The Dark Ages and Generational Dynamics

[Higgenbotham]

Indeed, total births in the USA peaked at 4,316,000 in 2007, before dropping in the last four years. Recently released provisional birth data by the CDC (Center for Disease Control) show that births in 2011 are preliminarily estimated to be 3,961,000, the lowest figure since 1999.

This is a reduction of 8.2%.

Looking at the previous peaks in numbers of births, the years where the reductions are closest to 8.2% are:

1961 4,268,326 peak not exceeded until 2007
1964 4,027,490 down 5.6%
1965 3,760,358 down 11.9%

1921 3,055,000 peak not exceeded until 1947
1926 2,839,000 down 7.1%
1927 2,802,000 down 8.3%

This data is taken from a printout of the table:
Table 1-1 Live Births, Birth Rates, and Fertility Rates, by Race: United States, 1909-99

One small detail. Regarding whether the absolute peak was 1957 or 1961, the 1957 births were adjusted to 4,300,000 in the table due to underregistration. I used the unadjusted numbers, which shows the peak to be 1961, but in any case they are very close.

Part of the point in showing this is that there is nothing abnormal in the recent reductions in US births compared to previous cycles. On the other hand, the failure of US births to exceed the previous peak in 1961 by a wide margin is unprecedented.

http://generationaldynamics.com/forum/v ... ker#p12304

[Higgenbotham]

How are nation-states crumbling institutions? Please address this.

http://generationaldynamics.com/forum/v ... ker#p12304
http://generationaldynamics.com/forum/v ... ker#p12309

[Trevor]

Population grew by only 7.3 percent in the 1930's because of the great depression. Would you expect to see something of that sort again?

[Reality Check]

I believe we need to be a little careful about confusing the birth rate within the political, and geographic, borders of a country, and the birth rate within a nation or within a society.

A nation can be strengthened by immigrants from another nation, or weakened by them, if their allegiance remains with the nation ( or society or civilization ) they emigrated from.

Nation states, and also societies, that fully absorb and assimilate immigrants, can be strengthened by immigration.

But the very definition of a nation state is based on factors in common, such as a common language, a common religion, belonging to the same ethnic group, having the same culture, and on an on.

The United States did a very good job of assimilating emigrants who came to the United States before 1930.

Western countries, and western societies, like France, Germany and the United States have not done such a good job of assimilation in recent decades.

Both over population and under population can destroy a culture, a society and/or a nation state, unless the over population can expand into other geographic ares ( other countries), or the lost fertility rate among the native culture, can be replaced by immigrants and their children. Of course only if those immigrants are assimilated into the culture, does the culture survive the declining fertility levels.

Jared Mason Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, brought the issue of immigration/emigration and population declines into focus ( as it relates to societies collapsing ).

One may consider the increases, or decreases, of a society's ( a civilization's ) population as a leading indicator ( or a trailing indicator ) of a civilization collapse and the beginning of a dark age.

But if one is not measuring the population decrease of the society ( civilization ), but instead only measuring the very different increases ( or decreases ) within a set of geographic borders, then we may be looking at the wrong indicators, and the wrong correlating factors.

[Higgenbotham]

I believe we need to be a little careful about confusing the birth rate within the political, and geographic, borders of a country, and the birth rate within a nation or within a society.

But if one is not measuring the population decrease of the society ( civilization ), but instead only measuring the very different increases ( or decreases ) within a set of geographic borders, then we may be looking at the wrong indicators, and the wrong correlating factors.

About 20 years ago, Ronald Reagan said that a nation without borders is not a nation. More recently, George W Bush was quoted as saying that America should be more of an idea than a place. http://www.wnd.com/2006/11/38951/

I agree that looking a birth numbers within the borders of the United States is only a starting point. Looking at death numbers and immigration numbers, then further breaking the birth, death, and immigration numbers down by their components would also be ncessary. Then it would be necessary in the case of the US to have an opinion about what those component numbers mean.

Coincidentally, yesterday I was talking to someone who said, "We won't be going to Mexico anymore." She described a recent trip to the border as "scary". Someone else was there who had wintered in Pharr in previous years. I asked him his opinion about being in that area now. Their basic message was that if you are within the US borders near that area, you are essentially in Mexico. About 7 years ago, someone who grew up in El Paso told me something similar regarding the change in her home town, where she said the signs went from mostly English to mostly Spanish from about 2000 to 2005. Not knowing those areas, when someone who does says these areas are now more like Mexico than the United States, I have to believe what they are telling me. Another thing I've been doing is looking at the election results county by county across the south of Texas, and there are strong demarcations. Many south Texas counties went about 75% for Obama, and that abruptly flips to about 75% Romney moving 1 or 2 counties north.

When we look at Japan's numbers, we don't have that confusion. We hear often, when comparing the raw numbers in the US to those of Japan, that the US numbers are X amount better because immigration is making up some of the decline. I would agree that is not necessarily a useful comparison.

[Higgenbotham]

Population grew by only 7.3 percent in the 1930's because of the great depression. Would you expect to see something of that sort again?

I haven't tried to guess year by year what the population might look like.

[Higgenbotham]

My conclusion so far has been there's a lot that the birth number comparisons to the previous peaks in 1921 and 1961 don't tell us yet, but there's one thing I'm fairly confident that it does tell us - and that is that we are still early in this crisis period.

[Reality Check]

Did you run across any interesting graphs of U.S. birth rates over long periods of time?

[Trevor]

Did you run across any interesting graphs of U.S. birth rates over long periods of time?

Well, in the 2000's decade, the population only increased by 10 percent, in contrast to 13.2% during the 1990's. By year, during the so-called Baby Boom, it began to drop steadily in 1962 and did not reach the 4 million mark again until 1989, the year I was born.

[Trevor]

1990: 4,158,212
1991: 4,110,907
1992: 4,065,014
1993: 4,000,240
1994: 3,952,767
1995: 3,899,589
1996:3,891,494
1997: 3,880,894
1998: 3,941,553
1999: 3,959,417
2000: 4,058,814
2001: 4,025,933
2002: 4,021,726
2003: 4,089,950
2004: 4,112,052
2005: 4,138,349
2006: 4,265,555
2007: 4,316,333
2008: 4,247,694
2009: 4,130,665
2010: 3,999,386
2011: 3,951,953