While the "birth rate," which measures how many woman have had babies in the past year, has gone down, the "fertility rate," which measures how many babies a woman has over her life time, has gone up from 1.86 in 2006 to 2.07 last year. The explanation for the paradox is that women are having babies when they are older. Anyway, Pew has the numbers here.
One interesting finding is that among women 40-44 who have never been married, a majority have had a child.
A majority? Cripes.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost as if prophylactics have historically not been affordable or available enough to millions of American women, in large part thanks to the efforts of the same sort of people who want to outlaw abortion...
Can you ban Verloren already?
ReplyDeleteOf the nevr-married women who have had a child, how many were "caught short" vs how many had that child/those children deliberately? And of course how many never-marrieds were nonetheless in long-term committed relationships? Never forgetting, of course, gay wome who until quite recently *could not* marry?
ReplyDelete@pootrsox All good questions, and data I would have found interesting to compare...
ReplyDelete