The Baby Bust – Why?

Man, Al Mohler knows how to find articles that hit the nail on the head.  His latest blog is another example.  To wet your appetite:

 Azure is a serious journal of ideas that states its mission as providing “ideas for the Jewish nation.” In the Summer 2007 edition [Jewish year 5767], assistant editor Noah Pollak deals with the reality of the European baby bust.

Pollak deals first with the demographic reality. As he explains, the average number of children a woman will bear (known as the total fertility rate, or TFR) must be stable at 2.1 just to maintain the size of a nation’s population. The baby bust is evident in the fact that the TFR is just 1.89 in France. In Spain the TFR is just 1.1 — a birth rate the editors describe as in a “free fall.” Taken together, Europe’s total TFR is just 1.38.

Read the rest of the article here.