There is startling news from Washington about American fertility.
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) has released new data on US births. NCHS is part of the almighty CDC, aka the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least some of the news from CDC is not scary.
There is even good news: a slight uptick in American births from 2020 to 2021. This development could, possibly, hopefully be evidence that Homo sapiens Americanus is trying to ward off slow-motion extinction. But maybe not.
Why the increase? A post-Covid bump? The beginnings of a long-term reversal of declining fertility? No one can say for sure, but don't look a gift horse in the mouth. However, one thing is certain: The media-CDC's years-long Covid scaremongering discouraged family formation.
Thankfully the fearmongering let up a bit in late 2021: there was a visible decline in people masking up, no more folks bolting across the street to avoid strolling past another human being, and a decidedly diminished ostracism of family and friends. There was even a let up in the demonization of those who respectfully declined Operation Warp Speed vaccines.
So maybe in 2021, those who delayed having children thought it once again safe to do so. There is anecdotal evidence aplenty to that effect, though we don't know for sure.
The brand-new CDC (provisional) data says the US birthrate increased by 1% from 2020 to 2021. In raw numbers that's 3,659,289 live births in 2021, up almost 46,000 from 2020's 3,613,647. This is the first increase in US birthrate since 2014.
From 2014 to 2020 the American fertility rate declined on average about 2% each year, including a stunning one-year decline of 4% from 2019 to 2020.
The takeaway here is that the US fertility rate rose to 1.663. While a welcome increase, it is still way short of replacement-level (2.1). Yet those numbers spell an end to eight years of steadily falling fertility. It is too early to tell if this is merely a post-covid blip or the beginning of a trend. The last US Census (2020) recorded the lowest increase in population since the Great Depression, and the second lowest increase in American history.
Here are CDC's figures from 2020 to 2021 on the age of mothers giving birth:
More mature mothers (ages 25 and up) had more children, while those below 25 had fewer. Could this be because older mothers delayed childbearing during the dark days of Covid? Are younger people more hesitant to start a family in this time of global turmoil and economic uncertainty? There's a battalion of professional pollsters out there searching for answers. Whenever a trend is interrupted or reversed, wonks delve into it.
Numbers on births by race and ethnicity were also surprising:
All other racial/ethnic categories registered a decline in births:
Now these are provisional data from just one year to the next. Also, in race-obsessed America, racial and ethnic identification can be fluid due to intermarriage, eligibility for racial preferences, changes in self-identification and PC claptrap about "oppression" and "marginalized communities." While we hear much about "gender bending," there are exponentially more folks conflicted in one way or another about race and ethnicity. That is simply a sad sign of the times.
While projections vary as to exactly when, the US population is on track to be "majority-minority" (majority non-White) by the early 2030s. Currently Hispanics are the largest minority, right at 20%, a third larger than the Black population.
The CDC also had some quite disturbing news:
A total of 629,898 abortions for 2019 were reported... From 2018 to 2019, the total number of abortions increased 2% (from 614,820 total abortions), the abortion rate increased 0.9% (from 11.3 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years)...
Those grim statistics speak for themselves. Let's just say that humanity is in dire need of a spiritual rebirth. Geopolitically, at least, a new global order is aborning. Who knows where we're headed? Anything is possible.
That aside, it would at least help if the CDC would abandon its extra-constitutional role of policing us and stick to the business of fighting disease.