A report released this past Thursday showed that Americans are not procreating enough to sustain the current population. In 2017, the CDC stated that the birthrate was approximately 1,765 children per 1,000 women. However, this is below the replacement rate of 2,100 children per 1,000 women needed to maintain our current population.
The study didn't hazard to make any guesses about causation of falling birth rates, but that didn't stop speculation.
Dr. John Rowe, a professor at Columbia School of Public Health, stated...
"Women are participating in the workforce more and women are leaving their home later, launching their careers later, developing what we call family formation — finding a partner and having offspring — later. If you started all that five years later, you wind up with one less child."
The 2017 results are the continuance of a downward trend that began in 2014.
However, many wondered if the this was necessarily a bad thing.
Others had some thoughts about the biggest reason why people aren't having as many children.
According to a report by the United States Department of Agriculture, the average cost of raising a child is $233,610. This is a massive increase from the average of $165,630 that it took in the year 2000. Chief among costs are healthcare, childcare, and college, which are all things that increasingly get more expensive as middle class wages remain relatively stagnate. Or maybe baby-making is just another thing that millennials are just being too lazy to do.