"The U.S. birth rate dipped in 2011 to the lowest ever recorded," and reliable records go back to 1920, report Gretchen Livingston and D'Vera Cohn at the Pew Research Center. What's going on? The most likely culprit is financial insecurity. America's birth rate has stayed relatively steady since the mid-1970s, but that's because the higher birth rates among the increasing number of immigrants canceled out the dropping rates of U.S.-born mothers. But fertility rates tend to decline during hard economic times, the Pew researchers note, and there's been "a plunge in births to immigrant women since the onset of the Great Recession." This may be good news to immigration hawks — and more generally, for a world of ever-scarcer resources — but it's not so great for the U.S. Fewer children means fewer future young taxpayers to support a booming elderly population reliant on Social Security and Medicare. Adding to the problem, "when families are small, people rely more heavily on these programs," aging expert Ted Fishman tells Bloomberg News. "A low birth rate could be a recipe for mass poverty and isolation." So, just how big was the Great Recession baby bust? A look at the numbers:
63.2
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
