Changing Families

     Looking back to our history, the Earth has had an incline in the human population; however, this situation has changed recently. After the second world war, we had the baby boom, which caused a significant uptick in our population. This inspired a man named Paul R. Ehrlich to write a book called "The Population Bomb." This book talked about the importance of having fewer children because it would use less of the resources of the world. At one point, he compared having children to robbing a bank of five million dollars. Though this may seem extreme, Erlich did this because he was under the impression that having many children was stealing resources from the world and ruining the future of other generations. Eventually, people started to believe him. They agreed that having fewer children was better for the environment. Due to Erlich's persuasive statements, the average size of families soon began to decrease and continues to do so today. The hold this book took was strong, and it is not letting go anytime soon. Although Paul Ehrlich's predictions have been proven wrong, people still believe the philosophy he shared with everyone. In the long run, this is going to impact our population negatively. 

    The decline in family sizes is generating a lower fertility rate. The fertility rate is the average amount of children that one woman has. In 1960 the fertility rate was 3.65 children in the United States; however, by 1980, it had dropped to 1.84 kids. In 2000, the rate was 2.6 kids. So, it went up but did not stay up because by 2010, it was back to 1.94 children, and last year we dropped to 1.74 kids. Now, this may look as if it is no big deal; however, the replacement fertility rate needed to keep the same population is 2.1 children for each woman. In Africa, the birth rates are much higher. They are closer to 5 or 6 kids. However, the rest of the world is trying to get them to have fewer children. They are not heading to the urges from the world. On the other hand, China and Japan are willing to pay people to have more children because their birth rate is so low.

    These low birth rates will not change anything in the immediate future for the population, but once those kids start having their own kids, we will see more single-child families. Eventually, we will begin to see a trend of primarily single children families, which in turn will start a decline in our population. It will also hurt our economy. In time we will have fewer working-age people in society. Fewer people, in turn, means everyone will have to work harder and become more skilled at what they are doing. It also will have a significant impact on social security and other government programs that are in place for older generations. 

    In view of the fact that the world is changing every day, there is always more to learn. Learning about all of this sparked an interest in me to learn more about families and how the dynamic has changed in the last decade. Looking at today's society, it has changed a lot since the year 1923. With all these changes, there are good and bad things that have come from them. One main one is the idea that marriage is not necessary anymore. However, there are also changes in the smaller family dynamic. All of these lead to a new concept of family in society. The question is, are you going to follow the flow of culture, or will you create your own ideals?