Monday, May 16, 2011

A Fifth of American Women Never Have Kids

Almost a fifth of American women in their early 40s have not had a child.  Barring something very unusual, they will never have any.

The rule of thumb for all societies is that 90% of people marry, and 90% of them have children.  This yields an average of 87% of the people in most populations have children.

Immigrants to the U.S. reproduce at exactly that rate: 87%.  But the native population is down to 80%.  Were it not for immigration our population would be declining.

2 comments:

Alex said...

Does this count those us who have not given birth? I have three children, but they all joined our family via adoption.

Gruntled said...

They are counted as births to their birth mother, not their social mother.