Tag: Christian Science Monitor

Baby boom to baby bust (CSM 1985)

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.csmonitor.com/1985/1127/z1love3.html

Excerpt:

In the ’70s, these overpopulation alarms had widespread impact. A 1970 survey found that 69 percent of married women in America agreed that US overpopulation was a “serious problem” — and that many of them were lowering the number of children they intended to have.

Now, however, the birthrate in the industrial world is below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children per woman. That rate is set at the number of children needed to replace every parent, with more added to account for mortality.

In 1855, white American women averaged 5.31 births — well above the then-current replacement rate of 3.32 (higher then because of higher infant mortality). By 1980, the figure had dropped to 1.75 children each — well below the 2.1 replacement rate. Even the high birthrate of US Hispanics — 56 percent more than non-Hispanics in 1982 — doesn’t raise the total US rate above replacement levels.

Author(s): Rushworth M. Kidder

Publication Date: 27 November 1985

Publication Site: Christian Science Monitor

2020’s murder increase is ‘unprecedented.’ But is it a blip?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2020/1214/2020-s-murder-increase-is-unprecedented.-But-is-it-a-blip

Graph:

Excerpt:

For all its singular tragedy, Ms. Nguyen’s death is part of a tide of gun violence rising from New Orleans to Lubbock, Texas. Coming off a record low in homicides in 2019, New Orleans saw its rate spike by over 50% this year. It is not, by any stretch, an outlier. Lubbock doubled its murder rate, so far, from 2019 to 2020.

To be sure, overall crime has dropped dramatically in the U.S. since the late 1990s. But the 2020 homicide rate “now exceeds the rates of the late ’80s and ’90s, before the big drop,” says Richard Rosenfeld, lead author of “Pandemic, Social Unrest and Crime in US Cities,” a new report. “This round of crime increase is unprecedented.”

This year, 51 cities of various sizes across the U.S. saw an average 35% jump in murder from 2019 to 2020 – a “historically awful” development, says New Orleans-based crime analyst Jeff Asher, who crunched those numbers. A different study looking at 21 U.S. cities found 610 more murders in those jurisdictions this year over last year. In those cities, gun assaults increased by 10% over 2019.

Author(s): Patrik Jonsson

Publication Date: 14 December 2020

Publication Site: Christian Science Monitor