How many babies?
I haven’t been able to figure out whether there was some recent statistical release that led to the publication of three articles about fertility statistics in three different publications in the past couple of weeks. It’s interesting to see the different takes on the same subject.
The New York Times’ article appeared in the Week in Review two weeks ago, noting that population growth has slowed worldwide, leading the UN to lower its prediction for the plateau level of world population to 9 billion, down from its 1968 projection of 12 billion. Most of this decrease is driven by poorer countries, where the combined effects of urbanization, women’s education and employment, and reduced child mortality have all acted to drive fertility down. While noting variation in fertility levels from country to country, the article’s main thrust is about how widespread the overall downward trend is.
The Economist emphasized the divergence in the trends between Europe and the United States. They point out that while American fertility rates fell during the 60’s and 70’s, by the mid 80’s, they had started to rebound. At present, the U.S. has fertility rates just below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman, while Western Europe’s fertility rates are around 1.4 children per woman, and projected to keep dropping for another 10 years.
The Economist article discusses some possible consequences of this divergence in detail, which I won’t rehash (although it’s worth reading). I’m intrigued by the causes, and the relationship between fertility rates, women’s labor force participation, and government policies to subsidize the costs of childbearing (e.g. paid parental leave). It strikes me as ironic that the U.S., which doesn’t have a child allowance, nonetheless has a higher birthrate than many countries that do. In some cases, such as Singapore, the causality may run in the other direction — governments adopted pro-child policies BECAUSE their birthrates were low — but my impression is that the child allowances in Europe date to before the recent declines in fertility.
The third article was a slightly bizarre op-ed piece in the Washington Post, about how religous conservatives have a competitive advantage over liberals, because they have more children. The article struck me as mostly a way for the author, Philip Longman, to promote his book about how declining birthrates are, contrary to conventional wisdom, bad for the world. The article struck me as misleading because it ignored both the role of immigrants, who tend to support Democrats, and the electoral college. It also included the statement that “African Americans, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, now have a lower average fertility rate than whites.” I haven’t been able to find this anywhere on the NCHS website and it’s not consistent with anything else I’ve read.
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Follow-up: I emailed Longman to ask him about the statistic and here’s his reply:
“Thank you for your query. Since I wrote the piece, I have become aware that NCHS has revised its fertility statistics. The latest numbers show the Black, total fertility rate at 2,051.0, and the White at 2,040.0. This amounts to a difference of just over one-one-hundredth of a child per woman, so if I were writing the piece today, I would say that the Black fertility rate has fallen to point that it is virtually the same as the White rate.
“For more information, see: Revised Birth and Fertility Rates for the 1990s
and New Rates for Hispanic Populations, 2000 and 2001: United States, National Vital Statistics Report, Volume 51, Number 12, Table 3: Crude birth rates, general fertility rates, total fertility rates, and birth rates, by age and race of mother based on the 1990 and 2000 censuses, and percent difference: United States, 1991-2001.
“By the way, this same revision shows that Black fertility has fallen 17 percent since 1991, while White fertility has risen by 1 percent.”
