Baby Bust: US births continue their decline

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https://www.apnews.com/0463abca6436472cb44176602078b24f?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

3.788 million babies were born in the US in 2018, the lowest number since 1986, resulting in the lowest fertility rates on record.  Teen births were down 8% and record low fertility was recorded in all cohorts under 35.  Only for women in their late 30s and early 40s was there an increase.  Keep in mind these women already had more children earlier on as well.

This will put major strains on school systems as they pay to maintain aging schools built for a larger student population.  Educating each student will become more expensive in real terms.  Many suburban school systems that have never had to deal with major drops in student populations and the budget cuts and school closings that come with it will see local political fights flare up as they decide whose neighborhood school gets the ax. 

This comes at a time when the retirement of the baby boomers gathers full force and there is political pressure to reduce immigration.  Like during the 1920s as births fell and immigration all but ceased and farmers faced huge pain and pressure, much of their own making, I hope things turn out differently this time.  The risk is deflationary pressure coupled with economic stagnation.  Japan says hi!

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If this slump in fertility is generational (i.e., late X'er/Millennial families choosing to delay marriage/childbirth) couldn't this all sort itself out with higher birthrates among the 35-45 age cohort sometime in the near future?  Basically, the median age at first-marriage has been moving later faster than older couples are popping out kids?      

This happened in the 90s/2000s.  During the 70s, demographers were anticipating a giant echo-baby boom for the 80s...and it didn’t materialize.  Instead births rose gradually.  

Then they expected that women were having small families and predicted a major decline in births in the 90s.  That didn’t materialize either as baby boomer women in their 30s and early 40s had children and immigrant fertility was high.

And then even as baby boomers passed out of child bearing years after 2000, births rose as Gen X women had slightly more children culminating in a record number of births in 2007 at 4.316 million, surpassing the record 4.308 million births in 1957.  Then the numbers fell to just under 4 million by 2010, then were steady Between 3.9 and 4 million until 2017 when a more substantial decline began for 2017 and 2018.

This would seem to be the Trump baby bust more than anything.  What makes it so substantial is that the largest cohort of people in this country are those born from 1988-1993...they are now 26-31 years old.  Births should be rising...not seeing an accelerating decline.

That said the same thing happened in the 1920s and again in the early 70s.  The women in the 20th century that had the most children were born in 1933...the nadir of the depression baby bust.  And the women who hadmthe fewest were born around 1955, at the height of the baby boom and who came of age right as the oil crisis hit.

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All communist states in the Soviet influence followed a similar pattern of having around or just under 2 children for most of the cold war era.  They did not experience the baby boom to the same extent the capitalist west did...mostly this was thanks to access to abortion and widespread usage earlier than the west.  Many Soviet bloc nations had generous benefits for families with children so getting married early and having kids was not difficult and was seen as the norm, even for the highest educated.

Still, they all experienced fertility declines in the 60s and 70s like the west.  The best comparison is East and West Germany.  West Germany saw fertility rates rise from 2 after the war to 2.5 by the mid 1960s, then a rapid drop to 1.4 with minor fluctuations after that but staying around that level.  East Germany saw a jump upon its foundation to 2.4 and it stayed between 2.2 and 2.5 until the mid ‘60s but then dropped to 1.5 by the mid 70s.  Unlike the west, however, rates recovered somewhat to near 2 in the early 80s and settled back to 1.75 throughout the 80s.

After reunification the west remained constant while the east saw an incredible fall in fertility to 0.77 children per woman in 1994.  Rates have gradually recovered since then and slightly surpassed former west Germany since 2008.  The very small cohort of those born in the mid ‘90s has been referred to as “the Kink”.  Now they are set to be parents.  I think demolishing apartment blocks and returning large areas to green space as people consolidate back into the older city ceters will be the norm.  Much of the legacy of East Germany will be literally erased from the landscape.

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Q1 data is out for US, the number of births per 1000 among women aged 15-44 dropped from 57.2 in Q1 2018 to 55.6, falling by 3% in Q1 2019 which is a new record low for the US. If fertility were to drop by 3% for the rest of the year, US fertility in 2019 would go down to 1.68 from 1.73 in 2018, first time it would have fallen below 1.7

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/natality-dashboard.htm#

In Austria it is the same thing.

After births increased "by a lot" during 2015-16 (immigration wave from the Middle East/Africa*), they are now falling again.

http://www.statistik.at/web_en/statistics/PeopleSociety/population/births/028950.html

In Q1, 2019 births are down 3.1% compared with Q1, 2018.

In Q2, 2019 births were down 2.6% compared with Q2, 2018.

Link to 1st half 2019 numbers

* births also increased among mothers with Austrian citizenship during these 2 years, so it was not exclusively because of immigration.

Austria is now seeing the early 90s cohort start families.  The rise the past few years among native born Austrians was just the catch-up effect of the of the late 70s-mid 80s crowd rushing to have children.  There was a big drop from 95,000 to 75,000 births between 1993-2001.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see births fall below 80,000 in the next 5 years.

The US is seeing a rapid fall in fertility rates as all women under 40 have seen big declines since the 2016 election.  I think there will be a jump after 2020 even if Trump wins.