Women worldwide are having fewer babies than at any time in recorded history, according to data from the United Nations. In 1960, a typical woman had five children; today the average number is 2.2. In many parts of the world, including the United States, it’s well below the level needed to sustain the population.
We’ve spent decades reporting on politics, reproductive rights, addiction, rural decline, and much more. We wanted to understand why in most countries, people are having dramatically fewer children compared to their parents and grandparents. We talked to women and couples from Chile to the Greek isles, to try to paint a picture of the forces shaping these personal decisions and their wide-ranging impacts on the future.
We’ll start answering questions at 2 p.m. ET. You can follow Sarah on Instagram and Substack.
Proof photos: https://imgur.com/a/JZvdX3W
We're Sarah McCammon and Brian Mann, correspondents with NPR. For nearly a year, we’ve investigated why global birthrates are falling, and what that could mean for our future. We’re interested in how millions of individual decisions are reshaping the economy, climate, politics, and more. AMA.
byu/npr inFuturology
19 Comments
Are there similar concurrent declines in the animal population? If there are not similar declines now is there a precedent for this from other times?
Are you going to talk about late stage capitalism, how we’re all trapped in debt, there are no more third spaces and that this all could have been avoided? If not, I’ll pass. If so, count me in.
I doubt you’ll actually talk about anything really important because NPR is funded in part by Amazon and other corporations. You benefit from late-stage Capitalism—which is a direct cause of the current socio-economic climate.
People don’t have the financial means let alone the time and resources to have families. Families require financial support. Families require you to actually have a work life balance. Wages don’t allow for it. Work hours don’t allow for it. Corporations and capitalism are at fault. And moreover, the planet cannot sustain what we have. So what took a year to figure out?
In the course of your reporting, have you found a clear generational divide on this topic? I.E., should people feel any obligation to reproduce for the sake of grandparent wannabes, or the future workforce, or to keep funding retirement for previous generations?
I am the Gen X parent of a Millennial who will not be having children (and sought surgical sterilization at 30), and I support this decision 100%. How can anyone question this when cost of living has outpaced wages, billionaires and hedge funds are buying up everything they can so they can extort the populace, we have devolved into fascism and authoritarianism, and climate change will cause real crises across the globe?
Yeah I can’t see NPR getting too close to the actual target on this one. Instead we’ll get a few “look over there!”s reinforced by some cherry-picked and creatively-presented data
Its not affordable to have kids and everyone is being replaced with A.i we know why its happening.
Was there a dramatic shift once social media became popular?
The very best thing that could happen to the Planet and our Species would be for people to have fewer kids – and, we are likely doing it for the same reason Mama mouse eats her babies when she is in a confined space.
Our modern “advanced” civilization has us all living in a “zoo” of our own making.
That ANYONE pushes for more population seems crazy. THAT is late-stage capitalism because the power that be want more consumers – more GDP – more wars, etc.
One book I just finished projected that if we gave Universal Basic Income but rewarded those who had few or no kids, it would start solving our problems!
Let’s say you’re a young person just coming into adulthood, needing to work for a living, no family safety net or anything, and you are blessed with whatever foresight this investigation provides. What are you doing to prepare for the future you see coming?
I’m curious about the correlation between how developed a nation’s economy is and their birthrate. I read about Korea and some of the lower marriage rates (not the same, I know, but it’s similar). It’s made me wonder if fewer people are having their own families in developed economies where opportunity _feels_ scarcer even if compared to poorer economies it isn’t.
To put my question more succinctly: have you found evidence that falling birth rates are downstream from (perceived) economic stagnation or anything similar?
Isn’t this just people in higher economic status don’t need children as their retirement investment, so choose to have fewer kids? And more people world wide have risen to higher economic status since the 1960s. People only had a lot of kids to ensure some survived to take care of the parents.
Have you seen the movie Children of Men? It’s about what happens when humanity stops having babies. It is bleak but very good. If so, what are your thoughts on it?
The birth rates will in a few generations start to increase again
I’m not interested in your AMA. There are multiple factors feeding into the birth rate decline, but the one underlying cause is hopelessness.
I have no hope for the future. I will never be able to retire. I’ve had 5 days off in the last 12 months, and that was a sacrifice. My life will continue to get worse every year until I die.
God bless America.
Women having a careers is the big one, and they need careers because you need dual income to live in a house and for many people you need dual income to live period.
Have you read this? Would you be willing to? [https://a.co/d/0P1XEGX](https://a.co/d/0P1XEGX) It’s a book from a social science perspective on why many (not just fundamentalist Christian) Americans are doing the opposite and embracing a return to large family life. Lots of these families, curiously, are NOT from big families themselves. I’d invite you to check it out!
What sort of research and interviews have you conducted into falling levels of male fertility and the possible causes behind that now that we have empirical evidence from across all continents, and not just western countries, that something is happening ?
I feel a bit in the minority here, but I just never wanted kids from day one. People kept saying “you will when you’re older”, but that never happened (M,48). I’ve been happily married for 17 years, and its just not part of the picture, never has been.
What is the most outlier fact or finding you have come across in your research?