Recession has a bearing on birth rate

The decline, the second time in as many years, has led the U.S. birth rate to fall to its lowest level in at least a century.

Substantial decline
Latest data released Friday by the National Centre for Health Statistics reveals that birth rate, which takes into account changes in the population, fell 2.6 percent last year.

The report divulged that the birth rate fell to 13.5 births for every 1,000 people last year vis-à-vis 13.9 births for every 1,000 people in 2008.

The figure stood at 14.3 births in 2007 before the recession set in.

"When the economy is bad and people are uncomfortable about their financial future, they tend to postpone having children," said Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University.

In absolute numbers, 4,136,000 babies were born in the United States in 2009 as compared to 4,247,000 in 2008.

"It's a good-sized decline for one year. Every month is showing a decline from the year before," said Stephanie Ventura, a demographer.

“There is quite possibly a connection between the decline in births and the economic downturn in the last couple of years,” the U.S. Centres for Disease Control (CDC) said in a statement.

“The recession appears to have started in late 2007, and declines in births in 2008 and 2009 would be consistent with that,” added the statement.

Happens during recession
Commentators opine that in the event of a severe economic depression, the phenomenon of a fall in birth rate is not new.

When people are unsure of their incomes, they invariably decide that they cannot feed more mouths.

"When the economy is bad and people are uncomfortable about their financial future, they tend to postpone having children," said Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University.

“We saw that in the Great Depression the 1930s and we're seeing that in the Great Recession today,” added Cherlin.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, close to 20 percent of women chose not to have children at all.

Government data also suggests that small dips in the birth rate were recorded during the recessions of 1981-82, 1990-91 and 2001.

As and when the economy will pick up, the birth rate will also climb, Cherlin opined.

Cherlin said the U.S. birth rate "is still higher than the birth rate in many wealthy countries and we also have many immigrants entering the country. So we do not need to be worried yet about a birth dearth."

A situation of abysmally low birth rate diminishes the nation's capacity to take care of its older population.