Brian Mann & Sarah McCammon, NPR - In
the 1970s, women worldwide were having five children on average. These
days, two is more typical and in many countries, including the U.S.,
it’s now totally normal for people to opt out of parenthood altogether.
In some cases, researchers – and the people we’ve met – told us young
adults who want children see too many obstacles in their way to make
that choice a reality.
It turns out this private, intimate choice — How many kids should we
have? — has awesome power. Researchers we talked to say smaller families
are changing everything from the way global capitalism works to the
education system to the sustainability of pensions.
There are some big challenges that come with this new normal. In the
U.S. and many other countries, too few children are being born to
maintain a stable population. In China, birthrates have plunged so low,
the number of working-age people will drop by more than 200 million
people by 2050.
Our reporters traveled to places in China, Greece and the U.S. that
are turning into ghost towns, in part because so few children are being
born. Experts told us many countries will have to develop new ways to
care for a surging population of elderly, with fewer and fewer young workers to support them.
Changes like these have sparked fear and anger. Social media is full of
crazy ideas and conspiracy theories about why families are getting
smaller so fast. That’s one reason we thought it was important for NPR
to take on this story, bringing more facts to an important conversation.
One of the discoveries we made is that this trend toward smaller families
is actually being driven largely by a positive development: Young women
and men have more freedom and opportunity these days to make decisions
about their lives. Sometimes that means being parents, sometimes it
doesn’t.
Along the way, we heard interesting ideas about how countries and
communities might help more people who want to have more kids. We also
heard from those who simply want to be left alone to make their own
deeply personal decisions. Most economists and demographers told us they
think this population shift is likely permanent, with cultural
attitudes around parenting and families changing for good.
Maybe our biggest takeaway? We were reminded again of the power of
families. These are the choices and the people that shape our lives most
deeply. When lots of us choose to do family differently — having fewer
kids, or no kids at all — it literally changes the world.
“Population Shift: How smaller families are changing the world” here. |
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