According to the United States Census Bureau, the total fertility rate-"the total number of births that 1,000 women would have in their lifetime"-for 1998 dropped to 2,058 children.  That is, each woman in the United States will have, on average, 2.058 children in their lifetime.  This is well below the replacement level fertility of 2,110.

(Source: U. S. National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics of the United States, annual; and unpublished data, in the U. S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2000 [120th edition] Washington, DC, 1999, p. 68.)

"The inter-war fertility dips proved to be temporary, neither sufficiently prolonged nor sufficiently deep to bring on actual population decline.  In the last quarter-century sub-replacement fertility has come back with a vengeance, slipping to levels previously unimaginable in prosperous societies at peace. Sub-replacement fertility has now been experienced over a generation or more in a growing number of countries, and it has come amazingly close to becoming the norm the world over.  Indeed, almost half of the world's population lives in societies that aren't having enough babies to sustain their numbers."

(Source: Nicholas Eberstadt, "World Population in the 21st Century:Last One Out Turn off the Lights?" The Family in America, Vol. 15, No. 4 [April, 2001], from the World Congress of Families II, Geneva 1999.)

No event so sharply underscores the difference separating men from women as that of childbirth.  So it should come as no surprise that cultural trends that equalize the social and economic roles of men and women will, inevitably, drive down fertility rates.  Because of the sterilizing effects of gender egalitarianism, America's three-decade-old baby bust may soon become even worse-or at least so suggest researchers from Pennsylvania State University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  In a recent review of economic trends affecting families in the 1990's, the Penn State and Nebraska scholars remark that, "women and men are increasingly similar in their economic roles" in family life.  This increasing similarity can be traced to a problematic strategy for dealing with the relative erosion of male wages.  "For the past two decades," the researchers explain, "American families in the middle of the income distribution masked men's stagnating wages by reducing the number of children and increasing wives' labor force participation."   However, "with these strategies already implemented," what will Americans do if male wages continue their relative slide?  "Will Americans," the researchers ask, "...cut fertility even further, to an average of little over one child?"

Right now might not be the ideal time to invest in companies making baby carriages or bassinets.

(Source:  Lynn White and Stacy J. Rogers, "Economic Circumstances and Family Outcomes:  A Review of the 1990s," Journal of Marriage and the Family 62[2000]: 1035-1051.)