Catherine Rampell's May 6 column ("Financial insecurity most likely reason for latest
baby bust") bemoaned the fact that fewer Americans are having babies, and said we need babies who will grow up and support the economy when we get older.
(The others were the 1810s and the 1930s, the latter of which had the good excuse of having a
Baby Bust instead of a Boom.) Is America telling those born in the 1950s that for judgment and maturity it's still a safer bet to rely on our older siblings, even as we're now preparing to sign up for Medicarei But also that when boldness and vigor are called for, they want to see real athletes on the field, not a sad, embarrassing Old Timers' Game?
THE
BABY BUST is going to hurt your business in many categories.
If there is a middle way between the baby boom and
baby bust, it's provided by Indonesia, which has seen a gradual fall in fertility, now around the long-term stabilization level.
Meanwhile, the next generation--Generation X--was a
baby bust by comparison.
Because of this "
baby bust," the competition is heating up for the brighter people.
A "
baby bust" since 1973-though interrupted by a "baby blip" in the late 1980s--sees New Zealand with sustained below-replacement fertility levels.
Although common to all parts of Canada, this passage from baby boom to
baby bust was more pronounced in Quebec.
The pool of people behind them, the
baby bust generation, is much smaller.
Singapore's "total fertility rate," a crude prediction of how many children a woman will bear in her lifetime if current patterns persist, is among the lowest in the world at 1.07, but the
baby bust is not a future the island faces alone.