Why the Family Size Keeps Shrinking

In my life, having a big family has been a huge concern for me and apparently, it is a concern for the world. Families have shrunk and keep decreasing.

The idea of the population increasing exponentially has been around since Benjamin Franklin. In 1751, he expressed how if “Marriages are made, reckoning one with another at 20 Years of Age, our People must at least be doubled every 20 Years”. Why did Benjamin believe that every 20 years, our population would double? Well, two factors that contribute are, immigration and medical advancements. People from different countries were moving the US, and people were living longer.

In 1968 the popular question of population growth creates many people wonder how it affected the world. Paul R. Ehrlich wrote a book called The Population Bomb. This book expressed how babies are essentially bad for the environment. He explained how overpopulation was already happening and if it continued to grow, mankind wouldn’t be able to live comfortably and would exhaust earth’s environment (air population, carbon footprints, no oil left, etc..). Where did he get this idea? While traveling in Kolkata, India, he witnessed mass starvation and no sewer systems. But at this time, Kolkata was behind in the industrial revolution and therefore. You cannot make assumptions for the entire world based on a city missing the industrial revolution. In addition, the amount of population is not the cause of environmental degradation, it’s how we use the environment.

Young adults took this pamphlet as a textbook which changed their culture and outward view on having a family. They started seeing babies and children as a threat and danger. People started to believe that the future earth wouldn’t be able to support their children.  

The baby boomers’ the period was 1946-1964. During this period the fertility rate was 3.7 per woman. The fertility rate is the average number of births a woman has in her lifetime which differs from birth rates. The birth rate is the number of births per 1000 people. The population survival fertility rate, or also known as the replacement rate, is 2.13. Anything above 2.13 means that the population is growing, whereas, anything below 2.13 means the population is depopulating. In the current fertility rate in the US is 1.80 meaning that our population is dropping dramatically. Comparatively, the US fertility rate is higher than in other countries. The reason being, we are an immigrant country Mexicans being the largest group.

This matters because it is affecting our economy in multiple ways. There aren’t enough workers to replace the elderly who are retiring as well as there aren’t enough people to pay for social security. This results in us paying a larger percentage of our income, while we are definitely not guaranteed any money back.

Other factors of a decreasing number of children include women in the workforce. Although this is a good thing, it's delaying the age of mothers bearing children as well as having less to balance work life with family life. Similarly, the age of marriage is currently 28 for females and 30 for male. People want to make sure they can prove as much for their family so they stick to having 1-2 children. The sexual revolution has increased cohabitation before marriage dramatically and it keeps increasing fast. Studies prove that people say that they would only marry their significant other if they cohabit with them before marriage because it will avoid getting a divorce, but studies show the opposite. Couples who cohabitate before marriage are less satisfied and have a higher divorce rate compared to not cohabiting before marriage. This is another reason couples with kids chose to not get married from the fear that things will start to go downhill, but the effect of not marrying has a severely negative effect on the children.

Researchers have found the solution is concentrating on making the family important again. Governments have tried to offer money to citizens to have children, to pay for their health care, and ever a monthly payment, but it didn’t work. In Europe, they have turned the focus to the importance of family, and they see a small but potential increase in population. Changing the culture of today is what it takes. It may take time to turn the focus on the family, but it is possible

Other than affecting us economically, not having a naturally built-in community affects individuals emotionally as well as morally. An interesting study was done on successful Yale graduate females. Researchers wanted to see how satisfied these women were at the current stage in their adult lives. 91% of this woman regretted what they did and wished they could have invested more in the family.

Having siblings helps with social development, helps individuals identify emotions, receive emotional support and offers opportunities to give emotional support, teach patience, responsibility, accountability, teaches you how to accommodate needs, teaches you how to resolve conflicts, how to care for others (selfish vs Selfless), and the list goes on.

There was a couple once that lived very successful lives. They delayed having children because of their professional lives. They traveled the world in 80 days for $74,000. They had a very exciting and fun life. But because they delayed having children, they couldn’t have any. As they reflected, they came to the realization that they would give it all back to have a grandson.

It’s not all about economics, it’s about building a loving family and being there for each other. I don’t want to make the same mistake as others. I don’t want to worry about the future and end up having few or no kids at all. It is also important to know that the divorce rate is NOT 50%, it’s actually 24%, so don’t let that scare you either.