In America, having a baby is becoming a luxury only a few can afford
US birthrates have fallen to a 35-year low, thanks to the fact that the government is actively hostile to parents
Kids? In this economy?!
In news that should surprise absolutely nobody, Americans are having fewer kids. US birthrates have fallen to a 35-year low, according to new federal data. Around 3.75m babies were born in America in 2019, down 1% from the previous year. Birthrates dropped among women of basically every age and race group, but rose slightly among women in their early 40s.
The total fertility rate (which estimates the number of births that a hypothetical group of 1,000 women would have over their lifetime) is also at a record low. American women are now projected to have about 1.71 children over their lifetimes, which is below the rate of 2.1 needed to completely replace a generation.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why Americans are having fewer kids. The government makes a big song and dance about how much it loves fetuses, but it is actively hostile to parents. The US is the only OECD country without national statutory paid maternity, paternity or parental leave, for one thing. Then there’s the financial cost of simply delivering the kid. America is the most expensive place in the world to have a baby – and it may be one of the only places in the world where hospitals charge you just for holding your child. One couple found a $39.35 charge on their hospital bill for “skin-to-skin” contact after their baby was born.
Because of the Kafkaesque nature of America’s healthcare system, it’s hard to pin down how much the cost of an average birth is, but one 2013 estimate put it at around $32,093. That’s just for an uncomplicated vaginal birth, by the way. If you have a complicated pregnancy and bad (or no) insurance you can very easily find yourself getting bankrupted by the medical bills.
Once you have the child, you have to deal with astronomical childcare costs. The Atlantic notes that, since the 1990s, childcare costs have grown twice as fast as overall inflation. The average cost of a full-time childcare program is now $16,000 a year – which, in some states, is more than university tuition. Meanwhile, many millennial parents are still paying off their own student debt.
While there have been a lot of jokes about a coronavirus baby boom, experts think it is likely that the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic will cause birth rates to drop further. Now, more than ever, kids are becoming a luxury only a few can afford
(The Guardian)
