Demographic Tidal Wave

It’s demographics time again! Last week, the CDC released its preliminary birth data for 2011. Much of the analysis focused on the raw number of births, which declined for the fourth straight year. America’s general fertility rate is now the lowest it’s ever been. Which is not great news.

In the press and the blogs, people focused on the correlation between the birth rate and the Great Recession. And there’s a lot to that. Economics is an important driver of fertility. But there’s more going on here, and while this birth data may seem highly abstract, when you drill down into the numbers you see a very particular story about what American culture is like at this moment.