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Not to bead the same dead horse yet again, but...
the imbalance is about having TOO MANY PEOPLE. Everywhere.
This is the common theme with just about every issue.
But the trend is for the current childbearing generations (at least in the US) to have fewer children, and later in life, than our generation and our parents' generation did.
The average age of having a first child has increased, and correlated to that is a drop in teen pregnancies:
"Over the past 15 years, the proportion of first-time mothers younger than 20 years old dropped from 23 percent to 13 percent" and "In the last 45 years, the mean age of first-time moms has gone up by five years — from 21.4 years old to 26.3."
Of course there are geographical differences. According to a 2018 survey,
"First-time mothers are older in big cities and on the coasts, and younger in rural areas and in the Great Plains and the South. In New York and San Francisco, their average age is 31 and 32. In Todd County, S.D., and Zapata County, Tex., it’s half a generation earlier, at 20 and 21, according to the analysis, which was of all birth certificates in the United States since 1985 and nearly all for the five years prior. It was conducted for The New York Times by Caitlin Myers, an economist who studies reproductive policy at Middlebury College, using data from the National Center for Health Statistics."
The birth rate in the USA is also dropping, to a 30-year low in fact (2018 NPR article):
"The birthrate fell for nearly every group of women of reproductive age in the U.S. in 2017, reflecting a sharp drop that saw the fewest newborns since 1987, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. .... The results put the U.S. further away from a viable replacement rate – the standard for a generation being able to replicate its numbers. "The rate has generally been below replacement since 1971," according to the report from CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
On a purely anecdotal basis, my son and DIL are in their mid-30s and among their group of a couple dozen peers none of them had their first child before the age of 30. About half of them do not have children yet or do not plan to. One couple has twins but only because they used IVF due to the husband needing to undergo radiation and chemotherapy and was recommended to make provisions for any future children before those procedures started. The others only have one child either by choice or do not plan to have any more than two.
I remember when during the 1950s and 60s I was considered the oddity as an only child, while every other family on the block had from two to four kids. I think nowadays anyone who chose to have four children would be looked at askance to some degree.
It’s true. I know no one among my kids friends and the nephews and nieces who has kids under 28. The latest person who had a baby recently was almost 37 or 38. My husband’s niece.
As far as I am concerned this type of article just further demonstrates the sad decline in journalism which includes magazines. Any sort of research of serious attempts have been replaced by 20 or 30 somethings who crank out garbage for cheap wages.
Most of it is just jibberish including this article with a conspicuous lack of research or analysis. BTW, according to the author the rental market is also sad. So I guess if more older people sell their houses and rent apartments I guess even higher rental costs will be the fault of the older generations.
What? Are you saying that repeating anonymous Twitter posts does not count as real news? Would not be surprised if news is written by college students for free for internship credits.
What? Are you saying that repeating anonymous Twitter posts does not count as real news? Would not be surprised if news is written by college students for free for internship credits.
There are still a lot of Russian trolls putting them out too, will probably see even more as we approach 2020. We have not done really anything to stop it.
I think the author of the article just dreamed up a theory, found something that supported it which really wasn’t difficult since anything can find to substantiate anything on the Internet these days, and just dug in. She got paid, or credit for her thesis or some amount of notoriety and was happy.
I think the author of the article just dreamed up a theory, found something that supported it which really wasn’t difficult since anything can find to substantiate anything on the Internet these days, and just dug in. She got paid, or credit for her thesis or some amount of notoriety and was happy.
I highly doubt that. The website MarketWatch is run by Barrons, a long established and well respected financial/Wall Street reporting group. They are not likely to publish something that hasn’t been researched. I don’t happen to agree with those findings, but it hardly means they let a reporter just submit an unsubstantiated story and they published it. If you click on the authors name, her bio states she is a financial reporter working out of MarketWatch’s NY headquarters. She was probably assigned the piece.
I highly doubt that. The website MarketWatch is run by Barrons, a long established and well respected financial/Wall Street reporting group. They are not likely to publish something that hasn’t been researched. I don’t happen to agree with those findings, but it hardly means they let a reporter just submit an unsubstantiated story and they published it. If you click on the authors name, her bio states she is a financial reporter working out of MarketWatch’s NY headquarters. She was probably assigned the piece.
We live in a small Montana town of about 2,000 people and growing slowly, 50 miles from a real 1000,000 population city. Cheapest home is single wide mobile for sale in town, $165,000 in old area where they allowed a few single wide mobile homes on separate lots years ago. Cheapest new lot in town is $70,000. Builder has bought every older home that needed rehab starting 10 years ago, excellent rehabs to keep crew working slow times, and kept as rentals. Not 1 old home needing a rehab in town.
No $100,000 homes in town. However new homes going up every year. Homes did not take a big price drop when they did in much of the country, as the market did not over inflate before it happened.
Even McDonald's pays new adult employees $14 hour to start, when they can find one, and hires on the spot. c
Schools above state average. Safe to live with no gangs or big crime problem. No sales tax. Very low property taxes, especially for seniors. Family median income above national median and state median. Very low unemployment rate. Very low poverty rate. Cost of living below national average.
I am giving this information as I want those that feel small towns are in trouble, to show only some are. In the west, most are doing fine.
I've never said that there were no prosperous small towns. With that said, the trend is clear - most small towns across the country are struggling and losing ground relative to where they were a generation or two ago.
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