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February 7, 2009

More on if demographics is destiny

In 1976, census data show, 59 percent of women ages 40 to 44 had three or more children, 20 percent had five or more and 6 percent had seven or more.

By 2006, four decades after the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to use birth control (and the last year available from census studies), 28 percent of women ages 40 to 44 had three or more children, 4 percent had five or more and just 0.5 percent had seven or more.

Two generations ago 12 times as many women had 7 children as they do now. I always found this sort of thing astonishing, because the time when the genetic returns to having children is highest is just when everyone else starts having fewer of them.

I liked this retort.

As for the other pointed questions about large families, defenders have developed standard comebacks, lists of which circulate on the Internet.

How can you afford so many? "Lifestyles are expensive, not kids."

But that said, there are a lot of wealthy families out there with 6 figure nanny/house cleaner / camp / private school budgets. To act like you don't face a trade off is a bit naive. But of course, if you live in a suburb with good public schools, those are typically paid for out of real estate taxes. Having a large number of children means that you spread those taxes among a larger number of students/ children and pay way less per child for those benefits.

Posted by OneEyedMan at February 7, 2009 9:45 AM

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