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The percentage of females with infants is now the lowest in recorded U.S. history."
According to a CDC report today, the number of babies born per female in the U.S. is the lowest ever.
That rate is known as the national fertility rate (even though it measures reproduction, not the capacity for reproduction—fertility as it’s used colloquially). It has been tracked since 1909, and it has dropped more than 10 percent since 2007.
Beyond the social implications of this relative decline in baby production, it may be the best recent news for human health at a population level, as Earth is unsustainably full of humans. That’s tough to say without sounding “evil,” I’m told, but it’s a question of math. There is not enough space to house and feed everyone. Population growth has us on course for catastrophic famine and war that result from overpopulating a planet that is growing ever less habitable. (read more)
Elsewhere, from a Drudge link... "
More Old Than Young: A Population Plague Spreads Around the Globe"
By 2030, 56 countries will have more people aged 65 and over than children under 15
It’s known as the historic reversal, and it appears irreversible: Places where the old outnumber kids.
What began in 1995 in a single country, Italy, will spread to 56 nations, economies as diverse as New Zealand and Georgia, by 2030. These are the findings of Joseph Chamie, who spent a quarter of a century studying population patterns at the United Nations in New York and now is an independent researcher.
