America in midst of Baby Boom?
Posted: Monday, January 21, 2008
by Asher Ricard
With all the talk of celebrity babies, it is no surprise that American is in the midst of its own baby boom. It seems the talk of babies are in the news every way one turns with Christina, J-Lo and Spears' sisters taking up time on every media outlet.
Hollywood is no different from the rest of the United States, which experienced the highest number of births for the year 2006 since 1961. The Associated Press is reporting the largest number of children born in 45 years with 4.3 million births recorded.
MSNBC is reporting that experts believe there is a mix of reasons: a decline in contraceptive use, a drop in access to abortion, poor education and poverty. There are cultural reasons as well. Hispanics as a group have higher fertility rates - about 40 percent higher than the U.S. overall. And experts say Americans, especially those in middle America, view children more favorably than people in many other Westernized countries.
Apparently, according the their experts, Americans are the only country that want to have children when experiencing economic growth. I see this everyday with my generation. The majority of my friends have three or more kids. All of them respond when others ask about future children with the same response. "If we have the money, we would have ten kids."So I can see this reason as a viable reason. However, in the discussion following the article posted on MSNBC, the majority of comments left by people blamed immigration and the lack of laws as the reason of the boomlet. Demographers often use the word boomlet for a small and brief baby boom.
Of the 4.3 million births, the report showed one-quarter of the births belonged to Hispanics. Many people in the discussion believed it was because of the law that states babies born in the U.S. are automatically American citizens. They also contribute the increase because Hispanics are mainly catholic and therefore more likely not to use birth control for religious reasons.
According to the article, it is to early to tell if these findings are the beginning of another baby boom in the U.S. Though with recent economic downfall, I am not sure it will continue. To many economists and policymakers, the increase in births is good news. The U.S. fertility rate - the number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime - reached 2.1. That's the "magic number" required for a population to replace itself, according to the AP News.
So what do you contribute the increase in births to? Do you think the war plays any role like it did in the last Baby Boom? Do you think increased abstinence programs or more laws against abortions play a role? What reason do you contribute the increase in births in 2006? Leave your thoughts in the comments. To view the MSNBC article on the topic, visit http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22670983/?GT1=10755
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