4.1 β’ 5.3K Ratings
ποΈ 8 July 2025
β±οΈ 10 minutes
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0:00.0 | Let's start with a small number that has big consequences, the total fertility rate. |
0:06.6 | It measures how many babies on average each woman will have over her lifetime. |
0:11.1 | And for a population to remain stable, flat, no growth, no decline, women on average have to have 2.1 kids. |
0:19.0 | So you need to replace yourself, you need to replace a partner, |
0:22.8 | and you need a little extra for mortality. That's Philip Levine. He studies population trends at Wellesley |
0:28.3 | College, and he says this number has been falling in high-income countries, including the U.S. |
0:34.1 | We're at 1.6, which we're worried about at 1.6. South Korea is at 0.7. |
0:39.4 | There's just, relatively speaking, no children being born in South Korea. |
0:43.8 | To understand what a total fertility rate of 0.7 means for South Korea, you just have to |
0:49.0 | project it forward across a lifetime. |
0:51.2 | If you take 100 young people today, when they get to be the age of typical grandparents, |
0:58.1 | those 100 people will have 12 grandchildren. |
1:00.6 | 12 grandchildren for every 100 South Korean grandparents. |
1:06.0 | Of course, this is unfolding more slowly in the U.S. than in South Korea, |
1:09.6 | but if it continues, it could remake society |
1:12.8 | in all kinds of ways. Consider this. The birth rate is falling fast in the U.S., and it's |
1:20.7 | driving a new political debate about what, if anything, can be done about it. |
1:28.4 | From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. |
1:39.8 | It's consider this from NPR. |
1:42.4 | America's falling birth rate has become a political issue, one that's made it all the way to the White House. |
1:47.9 | I'll be known as the fertilization president that that's okay. |
1:51.3 | That's not bad. |
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