Two months earlier - Elon Musk Issues Birth Rate Warning For US
Published Apr 22, 2025 at 11:49 AM EDT Updated Apr 23, 2025 at 9:27 AM EDT
Now RT reports a more recent Elon opinion - Europe could ‘die out’ – Musk
The concern is real, with the U.S. rate below that needed to stabilize population.
What is interesting about the RT item is it showing Russian concern for birthrate in Russia too.
In a post on X on Saturday, Musk was responding to statistics from
Scotland showing 34% more deaths than births in the first half of 2025.
“Unless the birth rate at least gets back to replacement rate, Europe will die out,” he wrote, referring to the average number of children needed per couple for a population to replace itself.
The
replacement fertility rate is generally set at 2.1 children per woman,
accounting for child mortality and near-equal gender ratios at birth.
Recent studies, however, suggest that this level may be insufficient,
pointing to a long-term survival threshold closer to 2.7 children per
woman.
According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics, the
fertility rate in England and Wales fell to 1.4 in 2024, while
Scotland’s stood at 1.3 – both far below replacement levels. In the EU,
fertility has been declining for years, reaching a record low of 1.4
live births per woman in 2023.
[...] Worldwide, fertility has been falling for over 50 years. UN data
shows it stood at around 2.2 births per woman in 2024, down from 5 in
the 1970s and 3.3 in the 1990s. Only 45% of countries and areas – home
to roughly a third of the global population – reported fertility levels
at or above 2.1 last year. Just 13% had fertility rates of 4.0 or
higher, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Yemen.
Falling birth rates and population decline have also become a pressing issue for
Russia, with Rosstat recording just 1.2 million births in 2024 – the
lowest since 1999 – reflecting a fertility rate of 1.4.
Reporting is that the U.S. has a 1.6 rate, a bit higher than Russia and the EU.
In the early 1960s, the U.S. total fertility rate was around 3.5, but
plummeted to 1.7 by 1976 after the Baby Boom ended. It gradually rose
to 2.1 in 2007 before falling again, aside from a 2014 uptick. The rate
in 2023 was 1.621 but inched down in 2024 to 1.599, according to the
CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
Factors in the continuing decline
Birth rates are generally
declining for women in most age groups — and that doesn't seem likely
to change in the near future, said Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina
Population Center at the University of North Carolina.
People
are marrying later and also worried about their ability to have the
money, health insurance and other resources needed to raise children in a
stable environment.
"Worry is not a good moment to have kids," and that's why birth rates in most age groups are not improving, she said.
Asked
about birth-promoting measures outlined by the Trump administration,
Guzzo said they don't tackle larger needs like parental leave and
affordable child care.
"The things that they are doing are really symbolic and not likely to budge things for real Americans," she said.
The
CDC's new report, which is based on a more complete review of birth
certificates than provisional data released earlier this year, also
showed a 1% increase in births — about 33,000 more — last year compared
to the prior year.
The fucking of the general populace in the U.S. by the wealthy goes to those highlighted paragraphs indirectly showing that the wealthy must really believe that AI will give them the capital intensive option to lowering the amounts of available wage slaves.
