Your Babies Will Soon Be Worth a Lot More Money
Countries will need to pay more to convince people to have children.
It’s probably not a secret that the birth rate is trending downwards in North America. In the U.S., it has been dropping every year since around 2014 (with the exception of 2021 when there was an uptick in births.) If you look at a more historical set of birth rate data, you can see that in 1950, there were about 24 births per 1,000 people. The current rate is about 12 births per 1,000 people, a 100% drop from the previous figure.
The U.N. projections for birth rates up until 2100 look suspiciously stable (perhaps these World Population Prospects will explain the rationale better.) But the overall trend is down. Since 2007, the country’s birth rate has dropped 20%.
But why are people having fewer or no children?
There are many theories as to why the birth rates are going down, without one solid answer. Birth rates were knocked off track during The Great Recession, but rates almost always track upwards when the economy recovers.
