It鈥檚 looking like a bad time to invest in the diaper industry. Birth rates in the US reached an all-time low in 2011.
US fertility has been declining steadily since 2008, according to published last week by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention鈥檚 National Center for 91色情片 Statistics (NCHS). The report was compiled from birth certificates registered across the US.
In 2008, the average number of children per woman was 2.1, roughly the figure needed to replace each parent and keep the population stable. In 2011, this figure dropped to 1.9.
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鈥淚t鈥檚 not necessarily worrisome,鈥� says Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, DC. 鈥淏ut if we were to see a sustained drop over five to 10 years, that may be a concern.鈥�
The falling fertility rate is tightly tied to the economic downturn during the past four years, Mather says. Couples are , and women鈥檚 salaries have become more important to household income, he says.
Rebound effect?
If the economy bounced back, birth rates would probably increase, says Mather. But it is not clear whether that would be the case for long. It might be counterbalanced by the long-term increase in the number of women entering college and the workforce who are subsequently delaying having children or having fewer of them.
The report found that the number of women giving birth in their 30s increased by 3 per cent in 2011 compared with 2010. Women in their 40s also had more children than in 2010. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e younger and the economy isn鈥檛 good, you have the option to delay having a child,鈥� says Brady Hamilton, a co-author of the report, based at the NCHS headquarters in Hyattsville, Maryland. 鈥淔or older women, that鈥檚 not a viable option.鈥�
The US fertility rate is still far higher than those of most European countries: Germany, for instance, averages . And the welfare problems caused by having an ageing population aren鈥檛 yet as urgent as they are in Japan, say, , Mather says.
