In my new column in Taki’s Magazine, I review a new academic paper hypothesizing that the steady fall in the birthrate might be due in part to the steady rise in racial diversity:
The U.S. total fertility rate briefly exceeded the replacement rate of 2.1 babies per woman’s lifetime during the Housing Bubble of 2006–2007 but has since dropped steadily, hitting a new record low of 1.62 in 2023. Total births fell 2 percent last year to under 3.6 million, the lowest total since the Birth Dearth of the 1970s:
Now, two finance professors, Umit G. Gurun and David H. Solomon, have posted a preprint of their paper “E Pluribus, Pauciores (Out of Many, Fewer): Diversity and Birth Rates.” They suggest there may well be a causal connection between the two major demographic trends of the age: the growth in diversity and the decline in fertility:
In this paper, we document a new and important stylized fact linking the central demographic changes of our time. Women living in areas of higher racial diversity robustly have fewer children.
What's the source on the professor's coke zero quote or is it a joke? Because nothing showed up when I searched for it.
A lot of factors to consider.
The ever-growing cost of living and the cost to raise a child to age 18.
The impacts of feminism, delayed marriage, emphasis on putting career ahead of family, and the belief that children are a burden/punishment.
Climate change alarmists brainwashing folks into believing that it is an imminent existential threat.
Abortion.