f the full reports confirm the provisional data, the 2010 US fertility rate (64.7 births per thousand women in the 15-44 age band) will have fallen below the recent low of 64.8 hit in 2002 – when we were also in recession. The years 1995-1999, characterized by economic boom, also had fertility rates under 64.7 (64.6, 64.1, 63.6, 64.3, 64.4, respectively).
Maybe babies just aren’t needed anymore. Sixty years ago yes, but not any more.
Maybe that’s what the powers that be have been trying, gently, to tell us by not insuring births, not supplying health care for kids or good affordable childcare that would allow moms to go to work to support those kids knowing that they’re both safe and well cared for.
Sorry I’ve been slow in posting here lately – there’s so much to say, I’m flummoxed on where to start! For today, I’ll back up a bit, and point toward prognostications issued in August about the falling birth rate in