California’s birthrate falls to its lowest level on recordOr maybe not.by Soumya Karlamangla
California’s birthrate dropped to its lowest level ever in 2016, according to data released by the state’s Department of Finance.
Between July 2015 and July of this year, there were 12.42 births per 1,000 Californians, the agency said this week. The last time the birthrate came close to being that low was during the Great Depression, when it hit 12.6 per 1,000 in 1933. …
That will likely change, however, when people born in the late 1980s and ‘90s begin having children as they approach their 30s.
They’re a giant cohort in the state — 1990 had the most births in California history, with 1991 and 1992 close behind. So, if and when they do decide to have children, it will likely affect the state’s overall birthrate, Schwarm said.
“That will bring everything back up,” he said.
Almost nobody realizes that California’s baby boom of the early 1990s was due to the amnesty bill passed in 1986.
High fertility in California is largely a function of Latino immigrants arriving, noticing you can drink the water right out of the tap and other miracles of gringo competence, having three or four babies in short order, and only then noticing that California is really expensive for raising children above the lumpenprole level.
But since the Housing Bubble popped in 2007-08, not all that many Hispanic immigrants have arrived in California, so it’s not clear what happens next.
