Taking a look at birth rates

At Real Clear Politics, Michael Barone, a writer who keeps a close eye on demographic trends, asks

WILL THE TREND OF LOW BIRTH RATES BE REVERSED?

Sometimes a society’s values change sharply with almost no one noticing, much less anticipating the consequences. In 1968, according to a Gallup survey, 70 percent of American adults said that a family of three or more children was “ideal” — about the same number as Gallup surveys starting in 1938. That number helps explain the explosive baby boom after Americans were no longer constrained by depression and world war.

Those values and numbers didn’t last. By 1978, Gallup reported that only 39 percent considered three or more children “ideal.” The numbers have hovered around there ever since, spiking to just 41 percent in the late-1990s tech boom.

…Native-born Hispanics and blacks used to have birth rates above the replacement rate (2.1 births per woman). Now they’re below replacement, almost as low that of as native-born whites and Asians, which are down only a bit. The immigrant birth rate remains above replacement level among blacks, but only barely above among Hispanics, and below among whites and Asians.

…One possible consequence: Those often-gleeful predictions that whites will soon be a minority will not be realized so soon, or maybe ever. Nor is it clear, as sociologist Richard Alba has suggested, whether often-intermarrying Hispanics and Asians will see themselves as aggrieved minorities. They might just blend in, like Italians and Poles.

Also, the sharp drop in the Hispanic birth rate combined with the sharp drop of Hispanic (especially Mexican) immigration post-2007 means a lower proportion of low-skill immigrants competing for jobs with low-skill Americans. Asian immigrants may outnumber Hispanics and arrive with significantly higher skill levels. So may immigrants from African countries like Nigeria and Ghana. Their capacity for expanding the economy rather than competing for low-skill jobs may point to unexpected growth. And neither group arrives with grievances rooted in slavery and American racial segregation.

Barone notes there are some counter trends that may create more possibilities,

But since persistently low birth rates lead to population loss, economic stagnation and low creativity, let’s hope some of them come true.