American women now only have one or two children on average.
QUICK FACTS:
- America’s decline in birthrates is attributed to fewer women getting married, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Brenda Hafera.
- Compared to its 1960 birth rate of 3.65, the United States had a 1.6 birth rate as of 2020.
- Rather than women having fewer children, more women are having zero children due to never having a spouse or being poorly educated about fertility.
- The crisis of finding a partner, says Hafera, is linked to a concept known as the “boy crisis,” whereby women often have greater education than men but desire a spouse with equal or greater education than themselves.
- The “boy crisis” is then perpetuated by the absence of a strong father figure in the home.
- Lacking a father in the home affects not only the boys’ economic future but also their “emotional intelligence and marital potential—all of which are inextricably connected,” according to political scientist Warren Farrell and counselor John Gray’s “The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It.”
- “Women desire mature spouses and tend to be hypergamous; they marry those who are equal or above them in terms of education or socioeconomic status,” Hafera explains. “When men are doing poorly, women are without suitable life partners.”
SOME CELEBRATE DECLINING BIRTH RATES:
- Sarah Harper, an advisor for the World Economic Forum (WEF), said declining birth rates are “good.”
- “I think it’s a good thing that the high-income, high-consuming countries of the world are reducing the number of children that they’re having. I’m quite positive about that,” said Harper, who also directs the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing.
- Fewer births will help to reduce the “general overconsumption that we have at the moment,” she told OutKick.
- Harper’s comments suggest that fewer births will benefit the planet through fewer carbon emissions.
- For others, the decision to not have children is linked to climate alarmism.
- A 2020 study published in Climatic Change found that 59.8% of Americans between the ages of 27 and 45 are “very” or “extremely concerned” about the carbon footprint from births.
BACKGROUND:
- While the United States currently has a low birthrate, Hungary introduced a family policy model to expand the family unit.
- Hungary’s family policy model includes 5 key areas: children should be considered a financial advantage, families should be encouraged to purchase a home, mothers are central, Hungary is to become more family-friendly, and the integrity of the family is to be protected by law.
- Since adopting the family policies, Hungary’s marriage rate has nearly doubled.
