Birth Rate

I’m going to talk about one of the most important issues which the world is facing.This matter can be potentially more important for the next generation than it is for us. The issue is birth rate or population, what it is now and what it will be in the future. First of all, what is birth rate?
The birth rate is the total number of births per 1000 of a population in a year. As you may know, by subtracting the death rate from the birth rate we will result in the rate of population. Here is a display of the birth rate from 1950 to 2015. Year

Birth rate

1950­1955

37.2

1955­1960

35.3

1960­1965

34.9

1965­1970

33.4

1970­1975

30.8

1975­1980

28.4

1980­1985

27.9

1985­1990

27.3

1990­1995

24.7

1995­2000

22.5

2000­2005

21.2

2005­2010

20.3

2010­2015

19.4

As you can see, the birth rate decreased during the 1950 to 2015 period. The birth rate in
2015 is almost half what it was in 1950 and according to expert’s estimate it will continue to fall. The interesting fact however is that the population overall has been increasing regardless the falling birth rate. This is because the life expectancy has been increasing, therefore the death rate has been dropping significantly, This causes the population to stay fairly constant with more people being born and adding on to the population causing it to grow. The increased life

expectancy is because of improved medical techniques allowing more births to be successful, and also fortunately we have not had any wars recently which has saved us a lot of lives. Out of all countries, Niger has the highest birthrate and Monaco has the lowest birth rate in the world in 2014. Should we keep the birth rate down or not?
Many experts believe that we should control the growth of the population because the resources in our environment are limited and this will cause troubles for the future generations. I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that a baby born in a developing country takes up way more resources of that country than a baby born in a developed country does. So as I said, many experts believe that we should keep the birth rate low, however other experts argue that we should allow an increase in the birth rate. It is said that in the future, many country’s populations will be aged and will cause the country to face many problems because and old population is not capable of taking over a lot of jobs such as construction and jobs that require precision and therefore the country will face a shortage in suitable workers. Other problems include the formation of a big generation gap resulting in a changing culture.

global population is expected to reach between 8.3 and 10.9 billion by 2050. Low birth rate is mostly caused by a decrease in the fertility rate. It may seem intuitively obvious that a slower­growing or declining population is good for the economy, especially when you think about starving children in poor parts of the world where there's not enough food for everybody. In places where resources are severely limited—and economic policies are dysfunctional—it may be true that a growing population is a bad thing.
But that's usually because such economies are static, and instead of creating wealth they typically just divide up what's already there. That's not the situation in America, which has a dynamic economy that creates wealth and more than enough resources for all of its citizens.
On the contrary, one of the great strengths of the U.S. economy, especially compared to
Europe and Japan, is a relatively high birth rate, which keep the population young, on

average, and population growth robust. "Everybody comes into world with one mouth and two hands," says economist Donald Boudreaux of George Mason University. "It's generally true that most people produce more than they consume."
A growing population is good for the economy when rising productivity continually reduces the amount of resources required to produce a given amount of output. Even now, with the U.S. economy in a rut and too many people out of work, productivity is rising, which means a larger population would generate more wealth per person than a smaller one. Boudreaux points out that Manhattan, one of the mostly densely populated places in America, is also one of the wealthiest, whereas rural states like Mississippi are sparsely populated, and much poorer.
The sizeable drop in the U.S. birth rate, reported recently by the Pew Research Center, has probably occurred because of the struggling economy. Though Pew didn't investigate the reasons behind the decline, birth rates tend to rise and fall based on how optimistic or pessimistic people feel. The U.S. birth rate peaked in 1957 (hence the "baby boom" generation), when the economy was booming and the unemployment rate was about 4.5 percent. It sagged in the 1970s, when inflation and other problems battered U.S. workers. The birth rate stabilized in the 1980s and stayed more or less level, until starting to dip again in
2008.
Since then, younger Americans have been waiting longer to get married, often because of economic difficulties. Married couples may be waiting longer to have kids, or having fewer kids, for the same reason. While the trends are more pronounced among immigrants, they're occurring throughout the U.S. population.
These types of demographic trends get the attention of economists when big changes might raise or lower the economy's capacity to grow—which could be happening now. Fewer marriages and fewer children lower the rate of household formation, which means people spend less on everything from appliances to clothing. "Fertility rates have plunged, and that will have an impact on future consumer spending," says Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economists at forecasting firm IHS Global Insight.

That trend could reverse itself if the economy picks up for good and Americans become convinced that happier days lie ahead. But for now, a dearth of babies and a limp economy may be reinforcing each other. A few more babies would be good for business.