- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion
- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion
Fox News Senior Medical Analyst Marc Siegel made some eyebrow-raising comments lamenting that birth rates are down among teenagers aged 15 to 19.
On Thursday, the National Center for Health Statistics reported that the U.S. fertility rate fell to another record low. The agency reported that the number of births per 1,000 women of childbearing age declined from 53.8 in 2024 to 53.1 last year. The latest figure represents a continuation of a decades-long decline in fertility rates.
Siegel joined Friday’s edition of America’s Newsroom, where Dana Perino said that while the continuing trend is not surprising, “the numbers might feel a little shocking.”
Or maybe we give up on an economic model that requires unending population growth? Since you know, we live on a finite planet?
We have to find a path to degrowth. Stop repeating talking points that imply population growth is our only path forward.
Global population growth is happening. Slowing down, but looks inevitable for at least several more decades. Given that baseline, it is optimal for all countries involved to allow immigration from countries with population growth (reduces strain on government services, adds to the economy with remittances) to countries with lower birth rates (tax revenues support social service budgets, increased entrepreneur rate of immigrants increases job growth, etc.)
Economies can transition to population decline while maintaining standards of living for sure, if handled in a planned way. Some short-term pain during the transition, then fine later. But why go through a combination of short-term pain right now, at the same time as incredible cruelty is required to keep out migrants?
A path to degrowth will be needed globally in the medium-term future (finite planet), but trying to implement that now at just the US locally isn’t going to help the planet at all.
Did you not understand that I was talking about immigration? Which is one of the ways we solve that. All of that.
Besides which we’re actually talking about keeping the population stable. A declining population is bad for everyone economically. Luckily population growth naturally slows down in modernized societies, which is why allowing people to immigrate is good for everyone.