"Fertility rates are falling everywhere. The median age in many countries is already over 40, well above the prime childbearing years.
"In some places, plummeting fertility can be attributed to dictatorial coercion: To enforce its "one-child" policy, China has employed methods ranging from steep fines and loss of employment to compulsory sterilization and abortions. The results have been brutal: Hundreds of millions of births have been prevented, China's median age is at 36 and rising, and the Chinese fertility rate is now 1.54 - well below the rate of 2.1 needed to maintain a steady population.
"But, as Last points out, the fertility rate for white, college-educated American women - a proxy for the US middle class - is 1.6. "In other words, America has created its very own 'one-child' policy. It's soft and unintentional, the result of accidents of history and thousands of little choices. But it has been just as effective.""
http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/12/16/more-single-more-childless-ame
rica/yQr34P1AlxcqzegScpWEwJ/story.html
"In some places, plummeting fertility can be attributed to dictatorial coercion: To enforce its "one-child" policy, China has employed methods ranging from steep fines and loss of employment to compulsory sterilization and abortions. The results have been brutal: Hundreds of millions of births have been prevented, China's median age is at 36 and rising, and the Chinese fertility rate is now 1.54 - well below the rate of 2.1 needed to maintain a steady population.
"But, as Last points out, the fertility rate for white, college-educated American women - a proxy for the US middle class - is 1.6. "In other words, America has created its very own 'one-child' policy. It's soft and unintentional, the result of accidents of history and thousands of little choices. But it has been just as effective.""
http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/12/16/more-single-more-childless-ame
rica/yQr34P1AlxcqzegScpWEwJ/story.html
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