[redgolum]

Does your graph represent the births to citizens and legal immigrants or everyone in the US? While the culture here is more child friendly (pedophilia is not legal or tolerated, as it is in the Netherlands), I have heard much of this growth is do to illegal immigration.

The trend in Europe has happened before. The Romans, and the ancient Greeks before them, both had drastically declining birthrates during the decline of their empires. Children became viewed as a burden, and child abandonment and abortion became very common.

[gipper81]

I don't know the data details of the graph because it isn't mine. I just posted it because it showed a dramatic contrast between countries. We can only guess as to what statistical population it represents. We do know however, that countries in Europe and also Japan have been de-populating themselves for many years.