New Centers for Disease Control data shows United States couples are not having enough children to keep the population steady, a worrying trend that follows many other Asian and European countries.
Preliminary data from 2022 shows birth rates remained below replacement level, with about 3.7 million babies born, the Associated Press reports. Birth rates rose among Hispanic women and women over 35, but they dropped among teens, women in their 20s and black and white women.
Underpopulation is a growing global problem. Birth rates have been declining across the world, and, in many Asian and European countries, the number of births has been below replacement level for years. As a result, the population is expected to shrink in the coming years – leading to labor shortages, fewer young adults to care for the elderly and fewer people to fund programs like Medicare and Social Security.
In the U.S., many thought births would rise after the COVID-19 pandemic ended and Roe v. Wade was overturned, but the CDC data, published Thursday, shows only a slight increase of about 3,000 births in 2022.
To keep population numbers steady, the fertility rate should be 2.1 children per family. For years, the United States birth rates hovered around that number, even as it dropped in many Asian and European countries. But the pandemic hit birth rates hard in the U.S.
According to the report: “U.S. births were declining for more than a decade before COVID-19 hit, then dropped a whopping 4% from 2019 to 2020. They ticked up about 1% in 2021, an increase experts attributed to pregnancies that couples had put off amid the early days of the pandemic.”
The overturning of Roe has not led to a large increase in babies being born either. However, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Dobbs v. Jackson ruling at the end of June, so more babies likely will be born in 2023. Additionally, reports of a huge increase in sterilizations among young women and men as a result of new abortion restrictions also may lead to fewer births than expected.
Here’s more from the AP:
It’s possible the abortion restrictions will lead to higher births rates in 2023 — more likely among younger women than older moms, said Ushma Upadhyay, a reproductive health researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. But even if there is a rise, it may not bring the nation back to pre-pandemic birth levels, given other trends, she added.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever get back there,” she said.
Rich and powerful voices have been stoking fears about overpopulation – and linking it to environmental problems — for more than a century. Some environmentalists have called for regulations to limit the number of children to reduce the earth’s “carbon footprint.” And China instituted its oppressive one child policy to reduce its population.
More recently, however, others like Pope Francis and billionaire Elon Musk have been warning about the dangers of under-population.
“If we don’t make enough people to at least sustain our numbers, perhaps increase a little bit, then civilization’s gonna crumble,” Musk told Tucker Carlson in an April interview at Fox News.
Meanwhile, news outlets report older Chinese adults are worried about having no one to care for them in their old age. And a new Japanese documentary warns that legalizing voluntary euthanasia for everyone over age 75 may be a “solution” to the aging population and declining birth rates across Asia.
A 2020 study in “The Lancet,” a prestigious medical journal, predicted the global fertility rate will drop drastically through 2100 – with devastating consequences on the whole of society – if birth rates do not reverse. According to the study, 183 of 195 countries are expected to have a fertility rate below replacement level by the end of the century.
“While population decline is potentially good news for reducing carbon emissions and stress on food systems, with more old people and fewer young people, economic challenges will arise as societies struggle to grow with fewer workers and taxpayers, and countries’ abilities to generate the wealth needed to fund social support and health care for the elderly are reduced,” said Professor Stein Emil Vollset, the lead author of the study.
Even Pope Francis has warned that countries with legalized abortion and low birth rates are “impoverishing their futures” by not having children.
“Having a child is always a risk, either naturally or by adoption,” the pope said in 2022. “But it is riskier not to have them. It is riskier to deny fatherhood or to deny motherhood, be it real or spiritual.