Recession Causing Low US Birth Rates

The recession has affected many areas of U.S. life and now it’s hitting birth rates.  The Associated Press reports that birth rates are at the lowest they’ve been in a century.  They have declined from 14.3 births per every 1,000 people in 2007 and 13.9 births  in 2008 to 13.5 births in 2009.  The experts agree that this drop is due to the recession.

Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University said, “When the economy is bad and people are uncomfortable about their financial future, they tend to postpone having children. We saw that in the Great Depression the 1930s and we’re seeing that in the Great Recession today.”

While other factors may be involved in the declining birth rate, such as decline in immigration and women waiting longer to decide to have babies and having trouble having as many as they planned, recession seems to be the biggest factor.