Declining birth rates and life expectancy in the U.S., both symptoms of a deepening capitalist economic, political and moral crisis, have led to a sharp drop in population growth, one that will continue to deepen over coming decades. In fact without a steady flow of immigrants entering the country each year the population would already be shrinking.
Working-class youth are especially affected. A growing percentage live with their parents well into adulthood and remain substantially dependent on them financially.
Recently released government statistics show the U.S. had a population estimated at 341 million on New Year’s Day and is expected to grow to 350 million people by year’s end. Last year the population grew 1.09%, only because of the continuing arrival of immigrant workers. Many are a key part of the workforce, from agricultural workers to delivery workers to jobs in meatpacking and other industries.
The birth rate in the U.S. declined to an average of 1.62 births per woman in 2023, the lowest rate recorded since the government began tracking it in the 1930s. For the population to at least hold steady requires a birth rate of 2.1 children per woman. Fertility rates have been falling below that figure for the past 17 years. In fact, if fertility rates had stayed at the 2007 level, there would be about 10 million more youth alive in the U.S. today.
This reflects the growing difficulties young women face in deciding when or whether to have a child, given the hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs for working-class families to raise a child today. They face increased pressure in making ends meet given the high prices of rents, mortgages, child care, groceries, gasoline, growing credit card debts and more.
This is in sharp contrast to the “baby boom” years following World War II, when the fertility rate was more than three births per woman.
Worldwide the fertility rate has tumbled more than in half over the past 70 years. This includes a sharp decline throughout the imperialist countries in Europe. The lowest fertility rates were recorded in southern Europe and Japan at about 1.2 children per woman, with South Korea’s birth rate dropping to 0.7 births in 2022. In contrast, sub-Sahara Africa has one of the highest birth rates.
According to a Congressional Budget Office report, U.S. deaths are expected to outpace births by 2033, seven years earlier than this government agency said just a year ago.
Life expectancy declining
Life expectancy in the U.S. has also been declining. In 2010 it stalled at close to 79 years, followed by a sharp drop by 2022 to 76.1 — the lowest in 25 years. This reflects the devastating impact that the capitalist economic and social crisis is having on the working class, given the high number of deaths from opioid drug overdoses — near or over 100,000 a year since 2020 — and the daunting cost of health care.
This plunge is a sharp change. A baby born in the U.S. in 1980, for example, looked forward to a life 34 years longer than a baby born in 1880. Today, since advances in treating diseases and injuries continue, the drop in life expectancy reflects the ravages of capitalist exploitation and wars. And this reality won’t be easily reversed as long as the capitalist rulers’ drive for profits rules the roost.
The road forward is for the working class to use our unions to fight the attacks of the bosses and their government today, and to organize our own political party, a party of labor, to take political power out of their hands.