Childless [strike]Europeans[/strike] Americans

Since at least one active member of the ISF is preoccupied with childlessness, I am surprised that we don't have a thread that deals specifically with this, and it occurred to me again when I was watching a recent episode of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah:
A Toddler Rides an Airport Conveyor Belt and America’s Fertility Rate Plummets:

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For some reason it didn't get as much attention when it was reported on NBC in May:

Quote:

The numbers are part of a decadeslong trend toward fewer and fewer babies being born each year — which means we’re getting further away from the possibility of having enough children to replace ourselves, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Birth rate in U.S. falls to lowest level in 32 years, CDC says (NBC News, May 15, 2019)

The Daily Show refers to this article from CNN:

Quote:

When examined by race, the data showed that fertility rates declined 2% for white and black women, and 3% for Hispanic women, between 2017 and 2018. The data also showed that the teen birth rate, for ages 15 to 19, fell 7% from 2017 to 2018. When examined by race, the data showed that teen births declined by 4% for black teenagers, and 8% for white and Hispanic teens. US fertility rate falls to 'all-time low,' CDC says (CNN, July 24, 2019)

Births and Natality (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Quote:

On average, women had 1.2 biological children and men had fathered 0.9 children. Fertility of Men and Women Aged 15–44 in the United States (National Health Statistics Reports, July 11, 2018)

This is what Wikipedia has to say about people who are childless/childfree:

Quote:

Overall, researchers have observed childless couples to be more educated, and it is perhaps because of this that they are more likely to be employed in professional and management occupations, more likely for both spouses to earn relatively high incomes, and to live in urban areas. They are also less likely to be religious, subscribe to traditional gender roles, or subscribe to conventional roles. Being a childfree, American adult was considered unusual in the 1950s. However, the proportion of childless adults in the population has increased significantly since then. The proportion of childlessness among women aged 40-44 was 10% in 1976, reached a high of 20% in 2005, then declined to 15% in 2014. In Europe, childlessness among women aged 40-44 is most common in Austria, Spain and the United Kingdom (in 2010-2011). Childlessness is least common across Eastern European countries, although one child families are very common there. From 2007 to 2011 the fertility rate in the U.S. declined 9%, the Pew Research Center reporting in 2010 that the birth rate was the lowest in U.S. history and that childfreeness rose across all racial and ethnic groups to about 1 in 5 versus 1 in 10 in the 1970s. The CDC released statistics in the first quarter of 2016 confirming that the U.S. fertility rate had fallen to its lowest point since record keeping started in 1909: 59.8 births per 1,000 women, half its high of 122.9 in 1957. Even taking the falling fertility rate into account, the U.S. Census Bureau still projected that the U.S. population would increase from 319 million (2014) to 400 million by 2051. The National Center of Health Statistics confirms that the percentage of American women of childbearing age who define themselves as childfree (or voluntarily childless) rose sharply in the 1990s—from 2.4 percent in 1982 to 4.3 percent in 1990 to 6.6 percent in 1995. Voluntary childlessness: Statistics and research (Wikipedia)

Could this be the reason why some states in the USA seem to be hellbent on putting a stop to abortions and also don't seem to be very interested in promoting education?

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