Wednesday, January 16, 2008

US Baby Boom

I knew all those baby movies; "Bella", "Waitress", "Juno" had to be for a reason. It seems that the birth rate in the USA is the highest it's been in years.
In 2006, the U.S. welcomed 4.3 million babies — the most in 45 years. Births were more common in almost every age, racial and ethnic group. Global data show the U.S. has a higher fertility rate — 2.1 — than every country in continental Europe, as well as Australia, Canada and Japan.
“This is very positive,” said Carrie Gordon Earll, senior analyst for bioethics at Focus on the Family Action. “To me, it says Americans are pro-child. And the fact that they continue to have children speaks to the resilience of the pro-life message.”
A larger population is the primary reason for the “baby boomlet,” but there also are more opportunities for mothers to work from home. It also is more common for American husbands to help with chores and child care than in other countries

HT Citizen link

4 comments:

The Sister Marie de Mandat-Grancey Foundation said...

A "baby-boomlet" sounds so nice to me....think of Europe where there seems to be no babies in sight. When my husband and I visited Italy about 10 years ago, we just did not see babies. It was so strange to us because we left 6 children at home. And we have a friend in Norway who tells us there are no babies. I'm glad our country is showing itself (no matter how vague in these stats may be) to welcome children. This is good. Now...to welcome ALL conceived babies...that's our prayer.

Anonymous said...

Here's an article that shows there might be at least a little bit of hope in Europe.

http://www.polskieradio.pl/zagranica/news/artykul73299.html

Bob said...

This is certainly better news than we've had for a while, and we can rejoice that we're not in Europe's sad state. However, it's worth noting that 2.1 is right around "replacement rate". Let's pray this is a trend, and that that number keeps on getting better.

Anonymous said...

The world is not growing in size and its resources are dwindling. Continued increase in population creates clear problems for the future. I do not imagine that God is pleased to see his wide variety of other creatures becoming extinct because of massive human expansion.