Call it the Juno effect, the Jolie effect or the Jamie Lynn Spears effect. Whatever you call it, it's 'in' to be a mom. The average number of births per woman reached the magical 2.1 population replacement rate in 2006 for the first time since 1971. The trend continued in 2007. According to newly released U.S. Census Bureau data, more babies were born in 2007 than even during the height of the baby boom - 4.32 million babies in 2007, more than the 4.30 million babies born in 1957.
There's no question that being pregnant and having a baby looks cooler than ever. First there's the celebrities reproducing faster than one can read about it in the supermarket tabloids. Then there's the movies and TV shows. Ellen Page as Juno was spunky, hip and totally emulatable by teens in Gloucester, MA -- and who knows where else? An NBC Reality Show, The Baby Borrowers, is reportedly intended to reveal the sleepless reality of parenthood, but would it be interesting at all if there were no interest in the topic? Knocked Up was a hit romantic comedy.
So who is driving the trend? Is it the Millennial teens and young adults or Gen X'ers who delayed having babies to establish careers? The 2007 numbers of births by age of mother are hard to find. But there are indications that it is the younger women driving the trend. The percent of births to women 15-29 has remained steady at 62% from 2001-2005, and there is no reason to believe that proportion has changed in favor of older mothers. Further, according to a Dec 2007 CDC report, the birth rate for the youngest teens (aged 10-14) declined, and the birth rate for older teens aged 18-19 (73 per 1000) is more than three times higher than the rate for teens aged 15-17 (22 per 1,000). The biggest jump was among unmarried women aged 25-29, among whom there was a 10 percent increase between 2005 and 2006.
The current baby-mania may have its roots in Millennial attitudes. Many no longer feel constrained by a timetable that calls for establishing a career, then a family. Millennials believe they can do what they want, and if a baby is what they want right now, why not go for it? As the products of one of the most successful generations of parents, they have good parenting role models. And as one of the wealthiest cohorts, they may feel they are financial as well as psychologically prepared. Who knows, they may be right? A plethora of babies may be just the latest clue that Millennials are not like Gen X'ers.
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I'm a first-wave millennial, a newlywed, 24 years old, so child-bearing has been on my mind the past year or so. This blog is really interesting because I've noticed a 'change in the wind' with women my age. Whereas growing up as a preteen and high schooler it seemed like having a kid was a curse, along with the whole 'domestic' lifestyle. Shows like FRIENDS, and Seinfeld showed that it was clearly stupid to waste your life being married and having babies. For first-wave Millennials like myself however, we were coming of age just as all the characters on FRIENDS were starting to settle down and even have babies. I think girls my age thought "Why am I going to waste a decade trying to find myself, when in the end what I'm looking for is a family?"
ReplyDeleteAlso- I think the number of unmarried women having babies (ages 25-29) are the 'inbetween' generation from GenX to Millennial. It seems like they are less wary of taking on the single-mom life, and opt for abortions less and less. I think there is still a bit of a cynical attitude towards marriage in that age group however. I think people in their early 20s are starting to warm up to the idea of marriage (influenced partly by TV romances like Pam & Jim on NBC's The Office). I think people are starting to realize that maybe marriage can be a good thing- an idea Millennials didn't grow up with.