Fertility rates in the U.S. are lower than ever previously recorded according to a new report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—but this doesn’t herald a Children of Men scenario on the horizon. (Children of Men, for those unfamiliar, is a science fiction thriller novel-turned-film that depicts a world after two decades of global human infertility.) The lower rate of fertility does not mean fewer people are physically able to make babies. Instead, the fertility rate is defined simply as “the number of babies born per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44.” The declining number of babies born most likely speaks to a growing number of women and families choosing not to have children [3].
Given the serious and devastating global implications of mass overpopulation [4], the fact that people are having fewer babies could speak to a positive trend in this country.