Lower bithrate for everyone, please. Our system is a form of planetary cancer now. We need a new model.
15
In the education of women is the salvation of the planet. With a few exceptions, as women of every culture leave the male dominated, fundamentalist societies most come from to go to the west they inevitably have fewer kids, later, get better educated and have far more options than in their home countries. The nyts and the left constantly disparage American society (and we clearly have a long way to go) but it remains one of the best places for women anywhere.
10
According to the National Vital Statistics Report, volume 76, #8, almost 30% of Hispanics who gave birth in the U.S. in 2017 lacked a high school diploma, 52.5% were unmarried, and 65.9% had their medical care paid for by Medicaid (taxpayers).
18.5% of Mexican woman who gave birth in the U.S. in 2017, already had given birth to at least 3 children. This means almost a fifth of them are still having 4 or more children.
While the average Mexican woman had fewer children in 2017 than she had had previously, the average Central, South American, and Cuban women had more than they had had in earlier years.
We have poorly educated women, many of whom are unmarried, giving birth to multiple children. Our government encourages this by paying their medical costs, and by providing them with welfare.
Hispanic churches need to have a better understanding of how over-population affects the environment. They need to encourage education and to allow the use of artificial birth control.
12
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid financing in trouble?
2
How can we have stock market growth at 10% if gdp growth is less than 3% and population growth less than 1%?
surely not more immigrants starting high tech companies like Intel, Google, Tesla, SpaceX....
This effect is well known as the "demographic transition".
4
Check the Mexican birthrate. That country has easy access to birth control, and their birthrate is dropping too.
6
As the only child a caucasian, veteran of my father's ten children to go to college (mba) I feel despite the statistics that College is overrated from a financial perspective although their are benefits from a social perspective. This is a lot about the changes in our society and certainly the reason that socialism seems to be gathering support. College students find themselves deeper in debt with lower paying jobs then they expected. Fortunately immigrant minorities still reap benefits because they have come up much further on the social ladder especially if their parents had very low paying menial jobs.
3
Is it tied to an overburdened health care system with extremely high costs. Is it tied to the lack of high paying jobs . Remember Bezos is worth $140 billion while so many at Amazon just lost stock options and are getting paid$15 dollars an hour. Is it tied to the debt one needs just to get a college degree where later they offer low starting salaries for college graduates? Is it tied to the lack of affordable housing?
2
When women have control over family size they have fewer children at an older age and income and life expectancy go up, which is why number of children/age of the mother are important indicators of a nation’s health and wealth. This occurs when women have access to birth control, access to education and greater equality in the home and in society. You know, all the things that are anathema to the right.
11
Fertility rate is not the same as birth rate. Declines in fertility rates = the handmaid's tale. Declines in birth rates = delaying the choice to have children. Sheesh.
7
There isn't a "noisy battle over immigration." There is noisy fearmongering from Republicans about the imaginary threat recent immigrants pose. Articles like this are great for examining the realty of American immigration, but this wording fails to call out the xenophobic haters who want us to reject our neighbors, even as they strive to assimilate.
7
No mention of how abortion impacts this decline. I feel like that would be an important part of the findings, no?
Bravo to the women who are making the decision to postpone children for an education and simply because there are too many of us on the planet already. Hopefully men will understand that too many children increase their work cycle and early death.
5
I'm a 1st generation American born Filipina from a family of 3 girls. Both of my parents came from large, Catholic families of 7 siblings or more.
Between me and my sisters, guess how many grandchildren my parents have? Just 1. And no more. My younger sister (mid-30s) doesn't want any, and neither do I (late 30s).
All 3 of us are college graduates, and our parents instilled an "education first" mentality from the very beginning.
21
I think the article does not address other Hispanic populations. For example, the Cuban immigrant community made decisions to go to college instead of having children at a young age or have large families. As a result the immigrant Cuban community has excelled educationally and economically. This was evident when last presidential elections, he two of the candidates ( Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz) who were children of Cuban immigrants. This wonderful country offers great opportunities. My parents worked in menial jobs, and I was able to graduate from a good University and become a lawyer. All it takes is hard work and sacrifice. The challenge is to balance a career and family. While I was fortunate to marry at 30, I was but no able to have children. However, had I been given the choice,knowing that I may not have children, I would still opted for an education . I have received great benefits and privileges that have allowed me to help my family and live a comfortable and secure life. I hope these young women get all their wishes fulfilled in this great country and able to have a family as well. God bless the USA.
5
This is not new news--I learned it in the 70s. Developing countries have high infant mortality, which leads to high
birth rates to increase the likelihood that some will survive.
Immigrants often continue the practice here in the U.S.,
but it's been shown that their children, raised here, have
birth rates indistinguishable from the general population.
One more proof that people are people and adapt to their
environment.
12
I taught in a high school that was 60% plus hispanic. The young women featured here was beyond typical. They were engaging intelligent, young people, boys included. They are soooo American. I taught economics. You start with the production possibilities curves which is defined by resources:land, labor, and capital. As we looked at labor, I'd ask the simple question of all the girls, how many kids do you plan on having...since that will define your retirement, i.e. the ppc later, and economic growth potential in 20 years plus. The hispanic girls right along with the white ones put up on average 1.5 or less. Then we went into replacement rate, death vs birth... and impact on economy. Boys would put up 5... lol, but guess who makes the decision? I asked the girl would you marry a guy that said they want 5 kids, and they answered a big NO. So this is no surprise to me...I am a school board member as well in a field worker community...of course that is changing...The rest of the board, all 4 others hispanic, thought I was wrong, that the babies would come... we are now looking at declining enrollment...uh duh. People are people and the respond to pretty much the same economic factors. The MAGA crowd is just stupid...we actually are surviving on immigration, which was ironically on the decline before Trump..
5
Ms. Wences, I applaud your resolve to pursue education and career before having a family, but please don't wait until you 35 to think about it. Many women are discovering that by their late 30s their chances of a successful pregnancy are diminished much more than they may have been led to believe. If you have someone special in your life with whom you hope to share a family, begin in your early 30s instead.
4
Any time you give women more control over their reproductive processes, the number of children most will choose to have decreases dramatically. Better education for girls and women, better access to economic resources, better access to even basic health care, as well as more exposure to options - more options for religious choice, more options for mate choice, all these contribute to women making choices that improve their lives and the lives of the children they do choose to have.
18
Historically, births rates are highest in societies without pension plans or state care for the elderly. Having a lot of kids is insurance that some of them will take care of you when you are old and broken.
8
@William,
Hmm, the US has virtually eliminated defined benefits pension plans with the bait-and-switch tactic of introducing 401k plans, that are woefully inadequate.
As to state care for the elderly in the US, we'd better not go there at all. That is, unless you call spending down for Medicaid qualification and spending the last few years of one's life warehoused in horrible nursing homes "state care".
I am beginning to wonder if US citizens should start upping their birth rates as fast as they can....
2
In summary: Children have become economic liabilities, not assets. Prospective parents do the math.
22
On a planet with 7.8 billion humans and a permanent over supply of both labor and people, the environment sees us as a liability as well.
6
What a great dad and what a great daughter.
24
Good news!! Most young women are electing to live for themselves and not being breeders. They also realize that having children that they cannot afford ruins both their and their offsprings’ lives
23
I wonder what the experience is with other immigrant groups, particularly Muslim, and whether it is affected by levels of education and socio economic class of the parents.
3
Gee, and I thought they’d be the majority population by 2050! Or so said this paper.
3
Such predictions are always based on the continuence of existing trends, which have changed per this article. That's what a newspaper is supposed to do--publish the best information we have, and then update that information as needed.
4
When I emigrated to the so-called "first world", I was so disappointed, and angry, when I saw all those white southern Texan protestants with 7 or 8 children, crawling like rabbits, but yes, they complained that the Mexicans had too many children, 3 at most at that time. Now a days , in Mexico, at most they have one or none, unless they live in very rural areas. Now, you wonder why there are almost no highly or at least beyond high-school educated Mexicans, not their descendants, around you ?
3
@Ernesto - You need to be more clear about the point you are trying to make.
1
Better yet, never have kids. Not talking about Hispanics in particular, but young women. If you must procreate, stop at one. We need a rapid population decrease or we will get it in more unpleasant ways.
11
It's not easy being Hispanic in the US. It is uphill all the way if you want to make it in to the middle class. Plenty of people will try to push you down and slam the door in your face but you have to prevail. Getting a degree before having children is the best way to achieve success.
3
It’s not easy for anyone who starts in poverty or with a parent or parents who struggle to survive. It’s worse if you live in a region where you are treated as a second class human as well.
If you have good family and a healthy community though I believe most people will be okay. But that requires people to care about each other.
11
OLd school or traditional Hispanics don't believe in birth control, believe in having large families , poor and are very uneducated. They are almost all Catholic with the rest being Evangelical Protestants. They says it all. Having an education, decent income, gives a person an ability to escape superstitious religions and thereby freeing themselves from mental bondage.
14
I am a recent older mother. I made the decision to wait for many reasons. However, if there are any younger readers, I'd like to mention a reason not to wait as long that I didn't consider.
Grandchildren.
My children's relationship with their grandparents is incredibly important, bringing joy to both sides and financially crucial childcare to my family. However, those relationships are necessarily shorter because of how long I waited to have kids.
Although it seemed a lifetime away, now that I see that loving grandparent/child relationship I am looking forward to way down the road when I am a grandparent. What if my children wait as long as I did? Will my husband and I be pushing eighty if we are lucky enough to be grandparents? My understanding is maternal age is increasing but life expectancy is NOT.
4
My parent also came to the US for better opportunities. But, there were six kids all before my mom was 32, and let me tell you that was hard on my dad. I will never understand why they had so many kids, which they could not afford. They did stress education and college, and being the oldest (male) I did graduate college.
I did it different, my only child, a daughter, was born when I was 35. She also graduated college and is a professional and she has no plans at the moment to have any kids or get married. She needs to enjoy her life and start her career.
Every generation should do better than the previous. In my case this is true.
14
People don't generally "grow up" until their mid 30s, so having children at this age is best for everyone, and society at large. Marriage should also be delayed until real maturity has arrived.
13
@William O’Reilly
Really? Mid 30s aka pushing 40 can be said to be middle aged. I would hope that people mature before then and are delaying marriage/parenthood for financial reasons.
1
It seems in every society across the world, when women gain control of their reproductive cycles, birth rates plummet. What does that say about the people, especially the men, who want to take reproductive choice away from women?
26
There is nothing wrong in doing the right thing. I am glad that Latina people are also trying hard for that American Dream. Children and family can wait until everything is right.
5
This may be the case for second generations in the U.S., which is usually the case for just about every immigrant group. But in the Central and Latin America as a whole? Birthrates are not abating. This is one of the drivers of refugees to this country, and let's be honest: the church's anti-birth control plays a big role in the poorest of families having more children than they can possibly care for. If we (developed countries) are to ever really help developing and poorer countries deal with poverty, environment etc., we must deal with birth control. How to do that with the Trump Administration's attitude?
12
@gmt The largest source of Latin American immigrants is Mexico. Mexico's fertility decline since the 1970s has been dramatic, though still somewhat over replacement levels. It may surprise you to discover that birth control has been widely practiced in Mexico for over 40 years despite opposition from the Catholic Church. I don't have the completed fertility or average family size data for Central American countries handy, but I know that other countries in Latin America have experienced substantial fertility declines as well.
Birth rates are _not_ a driver of refugee migration. Violence is.
1
@gmt - So the backward, irrational (and as a result, poverty-striken) state of so many other countries, is OUR problem to fix?
We don't need them flooding in here, we don't need to fix their problems for them, we owe them nothing. Trump's attitude is one of the things that could put the USA back of the right (America first) track.
@gmt - Birthrates are abating, but let's say a combination of poverty, instability and then, maybe also the Church's teaching (which has pretty much zero impact on choices by US Catholic women, by the way).
Look here at a chart of nations and also different regions and other groupings to see birthrate changes from 1960 to 2016.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN/
If you scroll almost all the way down, the grouping "Latin America & Caribbean (excluding high income)" had fertility rates go from 6.38 in 1960 down to 2.06 in 2016.
And down in that part of the list, it's clear fertility rates map well to income levels, level of national development, stability of government and social structures.
Will not stop Latin Americans from taking over the country in fifty years. That's what the government wants and that is what they will get.
3
What do you think is so different about Latin Americans? They speak two languages—so did most of our grandparents. They want living wage jobs, good education for their children, health care. Latin Americans are not aliens from outer space. In fact if you read some history, you will learn that this country was Spanish before it was English. We share a history.
3
According to the National Vital Statistics Report, volume 76, #8, almost 30% of Hispanics who gave birth in the U.S. in 2017 lacked a high school diploma, 52.5% were unmarried, and 65.9% had their medical care paid for by Medicaid (taxpayers).
PEW says Mexicans account for about 11% of our population. 18.5% of Mexican woman who gave birth in the U.S. in 2017, already had given birth to at least 3 children. This means almost a fifth of them are still having 4 or more children.
While the average Mexican woman had fewer children in 2017 than she had had previously, the average Central, South American, and Cuban women had more than they had had in earlier years.
We have poorly educated women, many of whom are unmarried, giving birth to multiple children. Our government encourages this by paying their medical costs, and by providing them with welfare.
Hispanic churches need to have a better understanding of how over-population affects the environment so that they start to encourage the use of artificial means of birth control.
10
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez does not want women to have any more babies under the Green New Deal. We are now going in the extreme direction which is quite frightening. Large families were the norm many years ago which was not always wise but now liberals do not want to see any more population growth. That just does not make any sense. Who will replace the baby boomers once they are gone. This sounds a lot like a socialist plot which will not work. Do we want to become another China? I hope not.
2
@WPLMMT R There are far too many people already. We could halve our population and halve it again and be much better off. Doubt it will happen though. We'll die instead.
5
@WPLMMT-China has over a billion people, and so does India. So I agree with you, we don’t want to become another China. That being said, how many people do you think the Earth can sustain?
6
@WPLMMT, Congresswoman Cortez did not say she didn’t want women to have babies. She said many of the people of her generation were not planning to have children because of their concerns regarding climate change.
I think that is a valid concern. It shows forward thinking and assessment of our current problems and the need to come up with good solutions to maintain our planet as a place to live and thrive in the future. What’s wrong with that?
2
Because birth rates decline everywhere among every ethnic group and country when standard of living rises. Hans Rosling has an amazing Data Visualization chart that shows how the effect works.
10
Education plays a big role as well as job opportunities.
Good. The best way to have happy, healthy, wanted children is to offer women an education and birth control.
17
One of the most important factors to the success of these young women is access to birth control and the control over their bodies.
14
Finally, Hispanics blending in a little more with American society. This is a great trend, delaying childbirth and number of children while finishing school and start careers. What's not to like?
8
This birth rate trend among .S. Hispanics is mirrored in Mexico. In recent decades, the birth rate in Mexico has dropped to something around 2 per woman--where before it was much higher. My wife--a Mexican citizen--came from a family of 7 children. But the younger generation is different--partly because of government sponsorship of birth control methods and the waning influence of the Catholic Church.
6
"The birth rate has not picked up as the economy improved, puzzling demographers." ????
Seriously? Whenever we have seen economic dislocations...a diminishing of expectation, you see a drop in the birth rate. The birth rate was very low during the Great Depression and WW II (1930's - 1945) and shot back up during the prosperity of the late 1940's and 1950's.
The effective death of the American trade union movement has clobbered the real wages of not just blue collar workers, but virtually all of us. Since about 1980 the economy has "improved" marvelously for the top 1% of this country - and modestly for the top 10%. The rest of us? Not so much.
Our economy now essentially requires two full time workers per family to have any hope of a middle class existence...and American women have been stepping up to that - by getting more educated so that they can get better jobs. And guess what? All over the world, we find that the best way to drop the birth rate is to educate the girl-children.
11
With nearly 1/3 of the U.S. population hispanic over just 50 years, this is a positive for the nation and young women able to make those choices for their future. It ought be noted that the bulk of hispanic immigrants in the U.S. are millennials - most of whom will remain in their prime breeding years for some time to come.
1
If it's hard for these women to have a child, it's even harder to be the child! What's in the deal for child but to face the same problems of the parent. The baby trap. Hope over reason.
2
The plunge in birthrates is due to the synthetic estrogen and progesterone experiments conducted on millions of this nations poor (of all races) by Planned Parenthood and its predecessor the American Birth Control League. Between 1939-1947 Margaret Sanger and Katherine McCormick tested out early forms of synthetic hormones for use in a future birth control pill. After 1947 the drug DES was openly prescribed to pregnant women until 1971 when it was discovered it caused vaginal cancers. It has since been linked to a large variety of endocrine and reproductive disorders.
The sad irony is Planned Parenthood denied millions the ability to plan their parenthood due to caring for difficult birth defects and other medical issues in the offspring of estrogen poisoned children.
The Puerto Rico trials were the end game. Not a test.
Frankly, Robert, this sounds like paranoid crazy talk. What are your sources?
8
Well, if nothing else it gives me ammunition against my knothead Nebraska relatives who wail and scream about Hispanics breeding them out of their country.
4
As others have said, the big news would have been if Hispanic fertility rates DIDN'T go down.
2
"The fact that the American rate has not picked up along with the economy in recent years has puzzled demographers."
To understand lower birth rates, just considering child care costs, where I live in Texas. I suspect we're lower than most large states.
Parenting Blog says: In Texas, the average cost of having an infant in a child care center is $9,207. The cost of having an infant and a four-year-old (a completely plausible scenario) is $17,020. Turns out the cost of public college tuition is almost the exact same as the infant child care rate: $9,221 a year.
Parents who are married are spending 11.5 percent of their income on infant care and 21.3 percent of their income on care for an infant and a 4-year-old. Single parents are spending 38.5 percent and 71.2 percent.
9
I'm 31 and seriously not considering having children and more and more people I meet are in the same boat. it's not that I overtly don't want children, it's the fact that I can barely afford to sustain my self after costs and the thought of having a small child reliant on us is a huge burden.
That coupled with concerns around the environment, education, healthcare and society in general; do I really want to bring a life into the next 80 years of our society as it is? are things really going to be better for the next generations? as I see it, read it and feel it; sadly not.
26
It is not only about cost, which is itself marked, particularly for single mothers, and time away from work. It is about assimilation into a dominant culture that values children and family less and less in practice, whether because having children makes it very difficult for women to advance in their careers, because it places women in a subservient role both to children and husbands, because it cramps the style of the young, or because it isolates people from their childless friends. Here we see another moral reason, that having children is wrong because it places additional burdens on the environment. The general picture of our culture is of a gradually in-creeping self-centeredness and even nihilism that devalues the lives of others, particularly in the future. But if the future, our future humanity, is of no meaning, then what value are any of our present projects, all of which have their target in the future?
4
It's not an uncommon story as result of automation. Go back a hundred years and farm families were large because it took more hands to manage the tasks manually. Today one GPS enabled tracker can do as much in a day as what took a week to accomplish back then.
My own family of three kids is half the size of my parents with my siblings. We do more with what we have and our resources of time and money provide more for our smaller family. We too waited until our late 20's to have children and were better prepared for today's lifestyle.
8
Less children born will help heal the overheated planet.
26
Fewer.
4
@Jacquie - That's such a racist trope. The overpopulation myth is a scam to excuse depredations of imperialist nations. By per-capita consumption and destruction you should want to get rid of the population of the US, Europe and Japan. Or would you prefer mass sterilization? The fact that birth rates are falling in the US is a direct result of the catastrophic economic and social conditions faced by working people and the middle-class. Is that what you celebrate?
2
@AR It's not a myth; it's a fact. Who are you to say humanity - the humanity of this era - deserves every last resource on earth?
2
I’m may be crazy but just like my neice who married a Mexican born Hispanic, the Hispanic women who marry non Hispanics may, just may, affect birth rates. Just a thought.
3
Hey Tom Brokaw, these Hispanics working hard enough at assimilation for you?
9
Put women in charge of their own destinies, and most will choose to be educated. Many of those women will choose to use birth control. I'm not talking about "keep your legs closed" birth control, I'm talking about the kind of birth control you get from...Planned Parenthood.
So why does the majority of Republicans seem so hell-bent on closing/hamstringing/silencing Planned Parenthood? Doesn't birth control use limit abortions? (Duh. Of course.)
In my opinion, nothing will satisfy the religious wing of the Republican Party (which is most of it) than to eliminate access to all birth control except the "keeping-your-legs-closed" kind. When access to birth control is limited, it is these young women who are on the cusp of becoming educated, contributing members of our society who are the most at risk.
If someone will tell me why Republicans aren't embracing birth control, embracing self-reliance, embracing education...I'd appreciate it, 'cause I just don't get it. The party (supposedly) of small government, the pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps like an American party—seems determined to be part of the problem, and not the solution.
25
Three points: (1) this article does not get into the opportunity cost of having children later in life -- parents do not live forever, bodies are not guaranteed to be able to have kids at all ages, and it can be less fun to run around with a toddler at age 40 than at age 30; (2) I am not convinced that this is only a Hispanic or immigrant issue -- my family is about as non-immigrant as you can be in the U.S. without being Native American, and the kids/generation have decreased from 9 to 5 to 3 to 2 in successive generations; and (3) this article seems to confuse timing of childbirth with absolute generational birthrate decline -- it is at least possible that the Hispanic women referenced here will have multiple children at a later age in life, which certainly affects overall birthrates but for any one family could affect only timing and not number of children.
4
@george Re (1) agreed. I would add that having grandchildren for the first time in your 60s is probably a lot more fun than in your 80s. (2) You are of course correct, though the article doesn't make the argument that Hispanics and immigrants are the only ones experiencing it--in fact the contrary argument is made when it states that Hispanics are becoming like other Americans in this respect. (3) I understand why you are left with that impression, but you are not correct in assuming that they will have the same multiple children in life that they would have had had they started having children at a younger age. The best predictor of large families in a population is the average age at which women become mothers. They younger they start the more children they tend to have. Women whose first baby comes when they are 30 or even 25 do not have the same number of babies they would have had if the first baby comes at 16 or 20. So there is no confusion: delayed marriage and children results in smaller family sizes.
Why is this surprising? Anyone who pays attention to policy knows that this country is fairly hostile to programs supporting children of people of limited means. The availability of health care, food stamps, housing assistance, day care, early childhood education, are all subject to the whims of a shifting congress looking to score political points. But on a positive note, it's good that the choice of when and how many children to have is being considered in light of the ecological consequences of overpopulation.
9
@John S. If you can’t support your children, don’t expect the government to take over.
7
So the government shouldn’t concern itself with the next generation.
1
Congratulations to these young women who are becoming educated and realize the love and sacrifice their parents have endured for their sakes. I hope they don't wait too long into their mid thirties because getting pregnant will become more difficult. Of concern is the increasing low birth rate for Americans. Increasing Low birth rates will become a really difficult situation in the future and affect every strata of our economy, health, and politics.
4
Education has had a huge impact. Financial experience is a factor. As in they have learned kids cost all your money...
Also the Smartphones have just transformed everything.
Into what? I do not know!
2
Birth rates are not fertility rates. Many people who decline to have children are still fertile. In fact, I wonder how one would even determine a rate of fertility in a given population. Is a woman who decides to only have one child less fertile than her sister who has four? Let's just stick with using "birth rates" when discussing birth rates.
10
@Roger Morris In English demographers use "fertility rates" to refer to actual births, not the potential to have children. "Fecundity" is used in the sense you are using "fertility." Other languages, e.g., Spanish, use "fertilidad" in the sense you employ it: the potential to have births as opposed to actual births.
I wonder if this also reflects declining influence of traditional Catholicism among younger Latinas. The Church's ban on birth control and abortion drove many young women toward early marriage. There's not much of a spike in out of wedlock births, so it looks like this is the case.
12
The vast majority of jobs the US economy has created in the last decades are low paying ones without benefits. The vast majority of Americans, even those with university degrees, are underemployed and working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Yes, the tiny fraction of computer engineers are making six-figure annual salaries with free gourmet meals at work. Others are struggling. Hence, it's still super expensive for the vast majority of Americans to raise a family.
"The fact that the American rate has not picked up along with the economy in recent years has puzzled demographers." Get your head out of the sand then.
14
That's correct. But the myth still exists that Americans won't do low income jobs; hence the lack of an immigration policy that will impose quotas on certain groups that continue to flood the borders and stress out social services and produce multiple offspring. We now must contend with service workers whose English language skills are poor, hence aggravating. Americans can do those jobs. Just hire them & pay them.
@Hopeless American. Google, Apple, and Microsoft would disagree. How did you decide the vast majority are underemployed?
I'm a daughter of immigrants, who fled a war-torn country with nothing. In America, my mother had to suffer the indignity of cleaning up toilets and the vomit of motel guests. But she toiled for years because she wanted better for me.
I went to an elite college and met and married a Harvard grad who became a lawyer. But I waited until I was 33 to have my 1st child. I wanted a career and a masters degree. I wanted a house, a car, and a lot of money so my own children will never want for anything. I have achieved more than my own parents thought was possible because America is wonderful and great. I feel ridiculously lucky and privileged.
But I waited too long to have children. I never thought I could love a child as much as the 1st one I had at age 33. She's the joy of my life that no riches can ever replace. I would very much like to give her more siblings. But now I am pushing beyond 36 and I am like Queen Anne from "The Favourite" weeping about miscarriages and lost children. I have the best hospitals at my disposal. I have enough wealth to put several children through the Ivy Leagues. But I CANNOT control my own biological clock. Certainly, medical science can do a lot for older women nowadays, but it can't stop the heartache and fear of wondering if a particular pregnancy is going to reach the 2nd trimester or if my next child will be perfect as my 1st when I wasn't considered geriatric mother. I wish I can go back in time & tell my younger self not to wait so long.
7
@Scaling
Adopt.
There are plenty of orphaned and unwanted babies in the world who need a parent and a home.
6
@Scaling Just consider the lives you could improve through adoption or foster parenting. You have so much to give to a child needing a home. True, you may not get you biological, genetically perfect mini-me baby, but you will achieve the riches of unconditional love.
3
We can reflect upon what it would take for somebody to uproot themselves and their families in their home country and move to a place where they do not speak the language and where just surviving is a struggle.
This is the immigrant story in America. Something with which most of us have direct experience and of which we should be proud.
As the story makes clear, immigrant families conform to American cultural norms (in this case, fewer children, later motherhood, equal opportunity for women) pretty quickly and just become 'American.'
How we have become sidetracked from these worthwhile ideals by the virulent minority which controls our politics is a shame and something we will need to understand thoroughly.
8
@LKF. If Hispanics have assimilated so well, why is my ballot in Spanish?
1
@Jackson - The ballots are also in Chinese here in NY, if memory serves. Signs announcing NYC subway changes are in Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic, in addition to English. What’s your point? No one’s asking you to use the portion of the ballot printed in Spanish, are they?
This isn’t about ballots in foreign languages which, by and large, are aimed at those struggling with English, not their assimilated children and grandchildren who speak fluent English and are going to college. Please get a grip. We’re a multicultural nation in the 21st century, and this is what we look like. Besides, unless your ancestors all came over from England, the immigrants in your family all spoke something else once and all probably struggled with English at some point. Keep that in mind the next time you want to twist yourself into a knot over your ballot being available in Spanish. Jeez.
3
This has been a multicultural and multilingual nation from the beginning. Read a little history.
The integration and success of these women illustrate what Central Americans and Mexicans can do in an environment of law and order. They are our demographic future. The US should consider economic and political union with Mexico and Central American. The only losers would be their oligarchs who get cheap labor and don't have to pay any taxes to support the people. The economic benefits for all would be huge. Wages in these countries would rapidly rise to US levels.
3
@as. And what would Mexico and Central America. add to our economy?
1
@Jackson
Natural Resources and Independence from the mideast. Mexico has a huge amount of oil that is Not Developed b/c of corruption and crime. The revenues are largely stolen.
@as An economic and political union with Canada would make far more sense. In addition, Canadians really need our help. They have no idea how to have a decent political scandal.
“Ms. Wences once bragged to a friend, as they walked on school grounds just before a snowstorm, that her father was the one who sprinkled the salt crunching under their feet. Her father, Enrique, later told her not to talk about his work.”
Don’t ever be ashamed of a parent who did manual labor. My father was a plumber. He drove me to school every day in his bright Pepto-Bismol pink pickup truck. (It attracted customers.) I was never embarrassed by him because I knew he was a smart and good man. I went on to earn bachelors and masters degrees in college, the first to do so on his side of the family. He’d gone to college for a few years and then had a desk job at an aerospace company, but left that because he preferred working with his hands. He was a loving husband, father — and he could fix almost anything. I feel very lucky to have had him as a father.
17
This is why education and empowerment of women is so critical, not just for their own well-being, but for society and the entire planet.
13
Yes!
1
Isn't this change very typical. not only for immigrants to this country, but all around the world as people live a more urban lifestyle, where each child requires more investment, but each child is going to, in most cases survive and thrive? There is no longer any benefit to having a very large family.
And of course, there is contraception.
Going back -- both of my parents - born in the 1920's - had huge families (12.13 children) one was from Irish/German background and the other Polish. They had two. None of their siblings had more than three, and others had one or even none.
It seems for most, excepting some very insular groups, such as Hasidic Jews or Amish, the trend is for fewer children. Even Roman Catholics are clearly making use of birth control as well, despite teachings to the contrary.
13
Why are articles like this never tied to overall population growth? If anything they tend to emphasize the economic consequences of a non-expanding population.
Every environmental issue confronting us and our fellow species is directly tied to excessive human population on our planet, and all the mainstream media talks about is the economic difficulties of countries with aging populations, meaning low birth-rates.
The Green New Deal should have included a plan to reduce world human population and the NY Times should shine a light of the issue once in a while.
One reason poor countries have excessive population growth is that each child offers an increased chance for survival of the parents, or at least the family line.
Entire villages in Mexico are supported by children that find work north and send money home and I'm sure this is an international pattern.
So even as reproduction decreases in more developed nations the world population keeps growing. This is not only as important an issue as global warming but is directly tied to it.
13
Good. The future of the planet depends upon there being fewer people and economists coming up with a new theory of stasis not growth.
14
This is very positive in nature. Higher education naturally leads to a lower birth rate.
11
When women are allowed to access education, they have fewer children. That has been true around the world. This is why access to education should be a global goal.
14
@Ma That and access to contraception
1
I am a labor and delivery nurse at a hospital that serves primarily Latina patients. Many of them are recent immigrants. It has become much more common for all of these families to limit their family size for the same reasons all Americans have smaller families; cost. It’s more expensive to raise more children.
The vast majority of these patients use birth control between pregnancies and many of them choose to have permanent sterilization procedure performed while in the hospital either during a C-section or immediately following vaginal delivery.
These people are hard working, generous and very respectful and grateful for the care they receive.
192
@Jane K - Sounds like a veiled attempt at justifying illegal immigration. I guess I should just be fine with paying their medical bills because they are so "respectful and grateful."
3
This story is important because it illustrates clearly a trend that is happening all over the world. The image of the hispanic mamacita with her 12 children in tow is a myth used to justify the republican fake conservative rant against immigrants.
The vast majority of immigrants are great people. They are here to contribute to our country and make a life from themselves and their children. These are the qualities that all decent people of the world share. They love their families.
5
Why is this article all about Latin-American WOMEN only. Why aren't Latin-American men included in this "discussion"/report?
Honestly, if we're aiming for gender parity across all specters, statistical analyses, reports and talk about "starting a family" should include woman AND men . . . equally, no?.
Sheesh.
2
Usually the concentration is on number of children born per woman. That is because women know for sure how many times they have given birth. Men don’t know for sure.
1
Well perhaps it’s because a woman gets to make the actual choice of carrying a pregnancy to term. Makes sense to me that women would be the focus of this article.
2
So much for the long-ballyhooed “browning of America”. This just reveals the folly of taking a short snapshot of a trend and extrapolating it.
2
@NorthernVirginia
Relax. The fringe left identity politics train still barrels ahead with abandon. The U.S. is still more than 1/3 and not just from hispanics.
1
Focusing on the birthrate decrease is a bad comparison. Compare it to all other American citizens, not to the change between first generation immigrants who grew up with very different needs in their life, and second generation who are growing up with a first world safety net.
1
The fertility rate has been declining in Mexico itself for the last several decades as birth control has been made available. Perhaps birth control assistance for Central America should be part of foreign aid, notwithstanding opposition by the “severe” Christian fundamentalists.
That the birthrate is declining in the Mexican-American community is neither big news, nor surprising. It shows that immigrant communities do assimilate to the culture, perhaps in small steps, but they do. Overall, however, Americans understand that having children is expensive and the economy is tenuous
7
First, every year, there is more access to health information and family planning tools like contraception.
Having a kid today comes with many risks from nasty regimes (like so many in South/Central America), anti-immigration, weird job prospects for the future where only the brightest and best trained will have real opportunity, and all will have to deal with massive deficits, aging populations, huge costs of raising a child, and global climate change. What's not to want about having lots of kids?
3
Once upon a time, it was thought that Southern and Eastern Europeans, as well as East Asians, were irredeemably too fertile and doomed to be unproductive and uneducated for all time. They were not. My Eastern European grandparents had 7-8 surviving siblings, but they only had 2 (highly-educated) children each. Why should it be any different for Hispanics? It's sad that an article like this is needed because there are so many racists who forget their own family history.
And, by the way, if we helped Central Americans with contraception and economic aid, they would not be so desperate to enter the U.S. I believe that we won't help them, though, because conservatives and the Catholic Church want to keep migration as an issue rather than find solutions.
5
Yeah this is a normal trend... as affluence rises so do birthrates. This is good for the world 7 billion little "miracles" is killing the planet. This is why bringing up people into 1st world situations is critical to drop the birthrate which is out of control. The irony is that it is the folk who can afford kids who are not having them and the ones who cant afford them are statistically the ones over breeding and relying on governmental assistance draining wealth from those who otherwise are self reliant.
8
Expect this trend to continue in American women overall, not only in Hispanic women for the next 4 - 8 years.
The following article got my attention:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/04/health/iud-birth-control-trump.html
Hopefully the rest of Latin America will follow this pattern and adopt a Half Child policy where by every other couple has a child while others do their part to protect the environment from ruin.
3
I would bet not around here.
1
Hispanics may be having fewer children like the rest of the population but they are adamantly pro life. They would never think of abortion if they became pregnant as they are family oriented. I know this as fact as I have met them at pro life groups. They are some of the staunchest in the movement.
5
Biologically, nothing beats the fertility of the 20 something womb. I waited until my early 30s to have a child and after several miscarriages, I had my first at 35 and, after several more miscarriages, my second at 39.5. i am older than my children's friend's parents.
2
@Sandra - While I agree, that's not the premise of this article. It's about how the children of Hispanic immigrants are taking the opportunities their families toiled for years to help them achieve - opportunities for education and a better life - and are running with them. If that means they put off having children until their 30s, that's what it means for them. These are educated young women. I'm sure they know the realities of their biological clocks.
It takes a lot of work to have a family these days. Establishing oneself before having children is a must and today that often doesn't happen until one hits 30. Caring for children today is prohibitively expensive and challenging. Also, some people simply don't meet a decent man with whom to have children before their biological clock starts to tick down. Not every woman is lucky enough to have met and married a decent, family-oriented man by 25. I'm 37 and I never thought I'd still be single, let alone without kids at this point in my life, but I have yet to meet a man who wants the same things I do and whom I don't have to raise right along with the kids, and I'm within sight of 40. Take it from me: don't worry about how old you were when you had your kids or the fact that you're older than your kids' friends' parents. Seriously, who cares? Frankly, I'd love to be faced with that problem, because it would mean I'd be a parent - something I've always wanted to be and probably won't get to be. But that's life.
I looked at my own family and quite frankly saw decades of resignation and unhappiness among the women, who had in their minds given up their whole lives for their children. If I had remained in that milieu I might have fallen into that life.
I moved away, graduated college, have a loved career and travel. Now my mother and her sister have told me that I have the lives they always wanted.
11
Thank God its dropped and about time!
I think of my mother, Aunts, sisters, cousins, the amount of children they have had, the ages they started at, 13 to 15 to 19 years of age.
The information age has helped so many women, it will save this planet. Myself, I've never had kids, wanted to go to college, choose a different life path. I was taught to believe one's own self-worth, along with learning about birth control.
21
When birth rates were at a rate where Americans could replace themselves and have moderate population growth, we still had multigenerational households. It made things easier because most people did not have to pay for daycare. Also, there were immunizations in the schools themselves which side-stepped the battle over vaccines now raging while at the same time ensuring that all children regardless of their circumstances were immunized. Immigrant families are largely multigenerational households. When you get away from that model birthrates are going to plunge. I think we need to do more with the technology that we have to ensure that people can work while at the same time they are also able to preserve functional living arrangements.
2
It would have been helpful to add "age 15 to 44" after "per 1,000 women" when quoting the birth rates. And to compare those rates to the replacement rate (the rate at which population remains steady), which may be 70 but I don't know.
1
I see this in my own family (proudly Mexican-American on my mother's side). My cousins in their 20s and 30s are focused on education and work. Sadly, a few teen pregnancies have occurred, by overall the trajectory is, "study now, kids later."
17
My grandmothers married in their teens during the great depression. My parents had kids before they were really even grown.These women are getting the same message from their elders that I got from my low-income white working class elders - learn to support yourself well FIRST. I listened. I married relatively young, but put off the kids for six more years. To do otherwise would have been to perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
35
Falling birth rates among ANY group is a positive. It’s needed across the board. Why? Because our planet cannot sustain long term the current population, no less a growing one. The only question is how long it can sustain us. Overpopulation is the root cause of environmental, social, economic, ... problems.
But a growing population is the engine that powers economic growth — so those who wield power and influence have no incentive to change how things are going (clearly they’re not really interested in leaving a better world for their children — no sacrifices for me, I won’t be around when it all collapses [of course it already is collapsing]). Some governments are contributing, with incentives to have more children to bolster falling populations — all based on short-term economics, no regard for long-term sustainability.
Our species cannot have a sustainable future with reasonable quality of life as long as global economic success is based on growth. Can/Will we figure out AND adopt an economy that allows us to have quality of life without growth, that can coexist with falling population? I doubt it, at least not until a global catastrophe forces our hand.
37
The problems waiting too long are many, but some to mention that are important to consider: having kids later can lead to bearing children with life long health problems, and also you may have less children than if you were younger. In addition, waiting until you "establish" your career means you probably have a higher stress at your job. which seems to be one of the highest cause of a mother not being able to carry at all or at full term.
8
Better yet, don’t have children, never have more than two...
6
Her father was the guy who I am glad is an American. We don't really need yet more psychologists working for the government.
7
Every Peruvian immigrant family that I know in our town is having a baby every year.
10
@Michael That is so sad, those poor women haven't been educated on birth control and the pride of ownership of their life choices and bodies. It saddens me.
3
@Michael:...which is completely consistent with the trends noted in this article. Those American-born children will not have many children.
2
These young Hispanic Americans are voting, and will vote for the rest of their lives, and will have long memories. Republicans, your gravy train of hatred and bigotry is coming to an end.
26
@sedanchair So Hispanics are all automatons for the Democratic Party, like rows of falling dominoes and lemmings? Many are conservative on social issues, and if they start voting Republican, buenas noches, Democrats!
2
Don't bet on it. As they become assimilated, more and more will lean republican. Just look at the Cuban population of Florida.
2
@sedanchair
30% of latinos voted for Trump in 2016. They mostly all are conservative patriarchal Catholic.
Declining Hispanic birth rates isn't only happening in the US. Birth rates in Latin America are dropping precipitously as well. The 2 children or less family is quickly becoming the norm all over this continent.
14
Great news!
The worldwide human population explosion is the world's greatest source of stress. And ignorance is the greatest problem in the world's only superpower.
25
Its called assimilation. Same story with every ethnic group that has come to the US. You give a human being a fair chance and they will run with it, black, white or in between. THATS what makes America Great, not demagogues like D.Trump.
30
I wish the article would not conflate fertility with birth rate in this context.
The young women are delaying their decision to have children on personal educational and financial security decisions NOT on whether they are fertile enough to have children.
13
I, too, find that so annoying. If you hadn't mentioned it, I would have.
Editor’s note: This comment has been anonymized in accordance with applicable law(s).
@Adrian
Fertilty rate is the term used by demographers to describe the mean number of children individual women in a given population give birth to. Birth rate is used by demographers to describe the "number of live births per thousand of population per year".
When you write of fertility, I think you mean the ease of which individual women can conceive. I am not sure there is an official term for this, nor would it be easy to scientifically determine.
Good for these women and an A for their parents. Their parents came here to make a better life for themselves and especially for their children. They worked hard ( and even harder) and gave their kids the right messages. Stay in school don’t have kids in your teens and you can make us proud by doing better than us. Is there a more American story?
Also, the falling birth rate puts the future of Social security, Medicare etc in doubt. Where will the workers come from 25 years from now to pay for the now 45 year old to be 70 in 25 years ?
6
@Philip Getson from immigration.
2
@Philip Getson
Calm down. We still take the breeding award. America is the 3rd most populous country on the planet, behind India and China.
The U.S. is overpopulated, DOUBLED our numbers and lowered our quality of life just since the 1960s via immigration. A reduction and slowing of breeding is necessary. I'd vote yes to pay people not to breed, instead of handing them money and umpteen deductions for 18+ years.
1
My father is a Serbian immigrant, my mother had my older brother at 18, was married and divorced by 25, and completed her bachelor's degree when I was 15 and she was 48. My parents worked constantly and tirelessly to send me to a Catholic high school and an excellent university when I graduated. They taught me to get an education, to avoid growing up too early because they knew how cruel this world can be. I was the first person in my immediate and extended families to graduate high school and immediately attend a 4-year university. I am the first person in my immediate and extended families to complete my master's degree, something I did by 24. I'm 31 now and have no romantic prospects, no baby on the horizon. Do I think it's important to encourage our youth to prioritize education and a career? Sure. But I also think it's important to talk about starting a family as a goal, rather than something to avoid completely. I've learned a lot and I don't regret the choices I've made; it's just hard to find a romantic partner when you've spent your life focusing on your education and career and not love.
16
@TRACEY ZDRAVKOVIC
Good thoughts. I want to share, from the perspective of an older, ‘experienced ‘ woman, that one can’t really ‘focus on love’. If you do what you love and give to the world, whatever your gifts are, you are likely becoming lovable. As this transformation happens, you are more likely to find a compatible partner. Keep hope alive!
27
@TRACEY ZDRAVKOVIC
Tracey - you'll find the right partner. You're terrific!
A 'catch' IMO. Your hard work, positive values, earned you your hard-won success.
Also, congratulations to your Mom as well as the parents of the Hispanic girls who sacrificed and encouraged you all to succeed.
2
This is the typical Immigration/American Dream cycle: whether from Eastern of Southern Europe, Asia, or Latin America, people immigrated here to have a better life for themselves and their children. They usually worked very hard at it, doing jobs that Americans didn't want to do.Their children and grandchildren sought to be the Americans whom they saw and emulated. They accomplished just that. Let's all be proud of them!
19
What a weird premise for an article: as if Hispanics are somehow differently disposed to the same dynamics of all persons in the same geopolitical arena. With the brilliant, startling and novel analysis that all the same factors are in play. Wow.
Furthermore, any rational person looking at the actual startling facts about climate change would abstain from bringing a soul into the world unless they are willfully cruel.
9
I teach in a Hispanic majority high school and one can see the pursuit of the American Dream everyday. It is the best part of the job.
23
It is or would be a good thing that birthrates are going down all over the world. The planet is in hardship, too many people going after all the same resources which is causing planetary upheaval in migration, food supply, causing wars and death.
It is a good thing but do we hear that locally and nationally? NO
12
@Julie
The birth rates ARE going down all over the world if you look at this site https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN. If birth rates are dropping fast all over the US, within a short while Americans will be complaining that their social security system (ie pensions) will not be sustainable. Consider also the relatively high infant mortality rate in the US, the highest in the 'western' world. In Germany, which has long had low birth rates, it is estimated that it needs about 260,000 immigrants per year to keep up productivity; the equivalent figure for the US, in time, would be around 1 million people (well, there's plenty of space in the US, too). Something to think about.
1
Most effective birth control? Education and economic independence of women. Happens every time.
50
It should be noted that the 1970 fertility rate in Mexico was 6.83. It now stands at 2.18.
27
Why is this a shock? Should Hispanics be
kept "pregnant and barefoot?" The implication here is that Hispanics are baby machines incapable of pursuing the American dream as other ethnic groups have done. As a pan-Hispanic male, I find this "revelation" to be offensive.
13
As my Hispanic grandmother (a woman way ahead of her time) wisely said: Women are not incubators. If men want more children, let him have them.
23
This immediately shows the difficulty of using the "Hispanic" label, as it covers anyone from Latin America, either immigrant or offspring of immigrant, i.e., almost anyone with a Spanish surname. A third generation Mexican American with educated parents has little in common with the child of indigenous Oaxacan immigrants-- regardless of a connection to Mexico. The third generation girl wants to go to college and not have a kid at 19.
Decades ago, when the third world population explosion was alarming, the only thing that turned it around was the desire of young women to work outside the home. If you have 5 kids you can't do that. In the end, women control birth control, one way or another.
13
Not if men don't play along.
Editor’s note: This comment has been anonymized in accordance with applicable law(s).
3
This is good news! Women of different backgrounds are seeing the opportunities available to them by staying in school and getting/expanding on their education.
Regardless of the young women's background, we need more women who stay in school and in the work force to fill in executive roles. I work in engineering, just this week, I was the only female executive in meetings. I postponed childbearing to get advanced degrees, once I felt in a place of comfort, I had kids, I was 30. It has made a huge difference for my kids, for us financially as a family.
So it is good to read that young women are thoughtfully making decisions that could have huge financial and economic ramifications: postponing childbearing
and seeking out educational/career opportunities.
That's progress.
11
None of these conclusions are surprising. As education improves for women, family size goes down. This is not only true in the US, but in countries all over the world.
It also shows that within a generation education and cultural assimilation generate family sizes very similar to the national median.
So for those who worry about immigration, don't be. Every generation from the Irish in the 1840's to the waves of Germans, Italians, Poles and every other ethnic group has gone through the same process that Latinos are going through today.
And aside from any demographic impact, education means that Latina's are joining women of all races in our workforce where education and training is exactly what we need for a strong future economy.
Education is not only vital to civic engagement, it is the single most effective anti-poverty investment that we can make. Unfortunately too many politicians act like they don't know this.
23
To say "don't be like us" to your children takes wisdom and an ability to see beyond one's self. These are special parents. At the other end of the spectrum are parents who see opportunity for their children as a mild threat. Thankfully we have an education system that can open doors and open eyes, but the most important thing is to actually believe it possible, for the parents, and especially for the children.
17
How can you write an entire column on Hispanic birth rates and never once mention Catholicism? Are these young women also more secular than the parents? What do they think about the Church's teachings on contraception? Their parents said delay conception; does that mean the parents also reject Catholic teachings on birth control?
41
@Peter That is an excellent point. Of my two sisters who each had multiple kids, the one who had the most was the only one of us who remained a devout Catholic.
17
@Peter This is an excellent point. Of all of my siblings (we are Hispanic, twice over), the one who had by far the most kids is the only one of us who remained a devout Catholic.
4
@Peter So true, was raised in a Latino Catholic home, with a large extended family. Never was taught about birth control. I didn't learn till I was in college, the internet didn't exist back then. Religion does such a disservice by keeping women uneducated and controlled.
7
As a Hispanic of two stripes-- Puerto Rican and Dominican-- I can attest that this is certainly the case for myself, though not for my siblings. I watched my mom struggle on a small income to raise four kids she had with a man who did not pull his weight in supporting the family, financially or otherwise. I then watched, shocked that they had not learned the same lesson I had, as both of my sisters also had at least three kids each. They are not also struggling, though at least one of them has help from her husband. I have no intention of having any children and the family is SHOCKED about this, like it is the weirdest thing in the world for someone my age who has ovaries to not be using them. Meanwhile, I maintain a flexible work schedule; can travel (albeit on a tight budget) pretty much whenever I want; and I don't have to get on SNAP or anything like that to support other people who rely on me, because such people don't exist.
44
@Humanesque *They are NOW also struggling
5
@Humanesque good for you! A few of my Hispanic cousins started having kids at 15 (!). They are totally dependent on men and can't envision why I never had a desire to have children or remarry when I divorced. And I'm having these arguments with them while I am traveling the world with my wonderful job which I got because I have an education. Thank goodness, my parents had the immigrant striver mentality and aggressively encouraged and pushed us to get educated.
5
My Scottish grandmother was the second to the last of 13 kids. She had four. Her kids each had two. Of my dad's two kids, I had two, my brother none. My grandmother never finished high school. My dad completed college but not a masters. My brother and I have 5 degrees between us.
Needless to say, I am proud of this progression.
74
This is normal for second-generation immigrants.
When all the Southeast Asian refugees came to the Twin Cities in the 1980s, a noticeable number had ten or more children. Some of the more racist residents of Minneapolis and St. Paul envisioned each of those ten children having ten children and eventually "outnumbering [white people]."
You don't hear about Southeast Asian families that large anymore. When young women leave traditional societies and become educated, they learn that they have options other than marrying in their teens and having a baby every couple of years.
223
@Pdxtran Not just learn, but have the freedom to act in their own interests using modern contraception rather than be subject to family or the state.
24
Child support enforcement in the US might have something to do with it as well. The only people who can have a lot of kids are the billionaires and the men with no assets who work for cash. We know the low asset group has a lot of kids because it is a cultural thing. The middle class can afford perhaps one or two children at most.
17
"Birthrates tend to follow economic cycles. The fact that the American rate has not picked up along with the economy in recent years has puzzled demographers"
Can this really puzzle anyone? The stock market is not the economy and the single largest expense a new family takes on is child care which has risen steadily in the last 30 years. See any of the articles that NYT itself has published recently on this.
39
once women were given increasingly equal opportunities as men they realized they can't have it all and many are choosing careers over cribs; or at least far fewer ones.
25
You could not pay me to want to be a mother. A father maybe - less cultural baggage and much lower expectations. But having the choice of domestic/child rearing cultural responsibilities or a career, I will pick a job over motherhood any day
18
@Lora right on! In fact, had I been born a male I probably would have had children. But no way as a woman - what an unappealing role!
3
@Lora Seriously. At a job, you can clock out; being a mother is a full-time job, and rather than being paid for it, you actually LOSE tons of money by doing it. It is only worth it if you truly WANT to be a mother, more than anything else; and that is not true for me.
2
Great news. Maybe humanity won't destroy the planet after all.
Now we just need to work on birthrates in Africa and we might stand a chance.
I would add that this phenomenon is probably a consequence of how irrationally difficult it is to be a young mother in today's economy or raise a family where two household wage earners are pretty much imperative, compounded by our welfare state ponzi scheme where a shrinking cohort of young, low-income, low-wealth (read: poor) workers are taxed for the benefit of a larger cohort of wealthy 60-something Baby Boomers.
Just want to point out that Boomers ruined the planet and bankrupted the country. It's just that it's a slow moving disaster that won't become entirely apparent for another 25 years.
21
The trend is simple: as countries develop and child/infant mortality rates drop, birth rates drop. Empirically, the best way to slow population growth is to make sure children actually survive into adulthood.
11
@Mmm. Yeah, we will still ruin the planet (as we've been doing for millenia). That one middle-class American will use more resources than a passel of third-world country children.
7
@Mmm A more urgent task than working on birthrates in Africa is reining in the obscene consumption by the low-birth rate sectors of the human race. We in the overdeveloped, small-family societies are the ones who have pumped most of the carbon into the atmosphere and driven the destructive extraction economy. These demographic arguments are often thinly-veiled attempts to shift blame for rich people's environmental sins onto Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Let them make the adjustments so that the rich up north can live the high life for a few more years.
11
And if there was no immigration our population would be decreasing. Population stasis has been said to be 2.1-2.3 children per family. If I only have 2 children then our population will continue to decline, especially since many couple have only one child. So, the most green thing to do would be to stop immigration and to support educating girls in developing and undeveloped nations.
14
@Ak The States, much like the city are too often mistaken for being fully lit black holes, not real places. Someone else's fantasy. Two car garages. That six figure job. Creative forces in this city suffer because of such unoriginal thinking... Even the artists are increasingly cliché. But your two child dream is too selfish given global instability.
2
@Ak
I tried to have 2.3 children but that 0.3 baby was just unobtainable. Instead I overshot my goal and had 3.0 children. Oh well.
@aem, well. I guess that makes you a piggy.
Even though the birth "rate" is lower, the total number of births in the US is near record highs (the all time high was in 2007 with 4.3 million births). This year there will be almost 4 million babies born in the US. Yes, that's about the same number as the baby boom years in the 1950s and 1960s. See, the press was able to convince you that there were FEWER babies born and now you know that is not true. No wonder there are so many strollers in my neighborhood.
19
@osavus Excellent point. With the explosion in population over the last 50 years, birth rate is almost irrelevant. The number of births are still going up. Even Japan is still less than 1% from its all time high.
2
I think it's great news to hear that more people are giving critical thought to having children and using contraception. Since I turned thirty, I've experienced several life-changing insights that I don't think would have occurred had I been settled with children. Living alone for a while is a great way become comfortable with yourself. I've discovered talents and passions I didn't know about, and with the financial freedom of a career and the personal freedom of not having children, I can pursue those talents and passions.
35
you. up until the point pops into your head (as it did me, no kids), that this is the end of our familial line.
@BorisRoberts That's too bad. I'm sorry to hear that, but I've already come to terms with that possible outcome. I'm fortunate to have siblings with wonderful children, whose lives I am heavily involved in. So my family line and my life lessons live on regardless of whether I have any of my own.
Perhaps it is best if I don't have children at all. The world doesn't particularly need any more people, and considering how dismal the future of humankind looks, my family line could probably use the inheritance.
5
I would suggest that anyone who thinks declining population is a good thing should look at Japan. I watch NHK World in English regularly and the reports are alarming. More so than Western Europe, the population in Japan is collapsing. Schools, colleges, railroad lines, and many rural villages are closing. Some occupations such as truck driving are facing severe worker shortages. A smaller population might be desirable, but the road there is a very bumpy one.
9
@David so, you're solution is to bring kids into the world that aren't wanted so people can remain poor because we need truck drivers and rural populations? Nope. You want to create a permanent lower class of folks David. Here's the thing, women don't need to be pumping out kids just to "replenish" the earth. A educated population is a GOOD thing. In your mind the road to a smaller population is a bumpy one, but one to a Idiocracy is devastating to the planet and to life.
44
@David Japan isn't very open to immigration, either, so the "missing" people can't come in from Vietnam, Laos, or wherever else.
15
NHK World is interesting, but due to its format, it cannot cover all the many interlocking factors that have led to rural depopulation and low birth rates.
1
Access to education is everything for girls and women. Also Hispanic isn't a race - we are black, white, and Asian, too.
42
Please include BIRTHRATES per woman of child-bearing age.
Here in Maryland, the Hispanic woman birth rate is 3.68 children per childbearing woman (15-45 yo).
This article is kids per woman? But slips in a rounded estimate that the birth rate was 3 kids per woman, and now is less...maybe 2? Please provide with one decimal place.
All developed countries have a 1.8-2.2 birth rate, and that includes women with zero children so the women having children are making up for that....
More slicing and dicing needed. But nice family anecdotes from 2 women in North Carolina.
11
And these are the people Trump voters don't want here? Ms. Wences' parents are no different from many of our grandparents or great-grandparents who came here from all parts of the world, and sacrificed so that their children would do better. There is hardly a more American story that Ms. Wences'. And her parents are doing backbreaking work that most Trump voters won't even touch.
This article should be required reading for Trump voters. They should be ashamed of their hatred and bigotry. They should understand that families like the Wences represent what is best about America, not bigoted whites screaming hateful epithets at Trump rallies. I would be honored to have the Wences as my neighbors. But I would be sickened and ashamed to have any Trump voters as my neighbors.
For the Ramirez and Wences families mentioned here, please know that not all whites believe as Trump voters do. The the rest of us are so proud of your children's accomplishments and wish the best for you. And thank you for being Americans at a point in our history when it must be very painful to do so.
70
@Henry Hurt
Remember we grew up watching, sharing, learning from families like yourself.
You assured our children in shared community moments,
You treated people and families with goodness. We played with
your children, shared food, fun,
music and love of our county
together
2
@Henry Hurt
Thank you, my sentiments exactly, if I could like this commeny 100 time I would!
Comments reveal many readers confuse ethnicity with race. Hispanics are an ethnic group, not a racial group. They can be of any race or combination of race. However, most Hispanics Americans are white.
Intermarriage between white Hispanics and non-Hispanics is so common that the distinction between the two ethnic groups will probably vanish within a generation or two. Texans refer to non-Hispanic whites as "Anglos" rather than whites because most Texans consider most Texas Hispanics as white.
According to Census Bureau. “In the 2010 United States Census, 50.5 million Americans (16.3% of the total population) listed themselves as ethnically Hispanic or Latino. Of those, 53.0% (26.7 million) self-identified as racially white. The remaining respondents listed their races as: some other race 36.7%, two or more races (multiracial) 6.0%, Black or African American 2.5%, American Indian and Alaska Native 1.4%, Asian 0.4%, and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander 0.1%.”
12
@William Case
Well shame on Texas if they refer to white people as "Anglo" because not every white person in Texas is "Anglo." Anglo refers to the term Anglo Saxon and not every one there is of English ethnicity. I'm sure that peoples of German, Nordic, French ethnicities would prefer to be called Caucasian.
1
@William Case
Racial classification or self-identification among "Hispanics" is not as simple as you suggest either. There are many cultural factors affecting racial self-identification among "Hispanics", itself another term of contention. In any case, 53% while an objective measure of what is reported would not be considered 'most" by some. So, the other half say they are not "white"?
Citing these statistics presumes a reification of something that really doesn't have much of a scientific objective standard imo. The social context is probably more illuminating than your subjective interpretation of what the numbers may suggest to you.
So glad to see that these women recognize the value of an education. I would encourage all women and men:
-Complete your education
-Upon completing your education, embark on a career
-Once you have established your career, and you are self supportive, get married if you find love and want children
-Consider children if you've done the above points and : you want a child, can emotionally and financially support a child, and you have the time to devote to a child
-Think about adoption or foster parenting (with the potential for adoption in the future)! There are many needy children out there. Why are people so bent upon passing on their genetics? Yes, many of these children are not perfect according to some standards, they may not all be babies, and they may bring many challenges along with their love. It could be such a win-win for society.
22
This in not just an American phenomena Fertility rates in Mexico and several other central American countries are falling to or below replacement. Throughout the hemisphere birthrates are falling and they are worldwide.
11
Decreasing birthrates mitigates overpopulation but causes an economic conundrum. We don't know how to keep an economy expanding with fewer people, yet it needs to expand to stay healthy. And there's the inevitable so-called geezer glut. An overpopulation of elders is an inevitable part of zero (or negative) population growth. To reduce population gracefully, we need to figure out a solution to both.
Some people advocate immigration as the solution to the economic problem, but that simply replaces the missing workers with people from somewhere else, and ensures that the population will continue to increase.
There is no graceful solution to overpopulation unless we figure out how to keep an economy healthy without expanding it, and unless we figure out how to deal with an overpopulation of elders. And we'd better hurry, or the solution to overpopulation will be anything but graceful.
10
@mlbex We simply redefine what a healthy economy is. Using GDP growth as the lead indicator of economic health is a choice.
11
@mlbex Expansion is one of the great myths handed us by those who profit from it. Especially governments. Simple math dictates that expansion, either economic or human, or plant or animal, is unsustainable. At at time when we are already consuming our earthly resources far faster than replacement, and have been for centuries, our only hope is not just leveling off, but drastic reduction i our population. Infortunately, save some kind of global cultural revolution, it will occur cataclysmically. Math class is hard.
19
@MMG: As long as that doesn't cause poverty and unemployment, it makes sense. Also, GDP doesn't appear to measure the increasing economic disparity. If I have 100 and you have nothing (or vice versa), our average is 50.
3
Thanks to those that lay the salt at schools to provide for a safer environment. Immigrants make America great.
43
Sustainability is essential, especially in Central America. If the women of Central America also had smaller families, then quality of life would rise. Criminal mayhem and gangs are largely the fault of the drug buying habits of the general population (especially the U.S.) and not enough employment opportunity for all the young men. It is wonderful that Hispanic women here in the U.S. are setting high goals for themselves. They will achieve those dreams and make our nation stronger.
18
Childfree feminist here. Families don’t have to include biological children, or children at all for that matter. Intergenerational mentoring, community spirit (expressed via worship, hobbies, school events, sports, and use of shared public spaces), and the bonds of friendship are all ways the necessity of human connection can be satisfied. Families with bio kids are just one part of the social fabric.
25
@dogma vat So you're saying that marriage/child bearing is the only pathway into a satisfying life? That a woman who chooses not to have children consigns herself to a life without relationships?
I don't think I've ever heard anything so silly.
18
@dogma vat
re: "it is human relationships (in families, for example) that make people happy."
Ah, it appears you may have little experience with or knowledge of the misery inherent to those who have endured dysfunctional families -- or the melodrama perpetuated by coworkers who bring their unresolved dysfunctional family issues to replay in the work place -- or who have been bullied throughout their entire lives by -- humans.
As a consequence, I know many survivors of dysfunctional families, of nut cases run amok in the workplace, of unrelenting bullying and abuse received from others throughout their childhoods -- who much prefer the peaceful company of solitude, a good book, and their dog or cat -- to any human, any day.
6
Congratulations Enrique Wences. What a wonderful story of immigration from Mexico to the United States. A love story, too. Enrique, you should be very proud, not just of your daughter and your family, but also of yourself.
25
Why would anyone want to bring an innocent child into this world?
A child born today will probably still be alive in 2100.
We concluded as early as the mid-80s that it would be too heartbreaking to leave our babies behind in what will surely be a hellish existence.
9
Who cares what ethnicity this relates to? We are all humans, and humans are overpopulating and destroying this planet. Immediate measures need to be taken to not just reduce the rate of growth, but to actually shrink the number of humans on this planet to something approaching reason - say about 1/3 of the number we have today. Everyone will be much happier, and there will be much more resources to go around!
23
I chuckle to myself about the juxtaposition of some of the comments made about Hispanic? Latina?Latino?
Get over it, when salsa surpassed ketchup as an “American
Household Staple” When people of all backgrounds celebrate Cinco de Mayo, watch the Super Bowl with quacamole and chips
and Disneyland sells Churros the assimilation is starting.
I remember a man of humble means, with his daughter,still in his clean uniform from a trash company ask my assistance at a Nordstrom in SantaBarbara, to buy a prom dress.
They were afraid they may not have a person to help them.
When I asked him in Spanish, what color was his money? He replied, “Verde”
In my best Spanish I said “I’m sure there will be someone here
to help you. Before I could finish there was a salesperson ready
to help.
American business has already see to the inclusion!
6
@The Chief from Cali It's not that simple. Race or ethnicity is a complex and very real concept that includes a lot of factors that we don't even think about. Doctors, for example, are well-aware that some medical conditions are associated with specific races. Biology shouldn't be brushed aside as something irrelevant. As evolutionary psychologists note, "Evolution doesn't stop at the neck" -- it affects our brains, i.e. personalities, motivations, and inclinations -- just as much as it does the more superficial things like skin or eye color.
@Eugene
Exactly! Most people never want to hear the struggle
I hope we can begin to see population issues in environmental, not economic terms, and acknowledge that generally lower population growth rates should be part of any green outcome for the future. More education, fewer babies, is probably a good plan for all of us.
760
@RE - I agree that environmental terms should be our main focus. But undeniably, if we continue on the present economic route, there will be negative economic consequences. So we need to face and understand those. That way we can do something to mitigate them.
In short, our retirement systems are Ponzi schemes, depending on growing population to keep them funded. That cannot be sustained. We need to face that and make the necessary changes.
66
@J Jencks - we need to figure out how to have a capitalist system that does not require constant growth. Is sustainable capitalism possible? How do we do it in such a way that everyone benefits?
120
@J Jencks
If the Medicare and Social Security tax cap was removed the system would be sustainable. There is no good reason not to remove the cap, as people will always want to earn more money, so the tax will not act as a deterrent to earning.
Our retirement systems, when properly funded and with appropriate oversight, are not Ponzi schemes, as the intention is to provide earned benefits and not to defraud.
133
Why do articles on birthrate continue to confuse birth rate and fertility of the various ethnic groups? In actuality, fertility has noting to do with this issue. For people, birth rate is a choice, as opposed to the Animal Kingdom where birth rate and fertility are more synonymous.
3
I totally applaud the outcomes of the stories of theses young Hispanic women. Bravo to their parents, too.
However, a much broader observation indicates a troubling trend in our population trajectory, which appears to be coming to a halt. Soon our country’s population will be entering negative growth. As someone whose retirement is on the horizon, I am concerned about the sustainability of social security, among other entitlements I have worked for nearly 50 years. But I am most concerned about decisions our young people are making about raising a family due to all of the quality of life challenges facing them. We have to start a dialogue about what we as a society as well as our government will do in order to promote family growth. Increasingly young people see starting a family as a negative, and for good reason. We have to change the narrative: more robust early childhood education; better public schools with better paid educators; addressing workplace inequality; increasing minimum wages; college debt reduction or forgiveness; improvements in family leave; eliminating all adoption barriers for the LBGTQ community. These and many other issues have to be explored, and soon.
This is what the “national emergency” really is.
3
@Frank Irizarry
The planet is overpopulated. The climate is changing and mass extinctions are well underway. The last thing we need to do is to encourage more births, especially employing tactics such as nagging or shaming.
1
@Frank Irizarry the democratic socialist countries (I am thinking of those in Europe) that provide their citizens with all what you listed are experiencing the same issue.
There are two reasons for this decline, for Hispanics and for the rest.
1. It is very expensive to raise children, about half of the population barely gets by. Housing, school, etc. Many people are cutting EVERYTHING to stay afloat.
2. A culture of promiscuous sex more pervasive and toxic that the media is ready to admit. Many sexual partners, little commitment.
5
@Alexgri Your first point is valid. As for your second point, people have always been sexually promiscuous. This is why adultery has always been such a common theme in the world of story telling. How many different lovers did Zeus have? Isn't there a story about a face that sank a thousand ships? Even in the Dark Ages, the pinnacle of Christian power, noble men usually had one wife and one or more mistresses. The first book ever published was the Kamasutra. People have always had "many sexual partners [and] little commitment." We're mammals, not birds. It's in our nature.
8
Keep going Ms. Wences.
Employers don’t give any points for associates degrees, except for the trades.
Their HR selection software is set to “Bachelors”.
Finish that degree so you have a chance to succeed!
14
Not having children or postponing children doesn’t by itself get you into the middle class. An education is what will get you into the middle class. That goes for first generation immigrants or those who can’t trace their original immigrant ancestors.
10
Aside from getting a master's degree and establishing my career, I learned through the years that I'm not obligated to have children, who knew?
43
In a society that truly believes women have equal rights, Americans should not have an expectancy -- if an not outright insistence -- that in order to be "complete," every woman must have children. Like men, they are entitled to lives of their own, undefined by how well their womb works to crank out kids, whose numbers are already overwhelming the planet. "Passing on the family name or DNA" is an arrogance the planet can no longer afford if the species is to survive. The world needs to develop a new economic model to replace capitalism, which -- at its core -- depends on women to pump out an ever-increasing supply of 'new customers' to fuel the Holy Grail of Growth, churning out ever-increasing tonnages of "stuff" that is destroying the very planet on which its 'customers' depend.
22
Children are a blessing, and granted, it is a deeply personal choice on whether to have them, but it is unseemly that so many NYT's commenters on this article are celebrating.
3
6 billion too many... It's about time those numbers plummet
24
This is great news; we have far too many people on the planet and no longer need so many new bodies that will not have employment in the future.
That this demographic is having fewer children later should also not be a surprise. When women have options, they delay having children and have fewer of them. Look what happened in China. Even after the one child policy was rescinded, 30 years of having other options has caused the current demographic of "only children" to voluntarily continue the policy.
12
There is an irony to this story that it doesn't mention. What this says is that immigrants no matter where from, are not stupid, and more importantly, that immigrants back in the day and now come to the US, not to 'live off everyone else', or to recreate their home country here, but rather to build a new life. It has played out with waves of immigrants, and the story while having different timelines and trajectories, ends up the same, same patterns, same expectations.
The irony I mentioned is that the negative views of the MAGA crowd increasingly apply to themselves rather than the immigrants they demonize. Immigrants are people who are willing to uproot themselves, leave what they know, and do something different, facing a lot of challenges to do so, the fact that they are here says a lot. Likewise, it seems like immigrants value education, want something better for their kids.
Contrast this to what we see in Trump nation, where for the first time in US history people refuse to move to seek work, mobility is at an all time low.Also, in contrast to what we are hearing about the immigrants mentioned in the story, in MAGA land spending on education has traditionally been low, and rather than focus on their kids having something better, they want to bring back basically the jobs they had.
40
People keep wanting to imagine that "culture" exists apart from the structural situation in which people make their decisions
In the agricultural past, Americans had large family when they grew up rural and needed lots of hands on the farms, and within three generations of the incentives changing, they drop below replacement rates.
When rural Italians came to America, they kept up their rural spawning rates for a couple of generations, and then the fact that kids cost a lot of money and are not an economic asset takes over.
Likewise, people say, "Hispanics like large families." Nope. Peasants like large families. ANY "culture" put into cities in which children are costly and careers take investment and preparation turns into a non-replacement "culture."
Human beings solve the problems in front of them, and their "culture" reflects human nature in interaction with their situation. An absurd vanity that the conclusions of a moment are a "culture" does little harm unless these "cultures" are coercively imposed upon a subsequent generation that has new problems to solve.
Agrarian humans behave one way. Urban capitalist humans behave another. "Culture" has nothing to do with it.
18
@Craig Mason
I would argue that your analysis is too simplistic.
*Mid-20th century access to effective birth control and family planning methods*, such as the invention of "The Pill" and similar medical advances heralding a woman's ability at last to privately control her own reproduction--*not* "rural vs. agrarian culture"--has more to do with "it".
One Life Example that Refutes your Theory:
Italian Americans who came to this country were dominantly *Catholic*. Guess what that meant?
At the mid 20th century, what changed was the invention of The Pill, ACCESS to family planning (education & improved methods), & acceptance by then of the idea that women had a right to control their reproduction.
Yet, Italian American Catholic women unto the 2nd & 3rd generations still hesitated. Note: by mid-century, most lived in urban areas. So for them, religion *not* "agrarian culture" roots -- had more to do with "it".
We watched this dynamic happen next door to us in Northern VA 1963-74. The Italian American neighbors next door to us (note *in affluent suburbia*, not the rural hinterlands) were cranking out a baby per year. Finally, after the 8th child in 8 years, the wife, worn down from the constant wear & tear of pregnancy, diapers, and baby tending, decided she had HAD it. She had her tubes tied.
But "it" had nothing to do with "agrarian" versus "urban", and everything to do w/ at last, REFUTING RELIGION & gaining access to an effective means to control birth.
3
This was entirely predictable, of course, and the phenomenon has been studied over and over again. It is a textbook principle in demographic sociology. As a group becomes more affluent, their collective birthrate drops.
12
Good. The more women are educated and aren't dependent on men for financial safety, the fewer children they choose to have.
Every human being consumes resources: food, water, shelter. When I was a kid, there were 4.5B on the planet; now there are over 7B. We need lower fertility rates everywhere or third-world countries will breed humanity to extinction.
From an environmental point of view, we particularly need to lower our population in the US because we consume such a disproportionate amount of resources per person.
Obviously we're not going to go around culling the herd, so to speak, but fewer children will gradually reduce, or at least stabilize, Earth's population.
18
The demographic transition is real. When people know that their children are likely to grow up -- when they have access to a social safety net so they don't have to depend entirely on their kids in old age -- when they have some aspirations that are not limited to family happiness -- then they have fewer children. Women being empowered and having access to birth control is a big piece, but not all of it.
9
Very touching portraits of these families, especially Mr. Wences' statement at the end of the article.
One point on all of those commenting on how this is good in view of overpopulation: the Earth is at the point of environmental collapse due to the economies of the DEVELOPED WORLD. People in DEVELOPED COUNTRIES are the ones who are the biggest polluters on planet Earth. The distinction should be made that the real problem is consumption of resources and the further poisoning of natural resources of air, water, and soil.
2
@Lmca: If you've been to Indonesia lately, you might not say that as quickly. It is far more polluted and environmentally degraded than the USA or Europe.
In the developed world, we need to figure out how to use a lot less energy, and pollute a lot less. It's a work in progress, but it's not happening nearly quickly enough. The Green New Deal is a call to action which won't get implemented, but hopefully will spur us on to do something more effective, and soon.
2
@mlbex: Indonesia is far more polluted because the developed world dumps their garbage there.
"...the collected trash was largely generated elsewhere and flowed to the islands after being swept up in rivers during the monsoon season, according to Agence France-Presse." (https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/j5zdj8/indonesian-islands-are-drowning-in-trash)
@Lmca
If you read the article you referenced carefully, the islands being referred to as receiving "trash generated elsewhere" are the Thousand Islands, a small chain north of Java, not Indonesia as a whole. The article goes on to mention that Indonesia is the globe's second largest contributor to marine garbage after China.
The garbage in Indonesia's land and waters are largely their own responsibility, and not because the US or Europe or Japan is nefariously dumping their garbage there.
1
It's important not to overstate the impact here though. If there is a generation who would have had two kids in their 20s, bit now is going to have two kids in their 30s, then the birthrate drop is only a timing issue.
1
Declining fertility and the delaying of reproduction to a later age is vital to our environment and our society. The world is far too crowded, not just in terms of resources and environmental degradation, but also in terms of the growing impositions we all place on each other. Yes, we are social creatures, but part of the increasing polarization and tension in our societies might also reasonably be traced to just how many there are of us and how many voices can so readily be heard through the internet. Voluntary delays in reproductive age is probably the most efficient and enlightened way to slow population growth (and should be applauded, not doomsayed), and it will help women advance in careers. Now, we just need to adjust to not expecting constant growth in GDP. Existing wealth and our advancing technologies should suffice us. The only reason for demanding population growth and GDP growth is to serve the wealth hoarding neuroses of the elites (economists just see us as consumers and creators of workers).
3
Good news , no matter what racial or ethnic background we are looking at , birth rates declining is a good thing for our society and our planet. Robotics and A.I are making humans irrelevant in more and more jobs. In Europe or United States we don’t need more babies who will be unemployed and will add social tensions to issues we are already seeing with the election of trump or the rise of nationalism in Europe. This planet was never meant to have over 6 billions humans living the way we are .
83
@Gwenael
Our economic and environmental problems are not caused by poor children. They are caused by the life styles of the wealthy.
9
And I didn’t try to make a point that only poor children were the cause of our environmental problems. It would be shortsighted like saying that only wealthy people are solely responsible.
In many countries in the world the human population which are poor have destroyed the ecosystem simply because of their presence.
Many species of fish are about to disappear in the Mediterranean Sea because of the demand for food from countries which are far from being wealthy.
We are all responsible, rich and poor , some because of what they produce and other because of their demand for goods.
We can keep deflecting responsibility to other groups of humans but it won’t stop the damage that each additional human causes on nature during their lifetime.
16
My great grandmother immigrated from Latin America with 5 children and had 4 more. My maternal great grandmother had 9 children as well (the daughter of migrant farm workers). My grandparents had 4 children. My parents had 4 as well (an anomaly given their siblings had 2-3).
My siblings and I have zero or 1. Children are expensive! And the opportunity costs when you have an education are high. Not to mention, health Care and childcare costs.
Certainly a story of economics, education and female empowerment.
38
Good! For whatever reason! But it’s too little too late for our environment. Every major problem that we face on this planet can be traced to the pressures of over population.
35
They have better option. Simple as that. Happens everywhere that opportunity opens up.
11
The best thing that China did for the environment was instituting the one child policy. We are addicted to economic growth and this must be fueled by population growth. This is not the way to run a planet. As we see from the many profiles that the NYT does on women and children crossing the southern border illegally, they often have multiple children in their teens. While the left talks about the 'green new deal' they fail to introduce the fundamental cause of environmental degradation, and that is too many children in too poor families. This should be the focus. It is good to see that second generation Hispanics are thinking about family planning.
26
@thewriterstuff
Indeed. The sooner women (and their husbands?) awaken to the fact that having children not only costs money but also costs opportunities and holds them in poverty, perhaps the planet will eventually reach a sustainable population balance, even if that means that capitalism needs to be retool away from its addiction to constant growth, which requires ever-more "customers."
7
@thewriterstuff The other positive thing China did was to eliminate religion and its collective delusion. People actually do things, work together, and educate themselves instead of worshipping a make-believe god(s) and fighting wars, over-populating the planet, and hating everybody who is different. Imagine how sane, productive, and sustainable the human world would be without Christianity, Judaism and Islam!
14
@JCX That would be if Jacob had turned the knife on Abraham. Thus said, Abraham went on to father Christianity and Islam...and the world as it is! One God but competing believers.
In spite of what some people want to believe, "Hispanic" people will assimilate into the American melting pot sooner rather than later. "Hispanics" are no different than other immigrant groups that came to the US in the past. Why people that come from countries that speak one language are lumped into a group and treated differently is a mystery to me.
13
@Salvatore
How long does it take to assimilate? People seem to forget that not every Latino or Hispanic is a recent immigrant. My family has been in California for over 100 years!
How long does it take to assimilate? People seem to forget that not every Latino or Hispanic is a recent immigrant. My family has been in California for over 100 years!
The article does not mention how fertility rates in Latin America have declined enormously in the las decades. Mexico’s fertility rate is now 2.1 children per woman (replacement rate), and similar development has taken place across the region.
Hispanic fertility rates in the United States have seen similar shifts. This would indicate that this population is fully capable of progress without outside example or help, as is implied by the article.
11
I work in a school district with a considerable Hispanic population. Although some Latinas have broken out of their culture, there’s still a lot of peer pressure to have a boyfriend early. On the other hand, I hear immigrant parents saying they want more for their children than they have in terms of education, employment opportunities and income (just like my grandparents and countless other 20th century immigrants).
11
Demographers have long said, "There is no ethnic demography." This article says the same thing. Birth rates only correlate with broad economic changes and not with small changes in certain laws which are often cited as important.
2
My parents came from very large families. This was necessary because they lived off what they could grow and hunt. When this country first started, the majority of people were farmers and today less than 2% of our citizens work on farms. When I first moved to Atlanta over 50 YAG, the southern farms began to rely on total automation and huge numbers of uneducated people came to places like Atlanta and had a very difficult time surviving.
I was a witness as to how a farmer with a 40 HP Ford tractor could manage 50 acres with a 2 bottom plow and a one row corn picker. Today John Deere has 400 HP diesel tractors that have 24 bottom plows and can harvest up to 24 rows of corn. These tractors are fully air conditioned and when harvesting, can determine what the yield of corn or soy beans is by specific location on their fields. This system was developed over 20 YAG by a farmers college educated sons.
12
Fertility rates are in decline in America, which is not the same as the Birth Rate. The two are not necessarily connected.
Fertility rates are declining across the so called Developed World, there is a whole scientific debate about why this is happening, with everything from environmental changes to pollution taking the blame.
The Birth Rate is declining because women are increasingly making decisions about their own motherhood. They are no longer just Baby Making units. Many are deciding not to have children at all.
49
@Applecounty
This article is confusingly written in the sense that it refers to both "birth rate" and "fertility rate" when it only show birth rates, (e.g. 97.4 births per 1,000 women).
"Total fertility rate" is the number a woman past childbearing age would have, e.g. 2.1 child/women.
"Fertility" in the sense of being able to procreate or not is another thing, with environmental factors, and it shows in the total fertility rate, which is connected to the birth rate through the population age distribution.
"Women making decisions about their own motherhood" is thus affecting both birth rate and fertility rate.
5
I find it intriguing that nothing was mentioned about Catholic teaching against birth control an its influence on an individuals choices to have children. Especially when discussing immigrants from Catholic Mexico.
24
@kirk
'Intriguing' ?
There's nothing 'intriguing' about people rejecting 2nd-century patriarchy, fairy tales and bad medieval advice about how to live one's life in 2019.
It's called evolution.
Of course people are disregarding the 'be fruitful and multiply' patriarchal poppycock that has no relevance to modernity.
The disregard of religion is one of the most hopeful developments in eons.
126
Unfortunately, organised religion still exercises disproportionate influence in developing countries, especially in Africa. Large families, together with poor education, promotes grinding poverty, and yet the church still promotes the 'sin' of contraception.
The Christian Church encourages the maintenance of a Patriarchal society to deny women determination over their bodies.
30
@kirk - I was born in 1954, the youngest of three children. I was raised Catholic. My mother, who was a devout Catholic, used to mark days on the calendar to try to avoid having a third child. She called it the "rhythm method." Obviously that method failed because here I am. Years later she told me that had a birth control pill been on the market in the 1950's she would have used it. There were a lot of "devout" Catholic women in her generation that felt the same way. The RCC is an archaic institution that should go the way of the dinosaurs.
18
My usual thought when someone tells me they're expecting; "Do you know how much those things cost?!!"
22
@Mike: A number of years ago, the British Government came up with an official estimate of the cost of child patenting up to the age of 18. I cannot recall the exact sum, but it was high.
A retired Anglican clergyman, who was also an acquaintance of mine, found it all very puzzling, "How did my wife and I raise three daughters, including sending them all to University, on a little more than a Clergymans' stipend?" He wondered.
1
Good news. It demonstrates assimilation and aspiration. On another note, why endless human population growth desirable? Do we really want a billion Americans? Do we really want to be as crowded as China or India or Haiti or Pakistan or even England, which is a country the size of Michigan with over 60 million humans? It's time to talk about US population growth, which is entirely driven by immigration. The US population continues to grow by 30 million per decade, with no end in sight, despite low birth rates all because of immigration.
36
@LB
The current economic system is built on the assumption of constant growth. You cannot have a pension system if there are far more pensioners than people paying into the pension. You cannot have a progressive tax scheme if the number of wealthy people with taxable income and property shrinks every year. You cannot have business models based on garnering ever more subscriptions or sales or views when the total number of people available to provide those shrinks every year.
These are problems that, for the time being, are a ways off and will take time to really build disastrous momentum, but the mere fact we are trending toward it is causing instability in markets that rely on positive forecasts about the future.
I'm not saying that the current system is good, either, I'm just saying it's going to be rough if population decline well and truly sets in and people had best be prepared for what's coming.
1
@Joel
The assumption needs to be questioned. I've been questioning this inane mantra "we have to have 4% growth" for years.
Lately, all the luminaries in economics have been fighting about MMT which is essentially the argument that our government can spend as much money and generate as much debt as it needs as long as the debt is in dollars. I'm astounded, daily that serious economists are discussing this, yet they are, and in some ways I do understand a glimmer of it and think some aspects may be right.
An economy is simply a group of people who provides goods and services to each other within the group and trades goods and services with outside groups. Sure, if you have too many older people who are a drain in a group or too many young people who can't yet contribute the system becomes unbalanced, but there is no question in my mind that we had better start putting some effort into figuring out how individual and collective global economies will work when population growth becomes stagnant, which at some point it will, because we can't go on like this forever.
I don't believe it will be so horrible to have zero population growth--we'll just find another economic model that doesn't require constant growth to make it work.
4
There is still immense pressure in our society for women to fulfill the "dream" of motherhood, preferably accompanied by a large house, two cars and the bonds of holy, heterosexual wedlock. No culture is immune, and hints and nudges from family only make it harder to resist. Congratulations to these young women for taking the long view of their lives. Whether or not they ultimately decide to have children, they shouldn't be prodded to give a reason just to satisfy the demographers.
If our birth rates are declining, there are plenty of people outside our borders who are literally dying to get in.
196
@CML
Perhaps it's time Congress consider an anti-birth 'incentive' to discourage the population growth that is killing the planet. e.g., every woman that forgoes childbirth gets $1 million dollars when she reaches menopause, to use as she sees fit. It would only be a fraction of the cost - to society & the woman - of a child's social, environmental and economic cost to the planet.
34
@Village Idiot
Can that be retroactive?
13
@Village Idiot
This comment should be a Times Pick!
3
Why is delaying parenthood and getting a good solid education or starting a career or saving some money an issue for anyone regardless of their race and ethnicity? Ms. Wences has good, responsible parents. They want better for their children than what they had - like most Americans. The nations that have low/no population growth have high standards of living. The nations/cultures with high population growth have famine, disease and perpetual conflict.
37
The best thing any young woman can do to ensure a good future is avoiding teen birth. Becoming a teenage mother is the surest route to a life of poverty. Not always, but far too often.
91
Why no mention of birth control? Are young women of Mexican descent choosing birth control over their more observantly Catholic parents?
35
@Cousy
very good point! same question I had.
2
Many Latin Americans are now various denominations of Evangelical Christian. Not sure what their policy on family planning is.
@Cousy The womens´ health situation and family planning is in dire straits in the USA, not so in México where atiquated church preachings do not affect public policy. The MX birth rate dropped drastically between 1960´s and 70´s roughly as education has been growing. Currently birth control is free or on a sliding scale for all girls in urban areas readily and in villages much the same throughout MX, with universal health care this is easy to implement. To accelate social change university is also free to the top 20% of baccalaureate recipients and there are many scholarships for the rest, this includes medical and dental education. Its what the US should look like and quite ironically its the country these womens´ grandparents and parents were driven to abandon.
1
This is excellent news. These young Women are ignoring "the Church" and building a better future. I salute them.
69
[[“The mind-set was, ‘Don’t be like us,’” she said. “‘Don’t get married early. Don’t have children early. Don’t be one of those teen moms. We made these sacrifices so that you can get educated and start a career.’”]]
A friend of mine is still getting tremendous pressure to marry and have kids, even as her siblings have already given the parents grandchildren.
And I think teen girls get a lot of peer pressure and pressure from boys to have sex and have babies, so there's probably a significant portion of the U.S. born hispanic population that stumbles out of the gate and is hampered by having too many kids too early in life.
14
It is possible to have and enjoy healthy sex without getting pregnant. It is called contraception. Men should take responsibility for contraception as well as women.
7
My sister and I are US born daughters of Mexican immigrants. My immigrant mother finished the sixth grade had only two children in her early 20’s. My mother and father’s decision to only have two children was surely influenced by their desire to give us as much opportunity, resources and attention to succeed in this country. (I’m a lawyer, my sister is a veterinarian.) They both came from very large families and the fact that my mom spent her teen years helping raise her numerous younger siblings instead of going to school was a big factor. As far as why I’m 40 years old with a kindergartner and will have no more: it’s the economy stupid. My mom stayed home with us until I was 12, didn’t have a car or any other debt, and my dad’s salary at a furniture company was able to provide for us and our little apartment in East Los Angeles. The economy worked for families back then and isn’t working now. The needs of non-wealthy, college educated, working mothers are not being met: a year of maternity leave, affordable child care, and flexible non-full time work schedules. Not having all of these things is the main reason I won’t have another child. I was home for all of six months during my maternity leave, have six figures in student loans, and my husband’s six figure salary is not enough for me to ever consider staying home.
68
I suspect that if you looked at the country of origin, you’d see a decline and delay in having children as well. It’s a global phenomenon, taking place for the same reasons articulated by these Americans.
15
@Yeah
Alas, the (uneven) global decline in human births is not enough or happening fast enough to save the planet from the environmental destruction caused by Homo Sapiens and its system of capitalism, whose 'success' demands ever-more 'growth,' which can only come from ever-more 'customers' who need the 'stuff' that capitalism peddles.
4
@Yeah Hans Rosling points this out in his amazing book, "Factfulness." It describes many hopeful signs about population demographics.
The drop in Hispanic American birth rates has long been forecasted. They are making the transition from the agrarian society of their parent's and grandparents' homeland to America's post-industrialized society.
As the article points out, "Nearly two-thirds of Hispanics in the United States today are born in this country." Intermarriage between Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic whites is so common that the distinction between the two ethnic groups will probably disappear within a generation. The same is true of Hispanic blacks and non-Hispanic blacks.
139
@William Case I agree. All this fretting about the US becoming a white minority country seems completely misplaced to me. At one time Italian Americans weren't regarded as white; even Irish Americans weren't regarded as white (in the WASP sense). In another generation or two it just won't matter.
33
@William Case
It can disappear even within the generation. My father was a European descended American who married my Mexican-born and still a citizen-of-Mexico mother. We grew up in LA where there was already a big group of Hispanics who were intermarried and the idea of being “half Mexican” never really crossed my mind as “abnormal”.
When I lived and socialized for seven years in the White donor community of Saint Louis, my Mexican heritage went unmentioned BECAUSE it was no big deal. Never thought about it. But when the top donors to my ex’s university heard me inadvertently mention my “Mexican mom”, they were flabbergasted I was Mexican. “We had no idea”, like it was something they should have known. Furthermore, they then started intergogating me about my mother’s views on “all the illegals”. Thankfully my marriage ended within the year releasing me from that racist, totally clueless scene.
The “problem” of racial identity and when it transitions to “American” is really only a problem in the Midwest and South. I’m just dumbfounded it’s such an obsession there. I never focused on my heritage as being anything other than “immigrant American” in the grand tradition of ALL Americans since the first colonists, nor do most who are in states that were once a part of Mexico before the war. We’re all Americans from the first generation onwards and as American as taco trucks!
19
A tiny bit of good demographic news amid a catastrophic 'be fruitful and multiply' religious pandemic.
Current World Population
7,688,683,224 (and exploding)
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
The rapid destruction of planet Earth by religiously, recklessly reproducing humans has gone on for far too long.
Free IUD implants, sex education and condoms for all !
Amen....and awomen.
183
@Socrates - I think you’ll be seeing much more of this type of good news. Better education results in smaller families, it appears - but I think the most effective education on this point is Te now-ubiquitous smartphone. Everyone can now see how everyone else lives. Population growth is about to crash. You heard it here first...
8
@Socrates
Free birth control of a woman's choosing.
And free vasectomies--easy, inexpensive, fool proof.
52
@Socrates
Your readership might be interested to learn that a Canadian journalist/activist has just published Empty Planet, a book challenging the notion popularized by progressives that the world’s population is growing unsustainably.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-world-might-actually-run-out-of-people/
What a blow to the Times faithful if the the same writer has a spiritual awakening and turns his gaze upward. You know, to those “fairies in the sky” that some scorn with monotonous regularity
2
This story leaves the wrong impression about the overall birth rate story. While it is of course true that Hispanic/Latinx birth rates have fallen, they are still by far and away the population segment with the most births to the youngest mothers.
The real story here is that the white and Black fertility rate has fallen significantly too, especially in the south and west. The future of young people in this country is Latinx and Asian, and I think most white and Black people are not prepared for that.
9
Overpopulation in the worlds’ poorest countries in Africa and South America is a project Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have confronted for years. Only when women are empowered by education can they decide if and when to have children.
We seldom ask ourselves why couples seeking asylum in the US from violence in their own country often have so many young children despite their fears. It is because the woman in the relationship was not empowered by education to make another decision.
26
Nice to read the "American Dream" still lives! Congratulations and the best to you, young lady!
7
More than the change in birth rates, to me this story is what immigration has looked like for so many who've come to America for over the past 100+ years. Immigrant parents or grandparents who didn't speak the language. Great, courageous, hard working people with deep pride, urging their children to take advantage of what this country has to offer. Yoselin Wences is a smart young women blessed to be part of the family she has.
41
Some of the decline in birth rates may be do to infertility . Many young women simply can't get pregnant.
Why are so many women who want a child unable to conceive?
2
@df, may as well ask why many men have insufficient motile sperm. Different discussion, totally irrelevant to the one in this article that has to do with changing and growing aspirations and goal.
14
The article does mix up Birth rate and infertility.
1
@df the increasing obesity rates are contributing to young women's infertility challenges.
1
You need to do your homework Fertility rates in women are not the same as birth rate. What you are terming 'fertility rates" are in reality birth rates. Women exercise more choice and have more available methods to delay pregnancy. that does not indicate fertility rates. That is a while other topic.
17
@Ann, true. But people should be concerned. Those who are screaming about "illegal immigrants" and how we are being overrun etc. need to understand that just in order to maintain our current U.S. population, every woman of child-bearing age needs to produce at least 2 children during her lifetime. Right now, the rate is 1.8. We are not having enough children to maintain our current population, let alone expand it in the future! And now businesses are claiming that they cannot find enough "workers" (don't get me started on that) - well, we'll take you at your word. H1-B visas aren't the answer. If you want more people, let more into the country who have high birth rates. And guess what - they're not coming in droves from Norway.
3
@Ann
You are correct.
The media continues to err in confusing "fertility" with "fecundity."
"Fertility" means viable *potential* to reproduce, whereas "fecundity" means *numbers of actual offspring produced*.
Once puberty occurs, generally speaking, all men and women with normally functioning sexual organs producing viable gametes (sperm and eggs) are *fertile*, but they may not all be *fecund*.
In other words: generally speaking: men from the time of puberty unto old age, are considered *fertile* if the gametes or sperm their bodies produce, are capable of initiating fertilization of an ovum/egg.
Women from the time of puberty to menopause, are considered *fertile* if their ovaries are capable of producing an ovum/egg that can be successfully fertilized by viable sperm.
However, if neither men nor women produce viable offspring, than their *fecundity* rate is zero.
6
@Jan N Why would we want to maintain or increase our current population? Name one good reason.
4
One question if Yoselin was born in the USA she is American.
Why call her Hispanic?
My parents came from Italy but I was born in the USA.
I don't call myself an Italian.
36
@Joe Paper, because Hispanic is an ethnic group. Italian is a country.
11
@Cindy, that's a ridiculous answer. As the Irish Americans, the Polish Americans, the French Canadian Americans, the German Americans, etc etc etc and each of them will tell you they identify with a group of people and to them, that is as ethnic as it gets.
9
@Cindy I thought the name of the country is Italy? And what do you mean by group? Why do we have to be groups why can’t we all be the same?
6
FTA; “My wish for her is she keeps on in her education and becomes somebody,” Mr. Wences said. “I want her to be comfortable, to have control over herself and her life.”
So far, his wish is coming true.
“She came out 100 percent what I hoped,” he said.
Me: These are exactly the wishes I had for my daughter, exactly. They came true, too, and I cannot express how gratifying it is to see my happy, independent, comfortable daughter. (She'll be 32 this month.) I think these wishes are a good mix of wanting good things for your kid, and giving her wide latitude for how she gets there.
15
In this paragraph:
The fertility rate for Hispanics — defined by demographers as people who report they are of Hispanic origin on birth certificates — dropped to 67.6 from 97.4 births per 1,000 women. By contrast, the rate for non-Hispanic whites fell by 6 percent to 57.2, and by about 12 percent for blacks to 63.1, according to Child Trends.
I think the author means by 6 percentage points and by 12 percentage points. (There is a big difference between saying 6 percent and 6 percentage points.)
11
@Ira Sheskin
There is no mention of percentage points in this paragraph, and percentage points would not make much sense.
I don't see why a drop of 6% in 10 years is hard to believe. It means that the rate for non-Hispanic whites was 60.8 in 2007, and the rate for Blacks was 71.7.
1
Many people who dislike our neighbors from the south should realize that many of these young people will get an education, have careers and contribute with their taxes to the wealth of this country just like previous generations of immigrants have done.
29
This story is a typical trajectory for immigrants. The first gen wants their children to have a better life; that's why most come here. The second gen works hard, as do their parents, to improve their lives.
Best of luck to these young women in their quest for an education and better life.
243
@LizA Jack Donaghy : We are an immigrant nation. The first generation works their fingers to the bone making things. The next generation goes to college and innovates new ideas. The third generation... snowboards and takes improv classes.
13
As a second generation American, I agree. It's a little sad not to have a large family (for me, not my husband!) but we still have plenty of first cousins, probably 60 between us. In contrast, my kids have "only" have 16.
2
@catamaran
Dear Cat -- funny! Still smiling...there's a kernel of truth here.
Education and reasonable access to reproductive services can counter-balance religion and culture in determining sustainable reproduction rates in any country - be it wealthy or impoverished. Educate and empower women and very good things happen. Bless Yoselin's parents, who have sacrificed so much to live and advance the American dream for her daughter. Their sacrifice, as worthy immigrants, is a shining example of what truly makes America great. In this regard, Trump's twisted rhetoric and policies are those of a cretin.
23
Great news, now if we can export this policy to India, Pakistan, Africa, etc. by way of helping with women's education and health clinics instead of weapons and corporate colonialism.
75
@Peggy Conroy
Let's keep those birthrate numbers down in Europe and Japan, as well.
Spread the joy!
This is good news (and not because they are Hispanic)! When women decide to delay or reduce births it generally is a big win for society as they are improving their standing and getting educated.
It is also much better for the environment - our planet is already over-populated and can't sustain the growth. Our resources are depleting and climate change is increasing.
44
In Mexico, the fertility rate has dropped from 6 to 2 in the past 50 years so this American trend is really just a reflection of what’s been happening in Mexico.
The most prominent Latina, Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor is childless.
25
Rick, you are right about this being a trend in Mexico as well. But the term "childless" doesn't mean LESS to those of us who choose not to have children. We need to ditch this term.
1
@Rick I call it "childfree". Birth control, usually the long term shots are available free of charge or very inexpensively to Mexican girls and women here in MX. Condoms are ubiquitous, there is a huge openly gay population too. México has long accepted and snickered between what they say and what we do.
85% of Mexican migrants to the USA between the 1980´s/90´s when US agri-business was openly soliciting labor were rural recruits. NAFTA killed small farming in MX and promoted indentured servitude in the US for these groups, who at that time had no ready options. 2007 MX migration dropped to net -0-. Social changes here, free universal health care and affordable higher education combined with a new internet savvy society - well its more advantageous to live here now.
Jocelyn's parents were wise indeed. That's what all parents should be encouraging their children to do. Its not a problem, its social evolution.
14
I'm concerned that men in general are not shadowing these women in literacy, education and professional careers. Then the question is, who are these women going to marry?
Too often I see these energetic young women forced to marry well beneath their educational level, and then landing up in the same circumstances that they were trying to escape.
We men need to shape up to keep up...
28
@Shahbaby
...or maybe we need to focus more on young men in primary and secondary school.
10
@Conservative Democrat
I agree. The pendulum has swung the other way but as always we need to strive towards proper balance...
1
@Shahbaby Why would you assume that a professional woman married who someone with lower educational attainment would automatically land in the circumstances they were trying to escape (I assume you mean poverty)? Is she somehow rendered unable to continue her career after she says I Do? I doubt very highly you would make the same comment if the genders were reversed.
1
Kudos to all the parents who want to see their daughters educated and to do better. Educating women is the strongest force in bringing progress to the world. I don’t know why anyone worries about a low birth rate in the US. There is a very simple solution, of course, if you need to supplement the natural growth: migration.
248
@Dfkinjer
Better yet, lower birth rates everywhere.
We've spewed more carbon into the atmosphere in the past few decades than we did in the preceding entire history of our species.
Of course, those who are alive and poor, wherever they are, want to have a decent standard of living. And of course, it's not anyone's place to tell another individual whether they can or can't have children. But the idea that anyone, anywhere, would be concerned about declining birth rates is insane to me.
My comment isn't about Hispanics, specifically, just a general response to the idea that overall population growth is "natural" and desirable.
52
@Shirley0401 Exactly. Why is growth always seen as a positive?
22
@Jody Because without some growth from somewhere including immigration you end up with an aging population and a bad economy. Balance is the goal.
5
The planet is suffering greatly from overpopulation, which we were warned about back in the 70's. Less people to my mind, is a cause for celebration. There has been a 70% decline in animal , marine and insect life since the 70s, due to loss of habitat, pollution and global warming. You may think big deal, but the fact remains, without these living creatures as simple as plankton, humans will die off.
How many landfills can the planet withstand?
36
I don't mean to trivialize this with a song lyric, but...."There's nothing surer; The rich get richer and the poor get - children. In the meantime, in between time, ain't we got fun!" Also, this change in birthrate is nothing new. My Italian immigrant grandmother had 12 children. None of her children had even half as many. My mother had 3. Her kids have even less.
19
This is good news for these young women who are striving for education and a productive, satisfying life. What will happen, however, if Republicans succeed in getting rid of Planned Parenthood and making it difficult to impossible for young women to get affordable health care, including reproductive health care?
266
Planned Parenthood is mostly funded with private donations. The Republicans can't get rid of it.
6
@Caveat Emptor "What will happen, however, if Republicans succeed in getting rid of Planned Parenthood and making it difficult to impossible for young women to get affordable health care, including reproductive health care?"
I think the tide has turned on this issue, even Republican constituents want affordable healthcare (they just wish *their* party would deliver it, but when they were "forced" to accept Obamacare, they polled in favor of it). If Republicans keep trying to run on limiting access to healthcare (including tying healthcare to employment), they will lose that fight.
2
@Caveat Emptor
Males could always keep it in their pants or finally figure out the directions for condoms. Catholic though they be, even hispanics do not have immaculate conceptions.
3
I consider this positive on 2 scores.
Hispanic teen pregnancy and birthrates have traditionally higher than the national average. This reduction means more economic opportunity for Latin Americans.
Also, worldwide we need to see an end to population growth, for environmental reasons.
Western countries have been trapped in an economic system of dependency on a growing population to fund its retirement programs. Basically, this is a Ponzi scheme and not sustainable. We need to be building a retirement system that pays for current costs out of PAST not CURRENT contributions.
16
Just a reflection on one piece of this story - the depth of parental love have for their children. The story of working so hard to lift your children up. This brought a tear to my eye, and made me think about my ancestors who came here to this country, and the sacrifices they made for us. And I accept the responsibility to make the most of their sacrifice and do whatever I can for my children. The sacrifices I make for my children pale in comparison in terms of level of difficulty - I am awed by the strength and total commitment of our immigrant ancestors.
377
@Pat: They weren't all wonderful. For example Donald Trump's paternal grandfather immigrated to avoid military service and made his fortune running a whorehouse. Rotten apples fall near the tree.
6
@Pat
I asked my late father (born in U.S. of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants) if his parents could have imagined the life their grandchildren have available, and he said that they never thought of those things, they just didn't want to be killed in pogroms or in the Czar's army for 25 years.
I never knew my three immigrant grandparents but I'd like to ask them the same question.
2
@Pat
I just don’t understand why the deep love and commitment of immigrant families to do what their own ancestors did for their children is not totally obvious to all the freaks and haters screaming about the “disaster” at the border. There’s a real mental sickness out there that needs to be called out and healed, not coddled and excused as “fear of economic insecurity”. It’s ugly racism, plain and simple, and we need to stop tolerating it as a society. Racism is America’s original sin and I want it gone by the time I pass on.
11
What women want out of life has undergone a not-so-quiet revolution. For most of history, women accepted what Nature dished out to them--early pregnancy, followed by childbirth and childrearing.
Well, Nature hasn't been ruling the roost for a while now. Ever since the widespread use of birth control started in the 1960s, women have been increasingly saying no to Nature. No, we're not having babies too early. They get that there's more to life than having children--that there's the life of the mind, the life of work, the life of being in and contributing to the world at large, the life that includes, yes, having some nice things surrounding you.
A baby is wonderful, but waiting makes it even more wonderful.
12
The overpopulation of the planet is leading to nearly all the problems we are experiencing. Too many people on the planet are the problem. A negative growth rate is exactly what the world needs. The supposed economic disadvantages are more than overcome by technology and the need for less labor overall. Bravo to these women who are living a fulfilling life while having less children.
20
Women have been conditioned for years into thinking that motherhood was a requirement for happiness. It is not. That way of thinking went out by the late 1960's. Since the 1970's, the US has seen a steady decline in marriage and the birth rate. As women become more educated and financially independent, the birth rate will decline even more. Having a child is now a choice. It is no longer an expected milestone for women. This scares the Republicans because the the US demographic is changing. Single women without children traditionally vote Democrat and they were the voters responsible for the blue wave last fall.
27
Access to excellent public education has played a significant role in these young women’s lives and their families’ commitment to making a life in the United States. Any conversation about immigration needs to take into account how public education influences in a family’s transition to life in America. We are rightfully proud of Wake Tech and our 4-year colleges and universities in North Carolina— as our Spanish-speaking population continues to expand here we need these institutions to be inclusive and well-funded for the long-term economic and social wellbeing of our state.
10
Ms. Wences has loving and encouraging parents. And she has made them proud. All families should be so lucky.
61
Economics is the speedboat of birth rates as individuals quickly change birth patterns to adjust to short term economic fluctuations. Demographics is the massive oil tanker, seeing slower long term changes in birth patterns. As populations urbanize, societies become more equal between genders, children become economic burdens (industrial / post industrial economies) and not assets (agrarian economies) to the household, birth rates plummet...and we're seeing all these slower long-term trends reflected in this article. Also, consider anti-natal US government policy--we claim to be pro family but we are profoundly not. Child care is is nearly impossible to afford. Economic uncertainty, low wages, and a culture of consumerism create households with two working parents who cannot afford children. Quality health care is rationed and becoming less obtainable. We are not a country with policies promoting child birth and families among and demographic group.
28
This is great now if only those that can't afford children would have none that would be greater. The US is overpopulated we don't need more citizens or children.
20
@vulcanalex. US is not overpopulated using any measure of population density. We need more young people entering the workforce or we will join Europe and Japan by enduring years of no growth.
7
@vulcanalex
Actually, this article is a wake up call because when the birth rate falls, the population renewal doesn't take place and then you have a shrinking group that works to support an aging population. Demographics get out of balance. Japan is having serious problems from low birth rate.
8
@vulcanalex
The US is not overpopulated and we need immigration because we are not replacing ourselves.
What would be great would be if those who can't afford children would be able to afford them because we prioritized promotion of the general welfare, as stated in the Preamble to the Constitution.
7
I don't think a declining birthrate is necessarily a bad thing. This is a story about delayed gratification to pursue the kind of path you ultimately want in life.
My mother was born in the year of the Great Depression. She grew up in an era of economic hardship and global war. For her, marriage didn't seem likely to provide the kind of security she craved, so she went to university, got a degree in business, and went to work. At 30, she finally married and had two children. Now 90, she is healthy and living in a large retirement complex that resembles a resort community. If she had wed her high school sweetheart, her life would have turned out differently.
93
I taught in a local community college. So many of the young women stidents already had children and did not have a support system. They were one problem - no transportation, no childcare, no flexible job hours - away from having to drop out. Kudos to the parents of these young women who learned from their own hard lives and encouraged their children to get an education first. We do not need another study to know that an education predicts a more stable and fulfilling life. Let’s hope this trend of putting off childbirth becomes the norm. Best wishes to all the young women in this article.
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@Martha Perhaps knowing that it is not societies job to provide child care, that we are a nation of cars not mass transportation, and many jobs flex hours don't work is the reason. I am all for tax credits for child care, but don't ask me to pay my tax dollars to float the whole cost. You know the importance of education? Don't have kids until you get one. Birth control isn't that expensive. Is it my job to cover for the poor choices made in life? It would seem Hispanics are catching on. Kids when ready. Not at 17 in high school.
7
I do hope Ms. Soria-Avila, working as an insurance agent while going to school, will devote some of her energy to developing a circle of friends. It is fine to keep one's eye on the prize while striving toward a goal, but a supportive network is what gets us through in life. I wish all these young women the best.
31
@PattiS A supportive network is nice, but being self supporting in all aspects is even better. You can move and your network stays, self sufficiency stays with you forever.
8
@PattiS you can always develop a circle of friends. Career choices, however, may need to be done earlier rather than later in life while you have the energy and drive and opportunity. Friendships can be developed at any time if one is so inclined.
6
Yes,
As people enter the W2 workforce, begin earning money and paying a lot of it to the government in spite of Republican claims of "tax cus",
they often decide that the cost of children, which is high, should be postponed pending financial stability.
If one is not in the workforce, and, one's income is proportional to the number of children produced, then, well...
producing children is warranted.
6
With the population going to 11 billion this century, women live in a golden age of choice. They can delay or not have children without any guilt. The world is going to be very crowded in the next 80 years. There is no need for governments to bribe people to have more children. India alone could emigrate 400 million people and still be crowded. There is no example of poor countries with low population growth, but many very poor countries with high growth. Even in Mexico itself, population growth is slowing.
58
I kept thinking I couldn't be more touched by the quotes from Mr. Wences, but I flat-out cried at this: “I want her to be comfortable, to have control over herself and her life.”
This demonization of immigrants (and I know, someone will say, but undocumented immigrants, but it's not just them) has to end. This man did the hard work that many Americans just see as beneath them. He has nothing to be ashamed of, even if his education could be better.
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@Lauren
Americans cannot be hired for the work you claim is beneath them. Most employers will only hire Mexican or Latino workers - in fact many of those workers are hired in Mexico.
8
@Lauren It’s simply not true that “many Americans” see hard work as “beneath them.” What is true is that throughout the past century many Americans fought for labor rights and protections and refuse to take jobs that illegally ignore the laws they did indeed work hard to implement.
20
@Lauren The work isn't beneath them, they just refuse to work for a pittance and make other choices to avoid falling into that trap. It's always funny to me that as a professional woman I am supposed to know my worth and demand what is due to me, but lots of other workers aren't afforded the same consideration.
My husband is in construction and demands to be paid a fair wage for his time. Of course there are undocumented workers who can be easily exploited that will do the same work for much less. If he refuses to accept sub-standard wages would you accuse him of thinking the work is beneath him? Or does he simply know what his time is worth?
9
This is such a heartening article. The hispanic culture of machismo views women as baby factories: continually impregnating their wives proves manhood in such a culture. As a child, I remember seeing men beam with pride when introducing their 7 or 8 children, their wives silently making tortillas in the kitchen. In such a system, poverty is meaningless. Virility rules the day.
This is why educating women is one of the single most important things we as homo sapiens can do to prevent wholesale ecological collapse. The more educated women are, the less children they have. They less children they have, the less stress on environmental resources. Let's keep educating women. Our survival depends upon it.
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@Regina Valdez - well said, but may i add that more education translates into higher paying careers that women are less likely to leave. in my 45 years of professional life i never saw any female executive with over 2-3 kids.
24
@pierre and that is a GOOD thing!
12
@Regina Valdez - perhaps just as important to educate men? The machismo man showing off his children could use good younger-year education, just as the females. Don’t you think better to educate all?
4
The only reason the economy has grown at all is because the wealthy have become filthy rich. As the middle class scrambles to pay the bills and pay down debt, children have indeed become too expensive time-wise.
When Bill Gates and Warren Buffet walk into a homeless shelter what happens to the average income of the people in the room?
Once we have figured out how to balance the wage equation.
Children may make a comeback.
America's dream has been put on hold.
26
@Billy America's dream is having children? Not according to me. It is opportunity which we have in amounts never seen anywhere else. And many make plenty of money to have expensive cell phones, and other things they don't really need.
5
This is normal. Educated women do, for the most part, have fewer children.
100
I suspect there is an additional reason. More women finally wake up to the fact that children are not necessary for a happy and fulfilled life. I had my kids when I was very young - in my early 20s - and I was studying and later working, with the help of my family, throughout their childhoods. It was doable, and I’m very happy with the results. Having grown-up sons when I’m still relatively young is great. But if I was in my 20s today, I’d probably remain child-free. Life is short, and there is so much to do and experience without sacrificing the best years of your life to diapers and sleepless nights. Add to it the high cost of childcare, the paranoid mindset of American society, in which parents are constantly harassed about their duty to their children rather than the other way round, and the geographical dispersion of families, and it seems to me that these young women make the right choice.
200
@Mor"Life is short, and there is so much to do and experience without sacrificing the best years of your life ..." The cult of the self. Sad. The best decision I ever made in life was to start a family. Is it easy? no. I'm glad I had my children in my 20s, so I can enjoy them in my 50s.
7
@Hero's Journey
I think the point is women no longer need to have children to appear to have a meaningful life. It is nolonger the only option and it is possible (delaying childbearing) to have a nice career, be independent, and have a nice family.
22
@Mor I was "fixed" at age 21 (vasectomy) and have never regretted it. That allowed me to continue my education, get a doctorate and a good job, 127 acres of land and a beautiful house. If I'd had 2 kids, one would've cost me the land, the other the house. Pretty simple economics.
14
Interestingly the birthrate in Spain also fell after the death of Franco and Spain's entry into the EU. The rate dropped so dramatically that by 2000 Spain was experiencing a negative growth rate. The reasons were the same as those set forth in this report. Young Spainards delayed marriage and having children. They wanted to improve their lives, enjoy things their parents did not have, homes, travel etc. They also wanted to provide their children with educations and a good upbringing which cost money. These goals were more possible to achieve with one child than 4 or 5. In the end Spain started offering incentives to increase birthrates.
57
This is an old story. The same story of my Italian American immigrant family decades ago. My grandmother worked in a factory. My mom was a nurse and I am a lawyer. Which is why immigrants and their values despite the Trumpists are the backbone of America.
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@Susan M Hill
Yup. Same story. Grandfather a tailor, father an accountant, grandchild a doctor.
22
@Susan M Hill exactly. Paternal Scottish Grandparents come from family of 17 and 13 children. Immigrated to USA. Had four kids. Those four kids (my Dad and his 3 siblings) had only 2 kids each, with one only having 1. Out of those 7 grandchildren, only 5 kids were born.
Inverted pyramid.
19
@Susan M Hill "...Which is why immigrants and their values despite the Trumpists are the backbone of America..."
Thank you. As an Italian descendant myself, I am continually frustrated to see so many Lou Barlettas among us.
3
Overpopulation is driving environmental decline, poverty and political conflicts throughout the world. Family planning, planned parenthood, limiting and delaying childbearing is a good thing.
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@Tom
In 100 years, there will be all new people. If the world would have one or none children for that time, we could reduce our population to sustainable levels. We would have to adjust our economy to a shrinking economy, but it can be done.
9
@Tom
Young people are the ones who pay for our medicare, social security, etc.
The environment gets cleaner as the world gets wealthier.
Poverty has never been lower.
The world has never been less violent.
fewer babies is better for the future. The future is so uncertain that all babies are at risk of not reaching adulthood in a safe world. As human habitat declines in the face of rapid climate change, it is a wise choice at this time to remain child free.
138
Oh yes - chasing the American dream - unfortunately it doesn’t exist anymore. Struggling through part time studies to get a degree will likely provide little financial gain but still reap the rewards of crushing debt.
The A jobs are only available for the top 10% of students, who graduate in 4 years and attend top 50 universities. Everybody else better be entrepreneurial or get ready for 40K jobs that can be had with a HS diploma.
America needs to stop pushing the false narrative that a degree ends all ills - it’s a lie. We need to move to a German based model and provide viable career paths for our citizens based on academic aptitude instead of pushing false prophecies that only prop up the current college business model.
98
Education is for educating. Jobs are different.
It is a very good thing that young Hispanic women are delaying having babies so that when they finally do, their children will be reared by mothers who can give them the life they deserve, and informed conversation when they are learning to talk.
As for their going to college: You can major in anything, pretty much, and then go to Wall Street or a corporation and work your way up. A cousin of mine majored in geology and then found his way into Verizon, where he did very well. For that matter, another college-educated cousin chose to go into the NYC Sanitation Department. Good pensions. Why not?
College is not job training.
57
@Chris Agree, but then we need national tests at age 15 where kids are tracked. Highest scorers get more college and professional tracks; Other scorers pick from apprenticeships or service tracks or associate degrees.
One can always retake the test in order to get to the professional track (med, law, biz, STEM).
Overall it is the same 40% of pop gets a college degree, steady state. That seems to be all the economies can absorb.
Oh, and BTW, there are no basket weaving, ABC studies, etc. degrees there on the taxpayer dime. You want that, you pay for it elsewhere.
3
It’s great that birth rates are dropping - the world is entirely overpopulated.
I also never mentioned what degree you get in college - as there are only a few very specific fields that require specialized education.
It’s what your GPA is and what University you attended that matters most - along with EC’s that look good on a resume.
Academia is not utopia - my liberal arts education notwithstanding. But this isn’t 1996 anymore / where I was able to transition into business with a psychology degree.
3
The reason birth rates are declining is because the cost of childcare for a working family is a second mortgage. That’s why people delay having children and then only have 1. Also the idea of work life balance in a capitalist society is fleeting at best. You need two salaries to survive in America because of wage stagnation, it’s almost impossible to sacrifice one salary so a parent can stay home.
Demographers want to see US birth rate increase? Support paid family leave, childcare subsidies and better education policies in the US, then you’ll see birthrates increase. If the problem with socialism is you run out of other people’s money, the problem with capitalism seems to be you run out of people!
233
@Madison countries that do provide those benefits aren't increasing their populations either. Not saying we should not provide them, but if one of the goals is to increase populations it is not working.
20
Better for both mother and child when mother is educated and independent. Better for both mother and child when mother finds spouse (of either gender) before she considers having children.
Unless she is in her thirties and has a job and close family. Then she is making an informed choice to have or adopt a child because she is ready and able.
Sorry, society is not in the business of providing perpetual childcare to 16-year-old unwed mothers.
24
@Madison the population simply cannot increase forever...a level birthrate over time is what should be desired...
31