The United States is expected to have up to 500,000 fewer births next year as a result of the Chinese coronavirus crisis, according to research.
The research by the left-leaning Brookings Institute was published in the Wall Street Journal, detailing a grim future for the makers of baby and infant products because of fewer births spurred by the crisis.
The Journal notes:
The think tank has forecast between 300,000 to 500,000 fewer births in the U.S. next year, compared with a drop of 44,172 last year. Its analysis, partly based on what happened following the 2007-2009 recession, is that weaker job prospects equate to fewer births. “Women will have many fewer babies in the short term, and for some of them, a lower total number of children over their lifetimes,” it said in a June report. [Emphasis added]
The data was originally published in June and revealed that such a decrease in U.S. births would account for a 10 percent decrease compared to 2019 births. The decrease means that the total number of babies to be born in the U.S. next year is projected at about double the total number of Americans who died with or from coronavirus.
Following the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009, demographers predicted that there would be a baby boom, as had happened in the second half of the 20th century following economic declines. But, the baby boom never came.
As Breitbart News reported, birth and fertility rate data released by the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that less than 3.8 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2018 — a drop of two percent, or almost 64,000 less births compared to the year before.
Since 1971, the birth rate has been below replacement level, according to the CDC. Birth rates across all major racial groups — non-Hispanic whites, Hispanics, non-Hispanic blacks, and non-Hispanic Asians — were again below replacement level for 2018.
Despite a declining birth rate below replacement level, Republican and Democrat lawmakers have yet to lay out a national agenda to increase American births, fertility, and family rates.
When Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán implemented a pro-family agenda to increase his nation’s birth rate among similar rapid decline, the nation saw a 5.5 percent increase in the birth rate and a 5.7 percent increase in the fertility rate compared to before the policies were implemented.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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