navel-gazing.
“simply have to”
What, you’re suggesting our media, politicians and business leaders not spend every minute of every day coming up with scenarios in which the country is destroyed and terrorizing the citizenry?
It’s bullshit, White and Black women are not having many babies, but Hispanics and Native Americans?, POP POP POP. Lots of babies, not being counted.
Let’s not reconcile. Let’s take a young man with a welder’s apprenticeship and a young woman cosmetologist, to be sexist, and they can eventually bring down over a $100, 000 year.
Even in their young years they can take on the care of a baby or two or even three or four if they like children. See it all the time in my Facebook.
Mind, Vidalia, LA is a rural community in Louisiana.