The latest statistics compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau has revealed that 17.8% of all 130 million households in America are married couples with children under 18 years of age. This number is down from more than 40% in the 1970 and is at the lowest point it has ever been.
According to the Daily Mail, the new statistic is a decrease from last year's 18.6% and represents 23.1 million American homes with traditional "nuclear families." The reason behind the decline is the pandemic delaying marriage and a continued decline in birth rate. Current statistics show that a woman's first marriage occurs at 28.6 years of age, compared to statistics in the 1950s and 1960s wherein women typically got married at the age of 20.4 years old.
Moreover, the fertility of Americans decreased to 55.4 births per 1,000 in the second quarter of 2021, versus 58.5 in the second quarter of 2019. There also has been an increase in the rate of Americans living alone.
Statistics showed that there was a slight decline in the percentage of American adults living with a spouse with 50% from 52% ten years ago. More than 27 million adults lived alone in early 2021, a four-million rise from the 33 million in 2011. In 1960, 87% of adults lived with a spouse.
Meanwhile, the percentage of adults who live with an unmarried partner rose from 7% to 8% in that period. Historically, American adults are veering away from marriage. In 2021, 34% of Americans aged 15 and above reported never having been married, an increase from 23% in 1950.
"I think one of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birth rate and the rapidly declining birth rate," Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk commented on Monday, as reported by Faithwire. He argued that civilization will "crumble" if people don't start having more kids.
"Yet, so many people, including smart people, think that there are too many people in the world and think that the population is growing out of control," Musk explained. "It's completely the opposite. Please look at the numbers. If people don't have more children, civilization is going to crumble, mark my words."
Musk's comments come after leftists argued that having more children contributes to climate change. In fact, a Berman Institute of Bioethics director Travis Rieder wrote for NBC News in 2017 that "having a child, especially for the world's wealthy, is one of the worst things you can do for the environment."
The campaign to have less children has also been fueled by the Black Lives Matter movement, which argued before it deleted a page on its website, that they intend to "disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure" and "dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work 'double shifts' so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work."
Population collapse is potentially the greatest risk to the future of civilizationhttps://t.co/VVN8kElTlS
"” Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 27, 2021
