Economic turmoil taking its toll on childbearing

USA Today reports:

Women starting families today might not think they have a lot in common with women during the Great Depression, but a new government analysis of birth data suggests otherwise.

The struggling economy may be causing women of childbearing age to have fewer or no children, suggests demographer Sharon Kirmeyer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lead author of two reports out Thursday that analyzed historical childbearing data.

Census data show that in 2010, 18.8% of women ages 40-44 were childless, echoing a trend from the 1930s found in the CDC analysis. Of 100,000 women born in 1910 who turned 25 in 1935 at the height of the Great Depression, 19.7% were childless by age 50.

Big welfare state causing raising costs, causes drop in birth rate.