Why Is The Birth Rate In USA Higher Than In Europe, Despite Not Having Federally Mandated Maternal Leave?
We've been told many times by progressives that mothers should be offered paid maternal leave from their company every time they have a baby—regardless of who they work for and what they do for a living. But the US still has a higher birth rate than Europe does, even without federally mandated paid parental leave. Why is that?
We know by now that the birth rate in the US has plummeted over the last 50 years. In the 1950s, women had a birth rate of 3.6 and in 2020 that fell to 1.6. Even Elon Musk has highlighted this fact, pointing to the possibility that we won't even be able to keep the same population we have now if we don't start having more babies. Many people wrote him off as a crazy billionaire who just wants to spread his seed, but he brought up a good point: women are having fewer and fewer kids as the years go on and this will undoubtedly affect the future of our civilization. However, the US certainly isn't the only country dealing with a decline in birth rates.