Posted on 08/19/2008 6:54:24 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Women are waiting longer to have children, and more women than ever are choosing not to have children at all, according to a new Census Bureau report.
Twenty percent of women ages 40 to 44 have no children, double the level of 30 years ago, the report said; and women in that age bracket who do have children have fewer than ever — an average of 1.9 children, compared with the median of 3.1 children in 1976.
“A lot of women are not having any children,” said Jane Lawler Dye, a Census Bureau researcher who did the report, which looked at women of childbearing age in 2006. “It used to be sort of expected that there was a phase of life where you had children, and a lot of women aren’t doing that now,” Ms. Dye said.
Women with advanced degrees are more likely to be childless, the study found. Of women 40 to 44 with graduate or professional degrees, 27 percent are childless, compared with 18 percent of women who did not continue their education beyond high school, the data show.
The numbers are consistent with a 2006 report Ms. Dye issued on the same subject. While year-by-year change is slow, Ms. Dye said, the data show that women of the baby boom generation are continuing to transform the American family.
Hispanic women are the only group bucking the trends found in the study, averaging 2.3 children each by their 40s. The number of children a Hispanic woman has decreases sharply, however, depending on how many generations her family has lived in the United States, the data show.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“If it is mainly liberal women who are less likely to have children, then I think this should be a trend to encourage, not discourage.”
I think the causation goes both ways, though. It’s possible that Maureen Dowd, for example, would not be such a bitter liberal if she had gotten married and become a mother. A funny thread about her hating Christmas, unlike her more traditional female relatives, is at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1294490/posts .
Immigrants will replace natural-born citizens. The whole 'melting pot' ideal that America was, is changing to segregated cultures that don't want to be "Americans" but maintain the identity of whatever country they came from with their own 'cultural identity' and language and dress and food...and on and on...
Completely true. We need leaders who will declare this war and identify the enemy clearly.
And Islam will inherit the earth...
If we need a phrase to describe these people I would suggest
EDs - Evolutionary Dead ends.
I didn’t think I missed those -
see “normalization of homosexuality”
and “promotion of promiscuity”
and denigration of the traditional family (anti-marriage)
Note how the study doesn't look deeper into cultural phenomena like religious faith and political leanings. Another brilliant NYT reporter who never had an original thought in her head.
We all know that:
Christian women have more children than tatooed, pierced babes on the West and left coasts. In surburban San Diego, where we live, there are huge numbers of college-educated white women having three and four children (Mrs Tom H and I have three). Ditto for the Mormons.
Conservative women have more children than liberals.
So this conclusion that "smarter" women correlates with few children is pure cr-p. Look a little deeper and learn why it really is happening.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
RAISE those leaders.
1 Chron 12:32
Of the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their kinsmen were at their command.
How much does infertility factor into these numbers? It isn’t always a choice.
Now, don't turn them over to liberals it indoctrinate (educate).
And they're getting plenty of help from abortion providers too!
Odd that the study doesn't mention fewer women getting pregnant.
Is this the "change" The One is always talking about?
If anything, she understated the magnitude of the apocalyptic catastrophe which is racing towards us at light speed.
Prepare for the worst folks - things are about to get very, very bad.
Circa 2020, the USA will crumble beneath the weight of the demographic imperative, and there's no telling what will emerge to replace it [or even if anything will emerge at all].
Adopt.
In the present culture war, it is far more important to pass on your values than your genes.
At least one married a man (who's wife had died) with young children already.
You have listed a good chunk. Add in the increase of homosexuality and the whole ‘living together’ rather than marriage and we can see the beginnings of the downfall of the U.S. as if it were a repeat of Rome.
Did Rome REALLY fall because of homosexuality???? I think that is a myth.
I agree with you totally. I knew some charming young ladies in college (we’re all 51 now) who were as traditional as any gal back then. They fell for the women’s movement expectation of career before men or children, and today they are accomplished but are childless, loveless, and basically lonely. Only very few will admit they made a mistake. I’ll see how they are at the 30th reunion later this year.
Mo Dowd is probably another casualty.
She makes me laugh. Only today has she finally realized that men don’t want to marry ball-busting women.
It couldn’t be that women are giving away what used to be precious and MEN see no need to marry. Sex is free, cheap and easy and viewed as a means only of physical satisfaction, rather than life.
How many women are childless because they had early abortions, STDs, or waited too long?
But, so many of my college friends have either one child or none at all. I do feel sorry for them, especially the gals that waited until they were 40 to “try.”
Gals my age got the impression through the 1980s that due to infertility treatments we didn't have to worry about our age so much.
We were sold a bill of goods.
Many of my kids’ friends’ moms are about 10 years younger and in our community the younger families are getting bigger. Three and four children are common with a few of five or six. These are good people. One of my cousins, mom of five, was told that families like hers ought to have bigger families b/c they would raise the children right.
Yes, many gals my age missed out, but our younger sisters and cousins seem to have learned from our mistakes.
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