cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45445434
Fox News Senior Medical Analyst Marc Siegel made some eyebrow-raising comments lamenting that birth rates are down among teenagers aged 15 to 19.
On Thursday, the National Center for Health Statistics reported that the U.S. fertility rate fell to another record low. The agency reported that the number of births per 1,000 women of childbearing age declined from 53.8 in 2024 to 53.1 last year. The latest figure represents a continuation of a decades-long decline in fertility rates.
Siegel joined Friday’s edition of America’s Newsroom, where Dana Perino said that while the continuing trend is not surprising, “the numbers might feel a little shocking.”
My opinion is that doing all those things won’t magically fix the birthrate. Truth is that the more educated a country is, the lower its birthrate is. Countries like Korea and Japan have the lowest birthrate but also the highest literacy rate and most educated populations. While countries like Afghanistan and several African countries have high birthrate but also poor education levels and high infant mortality rates. More educated people realize that having kids sets them back from achieving their goals with the time and energy it takes to raise them. And the ROI isn’t even guaranteed because kids move away once their adults and aren’t necessarily going to take care of parents in their old age.
In pre-industrialized nations the amount of resources it takes to raise each child is minimal. People have so many children because the resource requirement for each one is minimal or even a positive addition to the income of the parents.
In industrialized nations that math reverses. The amount of resources each child requires to become a functioning member of society increases dramatically (up to 10,000x more). Children are a pretty much universally a net cost to the parents not a source of income.
The birthrate is Japan and S. Korea have plummeted recently because of extreme wealth inequality.
S. Korea - the bulk of the countries economy is controlled by 5 families. The average 20 year old is in debt, working obscene hours per week and is barely making ends meet.
Japan - Has had 30 years of wage stagnation as the wealth inequality has steadily been growing. Young Japanese face the same issue as the S. Koreans. Long hours of work for little pay and no benefits.