Survey Says: The Birth Rate in the U.S is Going Up and More Babies Are On the Way
More American babies than normal may soon be on the way. No one is sure why, but soon women in the United States will be giving birth more than they did before.
(FYI, “before” is 2002, when the last federal survey was done on birth rate).
How is this known? A countrywide survey completed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has shown a small but apparently statistically significant increase in the number of women expecting to give birth at some point in the future.
Yes, that seems more than a bit vague. Agreed. But here’s what they found:
In 2002, for various unstated reasons, 46% of women surveyed between the ages of 15 and 44 reported that they expected to have more children.
Comparatively, the most recent survey found that 50% of women in the same category now answer ‘yes’ to the same question.
It’s just a rise of 4% but given the size of the country, you could say that kind of amounts to a lot of people.
In fact, it’s almost 2.5 million women, if it’s true that there are about 61 million American ladies who fall between the age limits of the survey.
Conclusion? Well, at some point, there may be a mad scramble for daycare and a run on crib sets and nightlights. You heard it here first.
Apart for getting us ready for the baby onslaught, the survey also found out some other tidbits. Here are some other interesting facts unearthed by the CDC:
The birth rate for teenage mothers in the U.S has dropped to an all-time-low record, (yay!), and almost all (82%) of women who already have two children do not expect to have any more in the future.
Also, more than two thirds of married women in the U.S report that they do not expect to give birth in the future, indicating that likely, at the moment, more married women in the U.S are older and already have kids or they do not wish to ever have them.
I have to say, since the median age for marriage in the U.S is older than it’s ever been and is at another all-time-average high of a mature 29 years of age, that’s not totally surprising.
As an aside, for all who wish to know, my personal analysis on people marrying later in life is this: it’s happening more because post-secondary education is so gosh darn expensive right now, prices are up and employment is down, (but getting better), and so the years go by with people trying to get ahead before anything official happens and before they know it, for many, they’re unmarried and almost thirty.
(For the record, I’m married and almost 40. But I get it).
Or, maybe it’s that the younger generations are all so selfish, as someone once kindly put it.
Needless to say, buy that fantastic crib now, if it’s on sale. According to the CDC, soon your neighbor’s neighbors are gonna want to have it. At some undetermined point in the future, the babies are coming.