A rapidly aging society and a younger generation that is not willing to have kids is the formula for an economic Armageddon, CBS News 28 April 2015. Japan confronts this fate and their population is predicted to drop by one-third through 2060. Childbirth trend among Millennials is raising questions on the possibility America heading the same direction. According to a report from the Urban Institute, birth rate among American women in their 20s fell 15 percent in 2012 from 2007. This marked an abrupt change from three decades of relatively stable birthrates. The birth rate of women in the 20s is 948 births per 1,000 women.
Nan Marie Astone, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and one of the paper's authors, believes the recession prompted women in their 20s to opt against having children. The paper cited previous economic crises, such as the Depression in the 1930s, also coincided with low points for fertility in 20-somethings. The median age for a women's first birth is now 26 years old, compared with 21.4 years old in 1970, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Would millennial women start families once they feel more stable economically, as previous generations have done after periods of financial insecurity?
My Comments
Millennials are endies. To qualify that statement I had to back track to last year’s blogs. Sophia’s blogged mentioned that the millennials were burdened with career instability, and high levels of student debt. Under those financial conditions they are not in the home owners’ market. At about the same time, I blog about ENDIes in London. An ENDI (Employed No Disposable Income) belonged to the millennials’ age group.
Strapped for money is the situation of the millennials or endies. Graduation would take a millennial to the mid-twenties. Before they could learn to perform their job effective, they would had been in the late-twenties. The aspiration of a graduate is to quickly pay off their student debt and move along to build their nest. Until they can be good at their jobs, career stability is nowhere to be found. “Get married, raise a family,” the norms of society echoed in their minds. They brushed it aside because they simply have other priorities.
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