The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report that younger women had fewer children in 2008, probably because of the recession. Doctors suspect, of course, that younger women probably delayed childbirth for financial reasons. Meanwhile, the birth rate continued to rise for women in their 40s. (It has been rising for years, partly because of advances in fertility treatments.) Here's the easy answer for why women in their 40s didn't slow down during the downturn, from the AP story: "'You get to the point where biological clock starts ticking and people realize they have to do it,' said [James] Trussell, who was not involved in the research." Yes, because we all know that's our sole reason for being.
The idea that women take their finances into consideration when they make family planning decisions shouldn't be a huge shocker to anyone by now, but it usually pops up in stories about whether bad economic times up the abortion rate. Whether women can afford a child is a big reason behind why many decide to have abortions. And that makes total sense. According to federal government figures, it costs $196,010 for a low-income family to raise a child over his or her lifetime, and $269,040 for middle-income families. With figures like that, condescending conversations about personal responsibility and self-sacrifice don't really mean much.
Again, with this piece, as in so many others, the mostly male doctors give the looming fertility clock tower the central role, reminding women that if they wait until their early 40s, they might not have another chance. That's why doctors hypothesize that women continued to have babies in their 40s despite the bad economic climate. But it also seems possible that women in their 40s were financially secure enough not to have to worry about what was going on in the broader economy.
-- Monica Potts
