Fewer Babies During the Recession Causing Ripple Effects: “The Market Is Not Going to Grow”
Mac Slavo
May 11th, 2016
SHTFplan.com
How severe has the economic recession since 2007 been? How thin the recovery?
Enough that the birth rate, which partially reflects financial stability vs. stress, has fallen off more dramatically than at any other time in American history, and much more than experts even expected.
In fact, the nation has fallen sharply below replacement rate since the time of the 2008 crisis.
The conundrum is that it is a growing population that corresponds with economic growth, and decline inhibits the social signals that encourage more births (like feeling secure enough to afford the extra expenses and effort of a child).
Though a slight rebound shows up in the numbers, experts see no sign of things turning around in the long term… and that will continue to significantly impact our financial future.
via the Wall Street Journal:
The U.S. is experiencing a baby lull that looks set to last for years… a sharp drop in child bearing that started with the onset of the recession in 2007 […] more-worrisome signs that the U.S. may not soon return to its pre-recession average of about two babies for every adult woman. Some demographers have pared their forecasts for future births because an expected post-recession baby boom has been smaller than anticipated.
The leveling-off in births is weighing on sales at children’s stores, prompting hospitals to rework their birth wards and putting pressure on builders of single-family homes, executives and economists say.
[…]
“Everything is slower than we expected,” said Sam Sturgeon… he predicts that the total fertility rate won’t go above 1.9 babies per woman for the next five years or longer. An ideal birth rate is around 2.1 babies per woman, demographers say, since that’s the rate that’s needed to replace the current levels of population.
With so much propaganda about over-population and the need for fewer people on the planet, it is no wonder that the upcoming generations share a different attitude about having children anyway, despite the mixed message for the economy.
The Rest…HERE
