Neb. bucks U.S. trend on births

With unemployment and fear of job loss running high over the last two years, experts think many families have deferred having children.

But Francesca and Aaron Quinn of Omaha decided they weren't going to wait to start their family. And little Stella Margaret Quinn definitely wasn't waiting either. She was 10 weeks early when she arrived a year ago this month — and her birth helped Nebraska buck a national trend.

According to a new federal report, births in Nebraska were up slightly in 2009 even as they fell nationally by 2.6 percent. In fact, Nebraska was one of only three states and the District of Columbia to post an increase in births during the year.

If declining births are, as demographers suspect, an indicator of the severity of the Great Recession, Nebraska's 2009 birth numbers are yet another sign that economically, things haven't been quite so bad here.

“Compared to what's happening elsewhere, it's a pretty good showing,” said David Drozd, a demographer with the Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Preliminary birth statistics released in August by the National Center for Health Statistics showed that births in Nebraska rose four-tenths of 1 percent during 2009, a net gain of 120 births to 27,034.

In comparison, births were down by 7 percent in Arizona, 6 percent in Idaho, 5 percent in Florida and Mississippi, and 4 percent in California.

In Iowa, births dropped by 1.4 percent in 2009, a total decline of 567 births from 2008. That still ranked as the 15th best showing among the states.

Nebraska's showing was the third-best among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Joining Nebraska with increases in births for the year were Washington, D.C., Louisiana and New York.

Nationally, births were down by more than 100,000, from 4.2 million to 4.1 million, even as the nation's population grew.

History has shown that times of economic turmoil do tend to affect birthrates, said Mark Mather, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau in Washington. Births fell off significantly during the Great Depression and amid the runaway inflation of the 1970s.

It appears that the same thing may be happening now, he said. Not only have total births nationally fallen for two straight years after reaching an all-time high in 2007, but the U.S. birthrate also has fallen markedly. The rate, which takes into account changes in population, dropped from 69.2 births per 1,000 women age 15 to 44 in 2007 to 66.8 in 2009.

“It could take years to turn this around,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University who noted that the birthrate stayed low throughout the 1930s.

Having a child and starting a family is one of the biggest decisions you can make, Mather said. “If you've lost a job or are worried about losing your job, it makes sense to postpone a decision that has major financial implications.”

Indeed, for all the joys children bring to life, they don't come cheap. The U.S. Department of Agriculture earlier this year estimated the inflation-adjusted cost of raising a middle-class child to age 17 at more than $285,000.

Given the apparent connection between births and downturns, it's likely that Nebraska's comparatively strong economy is related to its stronger birth performance relative to the nation's, Drozd said. Nebraska's unemployment rate is about half of the U.S. rate.

Besides making Nebraska more stable, the low unemployment also is bringing more people to the state, including women of child-bearing age, Drozd said. Additionally, fewer Nebraskans are leaving for longtime destination states like Missouri, Minnesota and Florida.

Hispanic immigration also may contribute to Nebraska's relatively higher birthrate, Drozd said.

There no doubt have been couples in Nebraska who have deferred having children because of the nation's economic uncertainty. But the Quinns weren't among them.

They had been planning their first child for some time. The Omaha natives had been married for about five years, had bought a home in Dundee, and both had good jobs — Aaron as a planner for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Francesca as a regional sales representative.

So even when the national recession caught up to Nebraska in late 2008, that wasn't going to stop them. “We were ready to start our family, recession or no recession,” Francesca said.

Stella arrived on Sept. 18 at under 4 pounds and spent the first month of her life in intensive care. But as she approaches her first birthday, she's thriving, fully caught up on growth and ready to take off running.

That, at this point, is a lot more than can be said for the U.S. economy.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

Contact the writer:

444-1130, henry.cordes@owh.com

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