Posted on 11/29/2008 9:09:26 AM PST by GOPGuide
Baby births are down in Arizona this year and experts say the numbers could drop further as a growing economic crisis dampens couples' desire for starting a family.
According to figures from the Arizona Department of Health, the state is on pace to record a 3 percent decline compared with 2007's record 102,687 births.
In Maricopa County, births are down 4 percent, although the region's birth rate remains one of the nation's highest.
Overall in Arizona, 74,376 babies were born January through September, down from 76,621 in the same period last year.
Maricopa County had 46,998 babies born during the same period, compared with 49,182 last year.
Experts say a slight slowdown in regional population growth and stepped-up enforcement of illegal-immigration laws that may have caused a drop in the pool of childbearing-age women.
Generally, births go up in good times and down in bad.
"It's just about every cycle where there is any kind of significant downturn where you'd see this," said Tom Rex, associate director of the Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research at Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business.
It's anyone's guess if the trend will continue, according to statisticians with the DHS and the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tracks birth trends.
Doctors at three hospitals in the Phoenix metropolitan area believe the trend will stick around as long as economic turmoil continues.
See the county by county breakdown here:
http://www.azdhs.gov/plan/mu/births/births2008.xls
http://www.azdhs.gov/plan/mu/births/births2007.xls
I also think that Sheriff Arpaio’s raids have had a lot to do with this. It’s tough to get romantic when you’ve got to be able to run at a moment’s notice.
How many to illegal parents?
Doesn’t mean that any time I go get a shopping cart at Wal mart there won’t be a sh!tty diaper tucked away inside it.
“How many to illegal parents?”
There is no nationality or ethnic breakdown, but this is the first drop in total births since at least 1996.
Does anyone know whether Jan Brewer is an "open borders" type, or will she crack down on the illegals?
But the AZ laws that made employment of illegals harder went into effect on Jan 1, 2008, IIRC.
I asked JD Hayworth about Brewer on his local radio show. He said she is conservative.
The dop in birth numbers may be partly due to citizen initiative passed 1 or 2 yrs ago, which put strict penalties on businesses caught hiring illegals. Word on street is that many have left.
If you look at the month by month numbers I posted in post #2, you can see that the fall in births has been most sharp over the past 5 months compared to the first five months of the year.
Unfortunately, yes I am. Welcome to Arizona.
“In Maricopa County, births are down 4 percent, although the region’s birth rate remains one of the nation’s highest.”
Maybe Sheriff Joe’s green bologna is causing sterility.
If so, we should give it out to welfare recipients like the gub’mint cheese of the 1980’s.
I tried to tell everyone that the illegal flow had dropped drastically back then but no one wanted to listen. It is actually down and had been around 90%, you can go months w/o seeing an illegal.
Since they don’t get picked up by the BP going back they hitchhick south on the road that I travel and many, many of them are going home.
“I tried to tell everyone that the illegal flow had dropped drastically back then but no one wanted to listen.”
Weren’t there reports from AZ of illegals leaving even before the Employer Sanctions Law went into effect Jan 1, 2008?
His re-election along with that of the county prosecutor were about the only “bright spots” in Arizona politics this time around. He drives the liberals in Maricopa County crazy and that’s a good thing.
Ping!!
It may be a case of illegals being convenient scapegoats, but this could also explain the drop in sales tax revenues here in Arizona.
Yes, and they were and even more have gone since the economy slowed.
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