Fertility in America has been declining for years. According to the Pew Research Center, the nation’s birth rate hit an all-time low in 2011 — just 63 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age. It was almost twice as high — 123 births per 1,000 women — at the peak of the Baby Boom in 1957.
As babies and children disappear from a society, what takes their place? One answer, as journalist Jonathan V. Last observes in a forthcoming book, “What to Expect When No One’s Expecting,” is pets.
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oh, boy: has Jeff been reading German and French opinion pieces from the 90s? the 1890s?? the declining birthrate has been a favorite theme of Teuton and Gallic race worriers for more than a century, as well as Anglo-Saxons in this country, all concerned that the "good people" arent reproducing enough. of course, how odd, with global population exploding. it is, of course, none of Jeff's business what potential babymakers are doing, actually. Pat Buchanan and others of similar mindset have also railed about the "problem" of falling birth rates. Jonathan V Last, the "journalist" on which this silly column is based, is another neo-con pro-lifer churning out right wing propaganda at The Daily Standard. He is one of those misogynists who annually mourn Roe v Wade. So, Jeff has picked up this birth mania from Last who got it most likely from Buchanan who recycled it from others worried about their own master races. fertility. time for real men to put back on their daddy pants and for women to get barefoot and pregnant. for The Race. for civilization. for all of "us" whether or not they will do it on their own. Jacoby has descended into babbling incoherence which borders on race eugenics. aint it time that the Globe let him do his writings on his own time?
You are wrong. Fertility rates are far below replacement levels in all developed countries and except for a few developing countries in Africa and South Asia fertility rates are falling rapidly in the rest of the world. The world's population continues to grow for now but it will probably stabilize within the next few decades.
I'm more worried some will take your ill conceived prescriptions to heart. Our lives are evolving just fine. Yesteryear left our too many and imposed social demands that did not fit day to day lives.
This is incoherent. What do you mean?
You might want to rethink your extrapolation Mr. Jacoby -- especially in view of the fact that despite your referencing on China, according to National Intelligence Estimates, China's economy is set to surpass the U.S. by 2030.
But do those NIE's take into account the rapid aging of the Chinese labor force in the next twenty years? Perhaps the rapid growth of the Chinese economy during the past 30 years can be explained partly by the small number of children and elderly that the working population needed to support. That won't be true in the coming decades as China struggles to take care of hundreds of millions of elderly, many of them chain smokers with lung cancer.
I'm not for a return to large families but Jeff has a point. If the average woman has fewer than two children, there are enormous consequences for society. Older workers retire and there are fewer young people to replace them in the labor force. Social security, Medicare and Medicaid are financed by taxing younger employed workers (not by taxing the 1 percent). With an aging population, it becomes harder and harder to afford generous social benefits for the elderly and disabled. One advantage that the US has is that we can import talented and ambitious young people if we have the right immigration policy. China, Japan and Europe are all aging rapidly but we don't have to.
We don't need more babies, we need more people of working age. It takes nearly two decades for a baby to become productive. Immigration is a simple solution. It has been proposed by a number of economists as a solution to the Social Security problem. Of course, most immigrants are unlikely to be white Europeans, so bigotry may be a problem.
Jeff is a total bore as a columnist. This article will not be remembered by anyone. Its time the globe steps up with new faces.
If he's such a bore, then why do you read him? Couldn't you spend your time more effectively? Or is your real goal the silencing of a conservative voice in the otherwise liberal pages of the Globe?
Given that the population of the US is steadily increasing one has to wonder at Jeff's point. The main thrust seems to be that white college educated women aren't having children fast enough. Fast enough for what? Fast enough to keep our particular demographic group in the majority?
Jeff notes the decline in European birthrates, but fails to mention the fact that the total world population continues to rise. If I didn't know better I'd say Jeff is more concerned about which demographic group is growing and which is not. The human species continues to grow at what some might say is an unsustainable rate, but apparently to Jeff all births aren't equal. A very strange way for a right to lifer to think.
I think I recall other columns in which he advocated more children of all demographics for all countries. Not that I, whose first advocacy group was "Zero Population Growth", agree with him, but this particular attack isn't fair.
Mr. Buchanan, I mean Jeff, you say that a lack of white babies causes "economic stagnation" and a "declining lifestyle" but isn't it true that the single, number one most likely factor predicting success for young women is not having kids? But you don't care about women entrepreneurs do you?
I see your timing here as well, doing a pro-white-people-pro-"traditional" marriage bit just as the SCOTUS is taking a look at gay marriage. You're not cute. You're not interesting. And you're not as clever as you apparently think you are.
Jacoby quotes Last as saying that the U.S.'s "one child policy" is "soft and unintentional, the result of accidents of history and thousands of little choices." Well, if you want college-educated women to have more children, the U.S. had better make some intentional, big choices, like providing affordable, quality child care to *all* parents so that they don't have to put their jobs in peril when they have children, and making school schedules friendlier to working parents. As it is now, women's chances for promotion and incomes take a permanent hit if they take any time off to have children--even as little as a year-- and finding child care for infants if you don't have Grandma living in town can be almost impossible. You want college-educated women to have more kids? Have college-educated men take over child care.
I had to laugh. When you click the link "others" in the fifth paragrapgh - pertaining to those who warn that DECREASING populations will bring about our dimise - it goes to a 1994 Jeff Jacoby piece touring the social and economic benefits of procreation. Jacoby regularly uses his column to surreptitiously thwart a progression to acceptance of marriage equality. This particular piece includes philosophies supported by the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE), the Koch brothers funded think tank in Montana, butressed by the petrochemical industry. More people, more oil.
"The market" has declared child-rearing to be too expensive. I thought the market was always right?
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Time Magazine Dec. 1, '12, page 51: " In 40 years , the population of sub-Saharan Africa will have more than doubled from 856 million to 1.9 billion". As a Catholic himself, Jacoby must recognize that population growth and suppression of birth control measures in Catholic and Muslim dominated countries (e. g. South America, Middle East) is crucial to political influence and financial stablity.
Try learning the facts. Fertility has been falling dramatically in Catholic Mexico, Brazil and other Latin American countries. It is om some African and South Asian countries that fertility remains high.
A little twisting of the reality there "Ozark". Birth rates have been dropping in Mexico and Brazil simply due to an increasing rate of education, a decline in farming populations and large movements towards urban areas. Now you might view this as a problem but Mexico and Brazil both view this as beneficial. Like Jeff you seem to be splitting the hairs as to who is being born. Overpopulation is an issue for the entire species not for a particular demographic group. Therefore if we see declines in certain sections of the world that is balanced by increases in other sections of the world that is a good thing. What we are looking for is total growth not which specific racial or ethnic growth. Unless of course your Jeff and you're really concerned about one certain catagory of decline.
"Barbara" I wan't trying to be unfair to Jeff I was merely pointing out the direction in which the article seemed to be taking. I have no idea what his true concern is regarding birth rates. That's why I said, "The main thrust seems to be that white college educated women aren't having children fast enough." Given that we know the Latino and Black demographics continue to grow at a rate faster than the replacement rate, the fact that "white" women seem to be growing at a lower rate seems to be his concern. I prefer the lower growth rates, in fact a prefer the zero population rate both in terms of the planet and in terms of economics.
I will grant you my line of comment does bring into question where Jeff is going, but in fact I don't know where he is going except to be expressing a concern about a certain segment of the population not growing fast enough.
I agree with your interpretation. He's telling us to be concerned about "the fertility rate for white, college-educated American women" without being grossly blatant about it. That's the only group he mentions, so how else can it be interpreted?
Again, you have to have read his previous columns which focus on world-wide birth rates in general, including it seemed Bangladesh. I remember because I don't usually find Jeff irrational.
Maybe just once Jacoby could write about something that's ultimately important. He seems to always be about some social issue that he wants to dictate how people should think or act.
Of course, there's a simple fix for low birth rates -- immigration. Horrors! They'll most likely be Hispanic. Double horrors.
Hey Jeff, you wonder "what happens to a society that increasingly turns its back on marriage and babies?" You create a society that is fulll of hatred and fear and legalized second class citizenship. Maybe it's time for you to reverse your long standing commitment to deny gay and lesbian couples the right the marry and enjoy the protections that marriage offers for parenthood.
Well "Barbara" you could be right as I have not seen the articles you speak of. If as you say he is promoting increasing birth rates across the board then I really disagree with him.