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Tag: Birth rates

  • Researchers turn human skin cells into eggs — but not yet usable ones

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    WASHINGTON — Oregon scientists used human skin cells to create fertilizable eggs, a step in the quest to develop lab-grown eggs or sperm to one day help people conceive.

    But the experiment resulted in abnormalities in the chromosomes, prompting the Oregon Health & Science University team to caution it could take a decade of additional research before such a technique might be ready for trials in people.

    The work published Tuesday in Nature Communications may offer lessons as scientists try to learn to create eggs and sperm in a lab for the infertile or to help same-sex couples have children genetically related to both partners.

    The OHSU team removed the nucleus from a human egg cell and replaced it with the nucleus from a human skin cell. But a skin cell contains two sets of chromosomes, and eggs and sperm are supposed to each contain only one set that combine during fertilization. The researchers therefore induced the egg-like cells to discard extra chromosomes, injected donated sperm and jumpstarted post-fertilization development.

    About 9% lasted for six days in lab dishes, reaching the blastocyst stage of early embryo development, before the experiment was stopped.

    The main problem: The chromosomes were abnormal in several ways.

    “We kind of developed this new cell division that can reduce chromosome number,” said study senior author Shoukhrat Mitalipov, OHSU’s embryonic cell and gene therapy director. “It’s still not good enough to make embryos or eggs genetically normal.” He called the initial findings proof-of-concept and said his team is working on improvements.

    Scientists not involved in the work had mixed reactions. Columbia University stem cell researcher Dietrich Egli was troubled by the abnormalities.

    But Dr. Eve Feinberg, who agreed that the chromosome problems were critical, said it “seems like this team figured out how to reduce the number, just not well yet. But it’s an important step and very exciting.”

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Trump’s deportation plans result in 320,000 fewer immigrants and slower population growth, CBO says

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    President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations and other hardline immigration measures with funding passed by Congress will result in roughly 320,000 fewer people in the United States in ten years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budge…

    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations and other hardline immigration measures will result in roughly 320,000 people removed from the United States over the next ten years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday in a report that also projected that the U.S. population will grow more slowly than it had previously projected.

    Trump’s tax and spending law, passed by Congress and signed in July, included roughly $150 billion to ramp up his mass deportation agenda over the next four years. This includes funding for everything from an extension of the United States’ southern border wall to detention centers and thousands of additional law enforcement staff. The CBO found that 290,000 immigrants could be removed through those measures, and an additional 30,000 people could leave the U.S. voluntarily.

    Coupled with a lower fertility rate in the U.S., the reduction in immigration means that the CBO’s projection of the U.S. population will be 4.5 million people lower by 2035 than the nonpartisan office had projected in January. It cautioned that its population projections are “highly uncertain,” but estimated that the U.S. will have 367 million people in 2055.

    Lower immigration to the U.S. could have implications for the nation’s economy and the government’s budget. The report did not directly address those issues, but it noted that the projected population would have “fewer people ages 25 to 54 — the age group that is most likely to participate in the labor force — than the agency previously projected.”

    Democrats in Congress have been warning that mass deportations could harm the U.S. economy and lead to higher prices on groceries and other goods.

    In the White House, Trump has said he wants to see a “baby boom” in the U.S. and his administration has bandied about ideas for encouraging Americans to have more children. But the CBO found no indication that would happen.

    “Deaths are projected to exceed births in 2031, two years earlier than previously projected,” it noted.

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  • South Koreans are joyful after Han Kang wins Nobel Prize for literature

    South Koreans are joyful after Han Kang wins Nobel Prize for literature

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    SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans reacted with joy and astonishment on Thursday after learning that homegrown writer Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in literature, an unexpected moment that stoked national pride about the country’s growing cultural influence.

    Han, known for her experimental and often disturbing stories that explore human traumas and violence and incorporate the brutal moments of South Korea’s modern history, is the country’s first writer to win the preeminent award in world literature.

    Han’s triumph adds to the growing global influence of South Korean culture, which in recent years included the successes of director Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning “Parasite,” the brutal Netflix survival drama “Squid Game” and K-pop groups like BTS and BLACKPINK.

    “I’m so surprised and honored,” Han, 53, said in a telephone interview posted on the X account of the Nobel Prize.

    As the news spread in South Korea, some online bookstores temporarily froze following a sudden jump in traffic. South Korean social media were flooded with jubilant messages expressing admiration and pride. Some internet users found it meaningful that Han was the first Asian woman to win the award and portrayed it as a statement toward the country’s traditionally male-dominated literature scene.

    “It’s always the women who do the big things,” one Facebook user wrote.

    In South Korea’s parliament, multiple government hearings were paused as lawmakers cheered and applauded Han’s award.

    While visiting Laos for a meeting of Asian leaders, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol issued a statement, congratulating Han on her award, calling it a “great achievement in the history of Korean literature” and a “special moment for the nation.”

    “You converted the painful wounds of our modern history into great literature,” Yoon wrote. “I send my respects to you for elevating the value of Korean literature.”

    Han, the daughter of renowned South Korean novelist Han Seung-won, made her publishing debut as a poet in 1993. She won the International Booker Prize in 2016 for the novel “The Vegetarian,” a story in which a woman’s decision to stop eating meat brings devastating consequences and raises concern among family members that she’s mentally ill. The book sold more than 100,000 in the U.S.

    Another one of Han’s well-known novels is “Human Acts,” which is set in 1980 in her birth city of Gwangju and follows a boy searching for the body of a friend who was killed in a violent suppression of a student protest. South Korea’s former military government that year sent troops to Gwangju for a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that left around 200 people dead and hundreds of others injured.

    “The decision came all too sudden. I could also describe it as a feeling of bewilderment,” Han Seung-won, Han’s father, told reporters Friday about the moment he heard the news that his daughter had won the Nobel Prize.

    He praised his daughter’s writing, which he described as poetic and exhibiting unique “fantastical realism,” and also commended British translator Deborah Smith, who translated “The Vegetarian” and “The White Book.”

    “The translator has somehow managed to convey Han Kang’s sentences, bringing to life the delicate and beautiful prose and melancholic sensibility,” he said.

    Han Kang’s award generated excitement among South Korean writers and critics, who in comments to local media expressed hope that it would bring more global attention to South Korean literature. But it remains to be seen whether Han’s stories would become widely popular among casual readers around the world, said Brother Anthony of Taize, a British-born scholar and prolific translator of Korean literature.

    “It’s not always an easy read,” he said, describing how her novels are often complicated stories about communication failures, misunderstandings, “unhappy people and troubled relationships and pain.”

    If Han’s works have anything in common with South Korea’s other cultural products that garnered international acclaim in recent years, it is that they often reflect the dark side of the country’s society. Both Parasite and Squid Game provided biting commentaries on the country’s deepening inequality and other problems that have many young and poor people describing their lives as a hellish nightmare.

    South Korea has one of the largest gaps between rich and poor among developed economies and is grappling with decaying job markets, soaring household debt and a record-low birth rate as struggling couples put off having babies. The country also struggles to deal with the pains of its brutal transition from dictatorship to democracy.

    “Korean society is rather dark and it’s probably the aspect that resonates,” Brother Anthony said.

    Jung Yoon-young, a 49-year-old resident in Seoul, said Han’s triumph was a refreshing moment for the country during depressing times.

    “It’s a miraculous event and really a breath of fresh air,” she said. “I’m grateful and proud.”

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  • JD Vance has long been on a quest to encourage more births in the United States

    JD Vance has long been on a quest to encourage more births in the United States

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    MIAMI (AP) — Five summers ago, Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance — then a 34-year-old memoirist and father of a 2-year-old boy — took the stage at a conservative conference and tackled an issue that would become a core part of his political brand: the United States’ declining fertility rate.

    “Our people aren’t having enough children to replace themselves. That should bother us,” Vance told the gathering in Washington. He outlined the obvious concern that Social Security depends on younger workers’ contributions and then said, “We want babies not just because they are economically useful. We want more babies because children are good. And we believe children are good, because we are not sociopaths.”

    Vance repeatedly expressed alarm about declining birth rates as he launched his political career in 2021 with a bid for the U.S. Senate in Ohio. His criticism then of Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, and other high-profile Democrats as “childless cat ladies” who didn’t have a “direct stake” in the country have drawn particular attention since Trump picked him as his running mate.

    The rhetoric could threaten the Republican ticket’s standing with women who could help decide the November election. But it’s delighted those in the pro-natalist movement that has, until now, been limited largely to policy wonks, tech executives and venture capitalists.

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    “There’s no question the discussion around family life, childbearing and pronatalism has gotten a lot more popular and gotten media attention because of JD Vance,” said Brad Wilcox, the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and author of “Get Married.” Vance once referred to Wilcox as “one of my favorite researchers.”

    Vance’s spokespeople did not respond to messages seeking comment.

    An aspiring politician’s war against ‘anti-child ideology’

    Vance, who wrote a bestseller about his working-class upbringing, has been clear about making family formation a policy priority. He has suggested ideas such as allowing parents to vote on behalf of their children or following the example of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán of giving low-interest loans to married couples with children and tax exemptions to women who have four children or more.

    In a May 2021 interview with The Federalist’s podcast in which he said he was exploring a Senate run, Vance described a society without babies and kids as “pretty icky and pretty gross.”

    “We owe something to our country. We owe something to our future. The best way to invest in it is to ensure the next generation actually exists,” he said. “I think we have to go to war against the anti-child ideology that exists in our country.”

    Vance has suggested people without children should pay higher taxes than people who have children. That’s the spirit of the existing child tax credit at $2,000 per qualifying child, which Vance has said he’d love to see raised to $5,000. He has also mentioned in interviews he wants to ban pornography for minors, citing it as one of the causes for why people are marrying less and having fewer children.

    His anti-abortion views, he has said, are separate from his concerns on birth rates, arguing the procedure is not really driving the decline in fertility.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    In several interviews, he’s argued policymakers should make it easier for two-parent households to be able to live on a single wage so that one of the parents can stay home with their children.

    “The ruling class is obsessed with their jobs. Even though they hate a lot of their jobs, they are obsessed with their credentials and they want strangers to raise their kids,” he told then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson in 2021. “But middle-class Americans, whatever their station in life, they want more time with their children.”

    Vance had a chaotic childhood raised mainly by his grandparents in southwestern Ohio and a mother who battled substance abuse, and her “revolving door of father figures” as he described in his book. He is now married to a trial lawyer he met at Yale Law School. The couple has three young children, who he has said attend preschool. Usha Vance left the law firm where she worked shortly after her husband was chosen as Trump’s running mate.

    Declining births in an aging America

    The U.S. was one of only a few developed countries with a fertility rate that ensured each generation had enough children to replace itself — about 2.1 kids per woman. But the number has been sliding since 2008 and in 2023 dropped to about 1.6, the lowest rate on record.

    Earlier this year, Vance cited fertility rates in arguing against American support for Ukraine.

    “Not a single country — even the U.S. — within the NATO alliance has birth rates at replacement level. We don’t have enough families and children to continue as a nation, and yet we’re talking about problems 6,000 miles away,” he said.

    Vance as well as researchers and experts on the pro-natalist movement also argue that immigrants can’t provide a long-term fix to the decline in birth rates. He has separately blamed immigrants for crime and creating “inter-ethnic conflict.”

    Demographers and other experts for years had predicted declining fertility rates would pose challenges for the Social Security system as fewer workers are supporting a growing aging population.

    Tech executives such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who donated millions for Vance’s primary race, have also been vocal about the decline in birth rates.

    “We as a nation, as a society, policymakers can’t be neutral on the question of family,” said Oren Cass, who founded a conservative think tank, American Compass, that is closely aligned with the senator.

    Cass, a former policy adviser for U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, said he has known Vance for a decade and partnered on several events but said he was not speaking on behalf of the vice presidential nominee. He criticized how progressives have celebrated what he described as a culture of “you do you” and “all choices are equally valid,” when he considered the work of forming a family and raising children an “indispensable foundation” for the country.

    “That’s not to say, obviously, that you mandate or criminalize the alternative, but it is to say that we shouldn’t be neutral about it,” he said.

    Vance on the defense

    Vance’s views on birth rates have contributed to his rocky rollout as Trump’s running mate. Democrats went from labeling Trump and his Republican allies as a collective “threat to democracy” to calling both men “weird,” a strategy that coincided with Vance’s comments coming to light.

    Other unlikely critics have also piled on. Trump-backing influencer Dave Portnoy said Vance “sounds like a moron.” Former Republican congressman Trey Gowdy tried unsuccessfully to force an apology out of Vance for his denigrating of childless women on his Fox News show, introducing him with a story about a pair of Catholic nuns he met at an airport.

    Actress Jennifer Aniston, who has been open about her fertility issues, weighed in by saying she hopes Vance’s daughter does not face the same problems and she “truly can’t believe that this is coming from a potential VP of the United States.” Vance responded by calling her Instagram reaction “disgusting.”

    Trump has come to his defense, accusing Democrats of spinning things and expressing empathy for people who don’t get married or have children and are “every bit as good.”

    “He likes family. I think a lot of people like family. And sometimes it doesn’t work out,” Trump said in one interview. “But you’re just as good, in many cases a lot better than a person that’s in a family situation.”

    Vance’s wife has also tried to do some damage control, saying Vance was not referring to those who struggle with fertility or can’t get pregnant for medical reasons, though the ideas he proposes don’t make that distinction.

    “The reality is he made a quip in service of making a point he wanted to make that was substantive,” Usha Vance told an interviewer on “Fox and Friends.”

    Can Vance advance this?

    Wilcox, the author of “Get Married,” said JD Vance now needs to focus on convincing a broader audience that his ideas are worth pursuing.

    “The challenge for JD Vance is taking that attention and translating it into more of a concrete policy agenda that would be compelling to ordinary Americans and articulating a clear and positive agenda around making family formation both more affordable and more appealing,” Wilcox said.

    Supporters at a recent Trump rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, shrugged off Vance’s assertion that parents should have more of a vote than childless adults and expressed complicated feelings about his views.

    Kenneth “Nemo” Niemann, 70, said Vance might be speaking figuratively about giving parents more votes. His wife, Carol, 65, disagreed, saying Vance has been crystal clear that that is exactly what he means.

    The Niemanns had children later in life — their twins are 16 — and they spent far more of their adult lives as childless adults. And while they talked about how adults with children can have more to say when it comes to policies affecting children or they can have a different worldview about the future than childless adults, they still disagreed with Vance.

    “My sister never had children, but I can’t imagine my vote means more than hers,” Carol Niemann said.

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    Associated Press writers Michelle R. Smith in Providence, Rhode Island, Mike Schneider in Orlando and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as well as Associated Press researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York, contributed to this report.

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  • Japan’s birth rate falls to a record low as the number of marriages also drops

    Japan’s birth rate falls to a record low as the number of marriages also drops

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    TOKYO — Japan’s birth rate fell to a new low for the eighth straight year in 2023, according to Health Ministry data released on Wednesday. A government official described the situation as critical and urged authorities to do everything they can to reverse the trend.

    The data underscores Japan’s long-standing issues of a rapidly aging and shrinking population, which has serious implications for the country’s economy and national security — especially against the backdrop of China’s increasingly assertive presence in the region.

    According to the latest statistics, Japan’s fertility rate — the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime — stood at 1.2 last year. The 727,277 babies born in Japan in 2023 were down 5.6% from the previous year, the ministry said — the lowest since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899.

    Separately, the data shows that the number of marriages fell by 6% to 474,717 last year, something authorities say is a key reason for the declining birth rate. In the predominantly traditional Japanese society, out-of-wedlock births are rare as people prize family values.

    Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters that it’s “a critical situation.” The next six years, until the 2030s, will be “the last chance for us to possibly reverse the trend,” he said.

    Hayashi noted economic instability, difficulties in balancing work and childrearing and other complex factors as main reasons why young people have a hard time deciding to get married or raise children.

    The data was released as Japan’s parliament on Wednesday approved a revision to laws designed to beef up financial support for childrearing parents or those expecting babies, as well as to widen access to childcare services and expand parental leave benefits. The government earmarked 5.3 trillion yen ($34 billion) as part of the 2024 budget for this, and is expected to spend 3.6 trillion yen ($23 billion) in tax money annually over the next three years.

    Experts say the measures are largely meant for married couples who plan to have or who already have children, and are not addressing a growing number of young people reluctant to get married.

    Takahide Kiuchi, an executive economist at Nomura Research Institute, said the measures fall short of addressing the problem.

    “Simple economic measures such as increase of subsidies are not going to resolve the serious problem of declining births,” Kiuchi wrote in an analysis report, adding that a conservative mindset espousing traditional gender roles at home and at the workplace also needs to change.

    Surveys show that younger Japanese are increasingly reluctant to marry or have children, discouraged by bleak job prospects, the high cost of living — which rises at a faster pace than salaries — and a gender-biased corporate culture that adds an extra burden only on women and working mothers.

    Japan’s population of more than 125 million people is projected to fall by about 30%, to 87 million by 2070, with four out of every 10 people 65 years of age or older.

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  • US births fell last year, marking an end to the late pandemic rebound, experts say

    US births fell last year, marking an end to the late pandemic rebound, experts say

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    NEW YORK — U.S. births fell last year, resuming a long national slide.

    A little under 3.6 million babies were born in 2023, according to provisional statistics released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s about 76,000 fewer than the year before and the lowest one-year tally since 1979.

    U.S. births were slipping for more than a decade before COVID-19 hit, then dropped 4% from 2019 to 2020. They ticked up for two straight years after that, an increase experts attributed, in part, to pregnancies that couples had put off amid the pandemic’s early days.

    But “the 2023 numbers seem to indicate that bump is over and we’re back to the trends we were in before,” said Nicholas Mark, a University of Wisconsin researcher who studies how social policy and other factors influence health and fertility.

    Birth rates have long been falling for teenagers and younger women, but rising for women in their 30s and 40s — a reflection of women pursuing education and careers before trying to start families, experts say. But last year, birth rates fell for all women younger than 40, and were flat for women in their 40s.

    Mark called that development surprising and said “there’s some evidence that not just postponement is going on.”

    Rates fell across almost all racial and ethnic groups.

    The numbers released Thursday are based on more than 99.9% of the birth certificates filed in 2023, but they are provisional and the final birth count can change as they are finalized. For example, the provisional 2022 birth count appeared to show a dip, but ended up being higher than 2021’s tally when the analysis was completed.

    There could be an adjustment to the 2023 data, but it won’t be enough to erase the “sizeable” decline seen in the provisional numbers, said the CDC’s Brady Hamilton, the new report’s first author.

    Experts have wondered how births might be affected by the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed states to ban or restrict abortion. Experts estimate that nearly half of pregnancies are unintended, so limits to abortion access could affect the number of births.

    The new report indicates that the decision didn’t lead to a national increase in births, but the researchers didn’t analyze birth trends in individual states or dissect data among all demographic groups.

    The new data does raise the possibility of an impact on teens. The U.S. teen birth rate has been falling decades, but the decline has been less dramatic in recent years, and the drop seems to have stopped for teen girls ages 15 to 17.

    “That could be Dobbs,” said Dr. John Santelli, a Columbia University professor of population and family health and pediatrics. Or it could be related to changes in sex education or access to contraception, he added.

    Whatever the case, the flattening of birth rates for high school students is worrisome and indicates that “whatever we’re doing for kids in middle and high school is faltering,” Santelli said.

    More findings from the report:

    —From 2022 to 2023, the provisional number of births fell 5% for American Indian and Alaska Native women, 4% for Black women, 3% for white women and 2% for Asian American women. Births rose 1% for Hispanic women.

    —The percentage of babies born preterm held about steady.

    —The cesarean section birth rate rose again, to 32.4% of births. Some experts worry that C-sections are done more often than medically necessary.

    —The U.S. was once among only a few developed countries with a fertility rate that ensured each generation had enough children to replace itself — about 2.1 kids per woman. But it’s been sliding, and in 2023 dropped to about 1.6, the lowest rate on record.

    Surveys suggest many U.S. couples would prefer to have two or more kids but see housing, job security and the cost of child care as significant obstacles to having more children.

    “There’s something getting in the way of them being able to achieve those goals,” Mark said.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Abortion returns to the spotlight in Italy 46 years after it was legalized

    Abortion returns to the spotlight in Italy 46 years after it was legalized

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    ROME — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s far-right-led government wants to allow anti-abortion groups access to women considering ending their pregnancies, reviving tensions around abortion in Italy 46 years after it was legalized in the overwhelmingly Catholic country.

    The Senate on Tuesday was voting on legislation tied to European Union COVID-19 recovery funds that includes an amendment sponsored by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party. The text, already passed by the lower Chamber of Deputies, allows regions to permit groups “with a qualified experience supporting motherhood” to have access to public support centers where women considering abortions go to receive counseling.

    For the right, the amendment merely fulfills the original intent of the 1978 law legalizing abortion, known as Law 194, which includes provisions to prevent the procedure and support motherhood.

    For the left-wing opposition, the amendment marks a chipping away of abortion rights that opponents warned would follow Meloni’s 2022 election.

    “The government should realize that they keep saying they absolutely do not want to boycott or touch Law 194, but the truth is that the right-wing opposes women’s reproductive autonomy, fears women’s choices regarding motherhood, sexuality, and abortion,” Cecilia D’Elia, a Democratic Party senator, said at a protest this week against the legislation.

    Under the 1978 law, Italy allows abortion on request in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, or later if a woman’s health or life is endangered. It provides for publicly funded counseling centers to advise pregnant women of their rights and services offered if they want to terminate the pregnancies.

    But easy access to abortion isn’t always guaranteed. The law allows health care personnel to register as conscientious objectors and refuse to perform abortions, and many have, meaning women sometimes have to travel far to have the procedure.

    Meloni, who campaigned on a slogan of “God, fatherland and family,” has insisted she won’t roll back the 1978 law and merely wants to implement it fully. But she has also prioritized encouraging women to have babies to reverse Italy’s demographic crisis.

    Italy’s birthrate, already one of the lowest in the world, has been falling steadily for about 15 years and reached a record low last year with 379,000 babies born. Meloni’s conservative forces, backed strongly by the Vatican, have mounted a campaign to encourage at least 500,000 births annually by 2033, a rate that demographers say is necessary to prevent the economy from collapsing under the weight of Italy’s aging population.

    Meloni has called the left-wing opposition to the proposed amendment “fake news,” recalling that Law 194 provides for measures to prevent abortions, which would include counselling pregnant women about alternatives. The amendment specifically allows anti-abortion groups, or groups “supporting motherhood,” to be among the volunteer groups that can work in the counseling centers.

    “I think we have to guarantee a free choice,” Meloni said recently. “And to guarantee a free choice you have to have all information and opportunities available. And that’s what the Law 194 provides.”

    The new tensions over abortion in Italy come against the backdrop of developments elsewhere in Europe going somewhat in the opposite direction. France marked International Women’s Day by inscribing the guaranteed right to abortion into its constitution. Last year, overwhelmingly Catholic Malta voted to ease the strictest abortion laws in the EU. Polish lawmakers moved forward with proposals to lift a near-total ban on abortion enacted by the country’s previous right-wing government.

    At the same time, Italy’s left fears the country might go the way of the U.S., where states are restricting access after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down landmark legislation that had guaranteed access to abortion nationwide.

    Elly Schlein, head of Italy’s opposition Democratic Party, told a conference on women Tuesday that the country needs to establish an obligatory percentage of doctors willing to perform abortions in public hospitals, “otherwise these rights remain on paper only.”

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  • Legal Medical Marijuana Leads To More Sex

    Legal Medical Marijuana Leads To More Sex

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    Living in a state with legal medical marijuana could mean you’re more likely to have sex, according to a study published in the Journal of Health Economics. On the surface, it might appear like a resoundingly positive finding. But researchers warn that such behavior comes with some drawbacks.

    Previous studies have demonstrated some connection between cannabis use and increased sexual activity. A 2017 study found that daily marijuana users experience 20% more sex than those who have never used cannabis. But this more recent study is among the first to focus on medical marijuana legislation and what impact that has on state residents.

    RELATED: What Is Your Marijuana Use Doing To Your Penis?

    To better understand the correlation, researchers examined states that legalized medical cannabis between 2005 and 2014. Then, they analyzed how the implementation of these laws affected sexual frequency and fertility among people in their 20s and 30. “We find that [medical marijuana laws] cause an increase in sexual activity,” the researchers concluded.

    Photo by Bloomberg Creative/Getty Images

    But the study also found medical marijuana laws lowered contraceptive use, which led to higher birth rates. More specifically, states with new medical marijuana laws saw a mean increase of 2%, translating into 333 more births per quarter. One blind spot in the study, says David Simon, co-author of the study and assistant economics at the University of Connecticut, is that researchers couldn’t determine whether these individuals were trying to get pregnant or if they just forgot to use contraception.

    “On one hand, more of these births occur to non-married partners and we find suggestive evidence of a temporary increase in gonorrhea following the passage of medical marijuana laws,” Simon told Yahoo Lifestyle. “This is consistent with a story of ‘impaired judgement.’”

    RELATED: Is It True That Marijuana Really Makes You Horny?

    However, he added, “it is also possible some of these births are due to decreases in chronic pain and increased life satisfaction.”

    Researchers also noted with the introduction of medical marijuana comes new products aimed at improving sexual wellness. Experts have split opinions on whether cannabis is a sexual aid, with some analysts pointing to high-CBD strains as increasing libido and sexual satisfaction more consistently than high-THC strains. Another study concluded cannabis resulted in higher sex drives in both men and women, while also enhancing orgasms for both sexes.

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    Brendan Bures

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  • Cesarean deliveries surge in Puerto Rico, reaching a record rate in the US territory, report says

    Cesarean deliveries surge in Puerto Rico, reaching a record rate in the US territory, report says

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    SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Cesareans are surging in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, which has one of the world’s highest rates with more than 50% of babies now delivered via surgery compared with only 32% on the U.S. mainland, according to a federal report released Wednesday.

    The rates of cesarean delivery on the island increased from 2018 to 2022 for each age group younger than 40 after remaining stable for nearly a decade, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    The report did not provide an explanation, but medical experts in Puerto Rico say reasons behind the surge vary and include the island’s crumbling health care system.

    “In general, hospitals have limited personnel and few economic resources,” said Dr. Carlos Díaz Vélez, president of Puerto Rico’s Association of Surgical Doctors.

    As a result, ob-gyns prefer to schedule a cesarean to ensure they will have all the medical personnel required for a birth, he said.

    “They prefer it be organized than improvised,” Díaz said. “It guarantees security.”

    More than a dozen delivery rooms have closed across Puerto Rico in the past decade because of doctors moving to the U.S. mainland and a record drop in births, with only 17,772 births reported last year. That’s the lowest since record keeping began in the late 1880s.

    Díaz said a spate of lawsuits against Puerto Rican ob-gyns in the previous decade that he described as “frivolous” also have prompted doctors to schedule cesareans to reduce risks.

    Women also prefer cesareans for aesthetic reasons or to avoid pain, since epidurals in Puerto Rico are routinely not covered by insurance companies, said Dr. Annette Pérez-Delboy, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist who specializes in high-risk pregnancies and previously worked in New York.

    “In Puerto Rico, women are afraid of vaginal birth,” she said.

    Pérez-Delboy coincided with Díaz that a lack of medical personnel also has contributed to a rise in cesareans. In addition, she noted that in vitro fertilizations have increased, leading to more twins being conceived, which leads to more cesareans to avoid risky births.

    Pérez-Delboy also said that up-and-coming doctors are not well-versed in using forceps or vacuums, and as a result opt for cesareans to avoid legal action.

    “For a doctor in Puerto Rico, it is better to do a cesarean section, since it pays more, you have it on time, it has less risk of litigation and the mother leaves happier,” she said, adding that doctors and patients are aware that vaginal births are better. “Everyone knows it, and everyone understands it, but you have to put yourself in the shoes of these doctors.”

    In recent years, cesarean deliveries in Puerto Rico increased by more than 10% in three of six municipalities that reported at least 1,000 births, according to the CDC report.

    The biggest increase occurred in mothers younger than 20, jumping from 37% to more than 42%, according to the report.

    Puerto Rico’s Health Department has said that more than half of all cesareans performed on the island were not medically justified, and that nearly 80% of women who underwent the surgery never presented risk factors.

    Heidi Anne Vera, a 47-year-old mother of two, is one of the few women who had a cesarean for medical reasons.

    “It was an emergency,” she said. “It was not planned.”

    She had worked with a doula and prepared to give birth at home, but her son was not in the correct position and her blood pressure began to spike.

    “That’s when we decided to go to a doctor,” she said.

    The World Health Organization recommends a cesarean rate of between 10% to 15%, noting that the average rate for the Americas is nearly 40%. Once the rate surpasses 10%, there is no evidence that mortality rates improve, according to the agency.

    “The sustained, unprecedented rise in caesarean section rates is a major public health concern,” the organization said in a 2018 report.

    Cesareans are considered a safe procedure, but the WHO noted that any surgery carries risks, and that cesareans could affect future pregnancies or put someone’s life at risk if performed in a place with limited resources.

    The organization said that factors contributing to the rise in cesareans are complex, adding that some of the most common reasons are fear of pain, the convenience of scheduling a birth and the perception that cesareans are less traumatic for a baby.

    For the U.S. as a whole, the cesarean delivery rate is much lower but also has been rising. After generally declining from 2009 to 2019, it inched up for three straight years, accounting for 32.2% of births in 2022, up slightly from 32.1% the year before.

    Data for 2023 has not yet been released.

    ___

    AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

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  • Singapore’s birth rate is falling and ‘throwing money’ at the problem won’t solve it

    Singapore’s birth rate is falling and ‘throwing money’ at the problem won’t solve it

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    Data from the Institute of Policy Studies showed that women aged 20 to 24 are now less likely to give birth than women aged 35 to 39.

    Mai Yo | Klaud9 | Getty Images

    SINGAPORE — Almost two decades ago, Loh and her husband made a decision not to have children.

    Today, 17 years later, the two of them are convinced they made the right choice.

    “I may feel differently when I’m on my deathbed and have to die alone, but at the moment, the choice seems right to us,” said the 46-year-old who works in the tech industry.

    Loh, who did not want to give her full name, is not alone.

    Singapore’s birth rate hit a record low in 2022, after years of decline.

    Live births last year plummeted by 7.9%, to usly expensive it is to live in Singapore, and the high cost of living that continues to steer many away from expanding their family, analysts told CNBC.

    Having a child is tied to many things — the affordability of a house, a spouse, and the maturity of the job market that makes you feel secure enough to do it.

    Jaya Dass

    Asia-Pacific managing director, Ranstad

    Birth rates increased slightly in 2022 to 1.12 from 1.1 the year before when people stayed home during Covid and had more children.

    Still, fertility trends have shown women are also choosing to have children later in life, or not at all.

    Data from Singapore-based think tank Institute of Policy Studies showed that women between the ages of 20 and 24 are now less likely to give birth than women between 35 to 39 years old.

    “Having a child is tied to many things — the affordability of a house, a spouse, and the maturity of the job market that makes you feel secure enough to do it,” Jaya Dass, Ranstad’s Asia-Pacific managing director.

    “The attractiveness of wanting to have a child has actually reduced significantly because of how life has matured and changed,” Dass said.

    Money isn’t the solution

    Already grappling with an aging population, Singapore is also facing one of the world’s lowest fertility rates, prompting the government to dole out incentives and “bonuses” to encourage people to have children.

    Couples with babies born from Feb. 14 will receive 11,000 Singapore dollars ($8,000) each for their first and second child, and S$13,000 for their third child and beyond — that’s a 30% to 37% jump from before.

    Women in Singapore are choosing to have children later in life, or not at all.

    D3sign | Moment | Getty Images

    Government-paid paternity leave was doubled, increasing from two to four weeks for fathers of babies born from 2024. 

    Although there are a slew of government policies aimed at encouraging more couples to have children, “throwing money” at the problem will not solve it, said Wen Wei Tan, analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

    “Tackling the fertility rate will require us to confront some of the weakness of the underlying systems … Which means not only addressing demographic challenges, but also helping to build social cohesion, and perhaps look at how we can foster healthier attitudes towards risk taking,” EIU’s Tan said.

    Most expensive city

    In 2022, the EIU ranked Singapore as the most expensive city to live in, sharing the top spot with New York City. 

    Owning a home together is also a challenge for young couples. 

    House prices in the city-state continue to rise rapidly, increasing by 7.5% year-on-year in June 2023, CEIC data showed. 

    Public housing apartments — known locally as HDB flats — are in high demand but supply is not catching up, said Tan from the EIU.

    Construction came to a standstill during the pandemic, as labor shortages and the high cost of raw materials delayed housing projects, and couples had to wait twice as long for their apartments, causing some to marry later.

    This, however, is just one part of the problem, as there are many other costs associated with raising children in Singapore, according to Mu Zheng, assistant professor at the department of sociology and anthropology at the National University of Singapore.

    “There is a sense of instability is dragging people further away from having children,” Zheng told CNBC.

    Working mothers

    The high cost of living in Singapore is leading to more couples with two incomes and no kids —  sometimes referred to as Dinks, a slang for “dual income, no kids.”

    That is also due to a mindset change and more couples being willing to put their career ahead of marriage and having kids. 

    “Once women have children, they’re going to see a slowdown in their career progression. Many make the decision to wait till they feel secure and stable in their jobs so there won’t serious threat to their income if they take time away from work,”  Tan said.

    More couples are willing to put their career ahead of marriage and having kids.

    Carlina Teteris | Moment | Getty Images

    Delaying marriage means people may get more opportunities to pursue higher education, leading some to be more selective and have greater expectations of their future partners, said Dass. 

    In 2022, 36.2% of residents who were 25 years and above had a university degree — that’s compared to 25.7% a decade ago.

    However, Dass highlighted that this is not necessarily a bad thing because “the minute education and literacy increases among women, their ability to come into the workforce and contribute to the economy increases.” 

    Shrinking labor force

    A declining birth rate, coupled with an aging population, will have repercussions on Singapore’s labor force. 

    “Having fewer children means you have a smaller workforce that can contribute to the economy. And with Singapore’s high life expectancy, the dependency ratio will increase,” said EIU’s Tan. 

    Singapore’s population is ageing rapidly and 1 in 4 Singaporeans will be over 65 years old by 2030.

    Jayk7 | Moment | Getty Images

    Tan warned that a shrinking workforce could hurt the government’s tax revenues and exacerbate the problem, especially when coupled with the challenges of an aging population.

    “You’re collecting less money from a smaller workforce. So the government has less fiscal resources to channel to economic purposes that the country might need,” Tan said, citing examples of upgrading infrastructure and investing in research and development. 

    “So it’s more taxes for those in the workforce, and more financial burden to care for the elderly. And if one gets married and has children, there are more financial considerations at play.”

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  • Immigration drove white, Asian population growth in US last year

    Immigration drove white, Asian population growth in US last year

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    Without immigration, the white population in the U.S. would have declined last year.

    Immigration also propelled the expansion of the Asian population, which was the fastest-growing race or ethnic group last year in the U.S., while births outpacing deaths helped propel growth in Hispanic, Black, tribal and Hawaiian populations.

    Population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau show what drove changes in different race, ethnic and age groups last year, as well as since the start of COVID-19′s spread in the U.S. in April 2020. The country had grown to 333.2 million people by the middle of last year, a 0.4% increase over the previous year, according to the 2022 population estimates.

    For white residents in the U.S., immigration drove the expansion. Without it, the white population, including those who identify as more than one race, would have dropped last year by more than 85,000 people instead of growing meagerly by more than 388,000 residents, or 0.1%.

    When the focus is narrowed to white people who aren’t Hispanic and identify only with a single race, there was a decline of more than 668,000 people in the white population since the number of immigrants couldn’t overcome the steep drop in natural decrease that came from deaths outnumbering births last year.

    Population growth is propelled in two ways: through immigration and natural increase, when births outpace deaths. The data released Thursday speak to the complexity of the nation’s ever-shifting population patterns and reinforce a level of nuance not always reflected amid the political debate over immigration.

    “Immigrant and refugee communities bring talent, culture and a set of skills that are needed in our community,” said Arrey Obenson, president and CEO of the International Institute of St. Louis, which helps newcomers adapt to life in the U.S.

    Since the start of the pandemic in April 2020, the white population has grown by 391,000 people, all of it driven by immigration.

    Hamdullah Hamdard immigrated to St. Louis in September 2021 from Afghanistan, where he had run a media production company, after threats from the Taliban and deteriorating conditions made it unsafe for his wife, son, brothers and parents. He started a production company in St. Louis, runs a news outlet for the local Afghan community and is a communications manager for the International Institute of St. Louis.

    “I could start my own business once again, and I could pursue the dreams that I had in Afghanistan,” Hamdard, 31, said Wednesday.

    The United States last year had 260.5 million people who identified as white, including those who identify as more than one race. Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, had the biggest jump in the white population of any county, gaining more than 35,000 new white residents last year. Arizona’s largest county also had the biggest gain in the overall population of any U.S. county, with a jump in 2022 of almost 57,000 new residents due to domestic migration.

    Immigration also drove Asian growth last year, accounting for two-thirds of the 577,000-person increase in people who identify as Asian, including those who identify with more than one race. That 2.4% bump was the largest of any race or ethnic group, and there were 24.6 million Asians in the U.S. last year.

    King County, Washington — home to Seattle — added almost 21,500 Asian residents, the most of any U.S. county last year.

    The Hispanic population in the U.S. grew by more than 1 million people last year, the biggest jump in pure numbers of any race or ethnic group. Two-thirds of that expansion was driven by natural increase, or births outpacing deaths. More than 63.3 million people identified as Hispanic last year, a 1.7% increase over the previous year.

    The biggest Hispanic growth in pure numbers was in Harris County, Texas, home to Houston, which added almost 35,000 Latinos last year.

    Natural increase also drove almost two-thirds of the 436,000-person jump in the Black population last year, a 0.9% increase from the previous year. The Black population stood at 50 million residents in 2022. Harris County, Texas, had the largest numeric gain of Black residents of any U.S. county, with almost 23,000 residents.

    The American Indian and Alaska Native population stood at 7.2 million residents last year, an increase of more than 93,000 people, or 1.3%. Maricopa County, Arizona had the biggest numeric gain, with more than 3,100 new residents.

    There were more than 1.7 million Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders in the U.S. last year, an increase of 1.2% over the previous year. Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas, had the biggest increase, with almost 1,500 new residents.

    The median age in the U.S. last year increased 0.2 years to 38.9 years between 2021 and 2022, fueled by aging baby boomers and millennials getting older. Sumter County, Florida, home to a large retirement community, had the highest median age in the U.S. at 68.1.

    “Without a rapidly growing young population, the U.S. median age will likely continue its slow but steady rise,” said Kristie Wilder, a Census Bureau demographer.

    ___

    Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at @MikeSchneiderAP

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  • US births in 2022 didn’t return to pre-pandemic levels

    US births in 2022 didn’t return to pre-pandemic levels

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    NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. births were flat last year, as the nation saw fewer babies born than it did before the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.

    Births to moms 35 and older continued to rise, with the highest rates in that age group since the 1960s. But those gains were offset by record-low birth rates to moms in their teens and early 20s, the CDC found. Its report is based on a review of more than 99% of birth certificates issued last year.

    A little under 3.7 million babies were born in the U.S. last year, about 3,000 fewer than the year before. Because the numbers are provisional and the change was small, officials consider births to have been “kind of level from the previous year,” said the CDC’s Brady Hamilton, the lead author of the report.

    U.S. births were declining for more than a decade before COVID-19 hit, then dropped a whopping 4% from 2019 to 2020. They ticked up about 1% in 2021, an increase experts attributed to pregnancies that couples had put off amid the early days of the pandemic.

    More findings from the report:

    — The highest birth rates continue to be see in women in their early 30s. The number of births for women that age was basically unchanged from the year before. Births were down slightly for women in their late 20s, who have the second-highest birth rate.

    — Births to Hispanic moms rose 6% last year and surpassed 25% of the U.S. total. Births to white moms fell 3%, but still accounted for 50% of births. Births to Black moms fell 1%, and were 14% of the total.

    — The cesarean section birth rate rose slightly, to 32.2% of births. That’s the highest it’s been since 2014. Some experts worry that C-sections are done more often than medically necessary.

    — The U.S. was once among only a few developed countries with a fertility rate that ensured each generation had enough children to replace itself — about 2.1 kids per woman. But it’s been sliding, and in 2020 dropped to about 1.6, the lowest rate on record. It rose slightly in 2021, to nearly 1.7, and stayed there last year.

    More complete and detailed 2022 numbers are expected later this year. That data should offer a better understanding of what happened in individual states and among different racial and ethnic groups, Hamilton said.

    It also may show whether births were affected by the U.S. Supreme Court decision last June overturning Roe v. Wade, which allowed states to ban or restrict abortion. Experts estimate that nearly half of pregnancies are unintended, so limits to abortion access could affect the number of births.

    If such restrictions are having an affect on births, it didn’t show up in the national data released Thursday.

    It’s possible the abortion restrictions will lead to higher births rates in 2023 — more likely among younger women than older moms, said Ushma Upadhyay, a reproductive health researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. But even if there is a rise, it may not bring the nation back to pre-pandemic birth levels, given other trends, she added.

    “I don’t know if we’ll ever get back there,” she said.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • UN: By month’s end, India population to be world’s largest

    UN: By month’s end, India population to be world’s largest

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    NEW DELHI — India will be the world’s most populous country by the end of this month, eclipsing an aging China, the United Nations said Monday. The milestone raises questions about whether India can repeat the economic success that has made China central to the world’s economy and a leading global power.

    The news comes at a moment when India is promoting itself as a rising international player as the host of this year’s G20 Summit. It’s also becoming a more attractive destination for multinational companies seeking to reduce their reliance on China.

    By the end of April, India’s population is expected to reach 1.425 billion, which means it will match and then surpass mainland China’s, the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs said in a news release. The forecast is based on their latest estimates of global population.

    It’s not clear exactly when India’s population will pass China’s. It may have already have done so. Demographers say the limits of population data make it impossible to calculate a date.

    Another U.N. report last week projected that India would have 2.9 million people more than China by mid-year, but that was based on snapshots of the populations at the beginning of the year and the middle of the year. Monday’s announcement is based on an analysis that tried to estimate when the population crossover will take place.

    The Indian government, which hasn’t done a census since 2011, has not officially commented on the estimates. The timing of when India surpasses China in population will likely be revised once India conducts its next census, John Wilmoth, director of the United Nations’ population division, said at a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York.

    “The precise timing of this crossover isn’t known, and it will never be known,” Wilmoth said. “There is uncertainty in the data.”

    India and China are neighbors and have a complicated relationship, including robust trade ties and a long-running border dispute. The United States and its allies increasingly see India, the world’s largest democracy, as a counterweight to China.

    But their interests don’t always align. India, unlike much of the West, has refrained from condemning its Cold War ally Russia over its war in Ukraine, instead adopting a neutral stance even as India’s purchases of Russian crude have soared.

    Observers say India’s sheer size, and its young population, give it the potential to replicate China’s economic trajectory.

    Young workers who flooded into China’s cities to take factory jobs starting in the 1990s were an essential ingredient in the boom that saw China become the world’s second-largest economy.

    But China’s population peaked in 2022 and has since started to fall. By the close of the century, its population could drop below 1 billion, the U.N. said. The country’s elderly population is swelling while its birth rate is still plunging, from 1.7 babies per woman in 2017 to 1.2 in 2022, according to U.N. data.

    By contrast, India has the world’s largest young population, a higher fertility rate, and has seen a consistent decrease in infant mortality. Experts caution against alarm about overpopulation, however, as the country’s fertility rate has been steadily falling, from over five births per woman in the 1960s, to two in 2022. India’s population is expected to stop growing and stabilize around 2064.

    “The main driver is the levels of fertility in these two countries,” Wilmoth said.

    Historic reforms in the 1990s spurred spectacular growth and India’s $3 trillion economy is the fifth-largest in the world today as its high-skilled sectors have soared.

    But India’s economy is still far behind China’s. In 1970, the two countries had nearly equal per capita incomes, but today China’s gross domestic product is $12,556 per person, compared to India’s $2,256, according to 2021 World Bank data.

    Economists warn that even as India’s GDP has surged, so has joblessness. About 80% of Indian workers still toil in informal jobs, which are often precarious, low paid, and offer little to no benefits. Still, India stands to benefit from what is referred to as a “demographic dividend,” when the swelling of the working-age population spurs rapid economic growth, provided there’s strong participation in the labor force, Wilmoth said.

    India’s vast population also means that many challenges play out on a huge scale, whether it’s grappling with the growing threat of climate change, disparities between its urban and rural populations, a shrinking number of women in the workforce or a widening religious divide.

    “For this century to belong to India, it must make the most of its demographic advantage,” said Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic affairs at the Centre for Policy Research. “China’s demographic crisis is timely for India’s growth — but only if it can find enough good quality employment for its teeming youth.”

    ___

    McDonald reported from Beijing. AP writer Mike Schneider in Orlando, Florida, contributed to this report.

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  • UN: By month’s end, India population to be world’s largest

    UN: By month’s end, India population to be world’s largest

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    NEW DELHI — India will be the world’s most populous country by the end of this month, eclipsing an aging China, the United Nations said Monday. The milestone raises questions about whether India can repeat the economic success that has made China central to the world’s economy and a leading global power.

    The news comes at a moment when India is promoting itself as a rising international player as the host of this year’s G20 Summit. It’s also becoming a more attractive destination for multinational companies seeking to reduce their reliance on China.

    By the end of April, India’s population is expected to reach 1.425 billion, which means it will match and then surpass mainland China’s, the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs said in a press release. The forecast is based on their latest estimates of global population.

    It’s not clear exactly when India’s population will pass China’s. It may have already have done so. Demographers say the limits of population data make it impossible to calculate a date. Another U.N. report last week projected that India would have 2.9 million people more than China by mid-year. The Indian government, which hasn’t done a census since 2011, has not officially commented on the estimates.

    India and China are neighbors and have a complicated relationship, including robust trade ties and a long-running border dispute. The United States and its allies increasingly see India, the world’s largest democracy, as a counterweight to China.

    But their interests don’t always align. India, unlike much of the West, has refrained from condemning its Cold War ally Russia over its war in Ukraine, instead adopting a neutral stance even as India’s purchases of Russian crude have soared.

    Observers say India’s sheer size, and its young population, give it the potential to replicate China’s economic trajectory.

    Young workers who flooded into China’s cities to take factory jobs starting in the 1990s were an essential ingredient in the boom that saw China become the world’s second-largest economy.

    But China’s population peaked in 2022 and has since started to fall. By the close of the century, its population could drop below 1 billion, the U.N. said. The country’s elderly population is swelling while its birth rate is still plunging, from 1.7 babies per woman in 2017 to 1.2 in 2022, according to U.N. data.

    By contrast, India has the world’s largest young population, a higher fertility rate, and has seen a consistent decrease in infant mortality. Experts caution against alarm about overpopulation, however, as the country’s fertility rate has been steadily falling, from over five births per woman in the 1960s, to two in 2022.

    Historic reforms in the 1990s spurred spectacular growth and India’s $3 trillion economy is the fifth largest in the world today as its high-skilled sectors have soared.

    But India’s economy is still far behind China’s. In 1970, the two countries had nearly equal per capita incomes, but today China’s gross domestic product is $12,556 per person, compared to India’s $2,256, according to 2021 World Bank data.

    Economists warn that even as India’s GDP has surged, so has joblessness. About 80% of Indian workers still toil in informal jobs, which are often precarious, low paid, and offer little to no benefits.

    The country’s vast population also means that many challenges play out on a huge scale, whether it’s grappling with the growing threat of climate change, disparities between its urban and rural populations, a shrinking number of women in the workforce, or a widening religious divide.

    “For this century to belong to India, it must make the most of its demographic advantage,” said Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic affairs at the Centre for Policy Research. “China’s demographic crisis is timely for India’s growth — but only if it can find enough good quality employment for its teeming youth.”

    ___

    McDonald reported from Beijing.

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  • When exactly will India surpass China as most populous?

    When exactly will India surpass China as most populous?

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    India will surpass China‘s population this month. Or maybe in July. Or, perhaps it’s happened already?

    Demographers are unsure exactly when India will take the title as the most populous nation in the world because they’re relying on estimates to make their best guess. But they know it’s going to happen soon, if it hasn’t occurred by now.

    China has had the most people in the world since at least 1950, the year United Nations population data began. Both China and India have more than 1.4 billion people, and combined they make up more than a third of the world’s 8 billion people.

    “Actually, there is no way we can know exactly when India will surpass China,” said Bruno Schoumaker, a demographer at Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium. “There is some uncertainty, not only about India’s population, but also China’s population.”

    STILL, WHEN IS IT HAPPENING?

    Mathematical calculations from a range of surveys, as well as birth and death records, project that India will overtake China sometime in the middle of April. But demographers warn that it should be taken with a grain of salt since the numbers are fuzzy and could be revised.

    “It’s a crude approximation, a best guess,” said Patrick Gerland, chief of the population estimates and projections section at the U.N. in New York.

    Not long ago, India wasn’t expected to become most populous until later this decade. But the timing has been sped up by a drop in China’s fertility rate, with families having fewer children.

    HOW IS IT CALCULATED?

    Demographers at the U.N. Population Division make estimates based on projections from a wide variety of data sources to get what they believe are the most up-to-date demographic numbers. The last update to the data used for these calculations for both India and China was July 2022, said Sara Hertog, a U.N. population affairs officer in New York.

    The demographers then use a statistical technique to infer when India’s population has surpassed that of China, according to Stuart Gietel-Basten, a professor at Khalifa University of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi.

    “The reality, of course, is that these estimates are just that,” Gietel-Basten said. “But at least they are based on a relatively solid and consistent methodology.”

    WHERE DO THE NUMBERS COME FROM?

    The foundations of both nations’ numbers are censuses, or head counts, conducted every decade.

    China’s last census was in 2020. Demographers used birth and death records, along with other administrative data, to calculate how the population has grown since then.

    India’s last census was in 2011. Its scheduled 2021 census was postponed by COVID-19. Without an actual door-to-door count for more than a decade, sample surveys have filled in the gaps to help demographers and India itself understand its population, said Alok Vajpeyi of the New Delhi-based non-government organization, Population Foundation of India.

    Among the most important is the Sample Registration System, India’s large-scale demographic survey that gathers data on such things as births, deaths, fertility and more.

    Andrea Wojnar, the United Nations Population Fund’s representative for India, said the agency is confident in the survey’s numbers “because it uses a very robust methodology.”

    WHY IS INDIA MOVING AHEAD?

    China has an aging population with stagnant growth even after the government seven years ago retreated from a one-child policy, and just two years ago said couples could have three children.

    India has a much younger population, a higher fertility rate and a decrease in infant mortality over the last three decades.

    India has more babies born each year than in any other country, while China has joined many European countries in having more deaths each year than births, said Dudley Poston, Jr., an emeritus professor of sociology at Texas A&M University.

    WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

    There’s more than bragging rights at stake over which nation is the world’s most populous — there are social and economic consequences. In India, that means a growing labor force and growth that sparks economic activity. In China, that means fewer working-age adults able to support an aging population.

    Once a country hits a low fertility level, it’s often hard to recover population growth, even with changes in government policy to encourage more births, said Toshiko Kaneda, technical director of demographic research at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington.

    “Psychologically, it will be tough for China, especially given the rivalry in other areas between the two countries,” Gietel-Basten said. “It is a big moment in human history as the baton is passed to India.”

    ___

    Arasu reported from Bengaluru, India. Schneider reported from Orlando, Florida.

    ____

    Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at @MikeSchneiderAP

    Follow Sibi Arasu on Twitter at @sibi123

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  • A look at how the largest US counties gained or lost people

    A look at how the largest US counties gained or lost people

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    Several large, urban counties across the United States gained residents or stemmed population declines in the year ending last July after losing residents in the previous 12-month period amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s population estimates released Thursday.

    Population change is driven by migration, both within the U.S. as people move around inside the country, and from international trends as people arrive from abroad. It also depends on whether births outpace deaths, or vice versa.

    Here’s a look at what drove population change in the 10 largest U.S. counties from July 1, 2021 to July 1, 2022.

    LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA — The most populous county in the nation lost more than 90,000 residents last year and now has a population of 9.7 million people. Los Angeles County gained almost 34,000 residents from abroad and another 18,000 people from births outpacing deaths. But it wasn’t enough to offset the almost 143,000 residents who left for another county. The loss from Angelenos moving elsewhere was 20% smaller than a year earlier.

    COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS — Home to Chicago, the nation’s second-largest county lost more than 68,000 residents last year. Residents of the Windy City and neighboring communities moved away to the tune of 94,000 residents. Unlike other major urban counties, Cook County’s population loss from people moving away wasn’t much smaller than the previous year. It was the fifth-most popular destination for people arriving from other countries. The county had 5.1 million residents last July.

    HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS — The county of 4.7 million residents which encompasses Houston had the nation’s second-largest population gain at 45,000 new residents, although 20,000 residents left for elsewhere. The gain was powered by one of the nation’s highest levels of migration from abroad and natural increases.

    MARICOPA COUNTY, ARIZONA — The biggest domestic migration boom was in the county that’s home to Phoenix. Coupled with strong international migration and natural increase, Maricopa County grew by almost 57,000 new residents and now has a population of 4.5 million people.

    SAN DIEGO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA — Even though San Diego County gained only 1,254 new residents, it was a reversal from the 11,000-person decline a year earlier. The drop in the number of residents leaving, combined with robust international migration as well as births outpacing deaths, brought the county to around 3.2 million residents.

    ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA — The coastal county south of Los Angeles that’s home to Anaheim and Disneyland lost almost 10,000 residents, but it was a smaller decline than the previous 12-month period due to a jump in international migration. It had a population of 3.1 million residents.

    MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA — The county gained only 3,416 new residents last year, but it was an about-face from the nearly 30,000-person drop a year earlier. Miami-Dade continued to hemorrhage residents but that loss was overcome by the nation’s biggest influx of international migration. It had almost 2.7 million residents.

    DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS — The county of 2.6 million people gained almost 13,000 new residents after losing almost twice that amount in the previous period. Robust international migration and births outpacing deaths helped it overcome the departure of 20,000 residents.

    KINGS COUNTY, NEW YORK — The county which encompasses Brooklyn lost almost 47,000 people but the decline was almost half the size of the previous period. The county of 2.5 million residents had robust natural increase and a respectable amount of international migration, but more than 77,000 residents left.

    ___

    Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at @MikeSchneiderAP

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  • China records 1st population fall in decades as births drop

    China records 1st population fall in decades as births drop

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    BEIJING — China has announced its first population decline in decades as what has been the world’s most populous nation ages and its birthrate plunges.

    The National Bureau of Statistics reported Tuesday that the country had 850,000 fewer people at the end of 2022 than the previous year. The tally includes only the population of mainland China, excluding Hong Kong and Macao as well as foreign residents.

    That left a total of 1.41 billion people, with 9.56 million births against 10.41 million deaths, the bureau said at a briefing on Tuesday.

    Men outnumbered women by 722.06 million to 689.69 million, a result of the strict one-child policy that only officially ended in 2016 and a traditional preference for male offspring to carry on the family name.

    Since abandoning the policy, China has sought to encourage families to have second or even third children, with little success, reflecting attitudes in much of east Asia where birth rates have fallen precipitously. In China, the expense of raising children in cities is often cited as a cause.

    China has long been the world’s most populous nation, but is expected to soon be overtaken by India, if it has not already. Estimates put India’s population at more than 1.4 billion and continuing to grow.

    The last time China is believed to have recorded a population decline was during the Great Leap Forward at the end of the 1950s, under then-leader Mao Zedong’s disastrous drive for collective farming and industrialization that produced a massive famine killing tens of millions of people.

    Yi Fuxian, an expert on Chinese population trends at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tweeted that the data reflected how China’s population began to decline nine to 10 years earlier than projections by Chinese officials and the United Nations.

    That means that China’s “real demographic crisis is beyond imagination and that all of China’s past … policies were based on faulty demographic data,” Yi wrote.

    “China’s demographic and economic outlook is much bleaker than expected,” he added, predicting that China would have to take a less combative tone internationally and improve is relations with the West.

    China’s statistics bureau said the working-age population between 16 and 59 years old totaled 875.56 million, accounting for 62.0% of the national population, while those aged 65 and older totaled 209.78 million, accounting for 14.9% of the total.

    The statistics also showed increasing urbanization in a country that traditionally had been largely rural. Over 2022, the permanent urban population increased by 6.46 million to reach 920.71 million, or 65.22%, while the rural population fell by 7.31 million.

    It wasn’t immediately clear if the population figures have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak that was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan before spreading around the world. China has been accused by some specialists of underreporting deaths from the virus by blaming them on underlying conditions, but no estimates of the actual number have been published.

    The United Nations estimated last year that the world’s population reached 8 billion on Nov. 15 and that India will replace China as the world’s most populous nation in 2023.

    In a report released on World Population Day, the U.N. also said global population growth fell below 1% in 2020 for the first time since 1950.

    Also Tuesday, the bureau released data showing China’s economic growth fell to its second-lowest level in at least four decades last year under pressure from anti-virus controls and a real estate slump.

    The world’s No. 2 economy grew by 3% in 2022, less than half of the previous year’s 8.1%, the data showed.

    That was the second-lowest annual rate since at least the 1970s, after the drop to 2.4% in 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, although activity is reviving after restrictions that kept millions of people at home and sparked protests were lifted.

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  • Polish leader blames low birthrate on women using alcohol

    Polish leader blames low birthrate on women using alcohol

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    WARSAW, Poland — A women’s rights group in Poland on Monday urged people to demonstrate after the country’s ruling party leader claimed that Poland’s low birthrate is partly caused by young women drinking too much alcohol.

    Opposition politicians, activists and celebrities accused Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a 73-year-old bachelor, of being out of touch. They also argue that Kaczynski, the most powerful politician in Poland since 2015, is himself partly responsible for the the low birthrate in the central European nation of 38 million people.

    In particular, critics point to increased restrictions on abortion that have discouraged some women from seeking to get pregnant. Others note the difficulty that young people have in raising families amid inflation that is reaching nearly 18%.

    A women’s rights group voiced fury at Kaczynski’s comment and urged people to protest in front of Kaczynski’s Warsaw home on Nov. 28, the 104th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in Poland.

    “The cretinous words of an old geezer about Polish women that women do not give birth to children because they drink (and not because Poland is hell), this is only a fragment of our reality,” the Women’s Strike wrote Monday on Facebook.

    The group said there were many reasons for country’s low birthrate, including Poland’s de facto prohibition of abortion, a lack of access to sexual education and in vitro procedures, inflation, a housing shortage and a lack of access to day care centers.

    Kaczynski, leader of the populist ruling party, Law and Justice, spoke Saturday about the demographic challenges of “far too few children” being born as he rallied support for his party ahead of next year’s parliamentary election.

    “And here it is sometimes necessary to say a little openly, some bitter things. If, for example, the situation remains such that, until the age of 25, girls, young women, drink the same amount as their peers, there will be no children,” Kaczynski said.

    He claimed, without any medical proof, that to develop alcoholism, the average man “has to drink excessively for 20 years” but “a woman only two.”

    “I am really a sincere supporter of women’s equality, but I am not a supporter of women pretending to be men, and men pretending to be women,” Kaczynski said.

    The remark also triggered predictable jokes along the lines of alcohol being helpful to conception.

    The traditionally Roman Catholic country already had one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws, with abortions allowed in very few cases, before 2020. Then, a new ruling said that women may no long terminate pregnancies in cases where the fetus has serious abnormalities and is not viable after birth.

    That sparked the largest protests in Poland in decades, which were led by Women’s Strike. There have since been cases of pregnant women dying even though a risk to the woman’s life remains a legal grounds for abortion under the current law. Women’s rights advocates say such cases occur because doctors are afraid to terminate pregnancies even when the woman’s life might be at risk, fearing legal consequences.

    The number of births per woman in Poland has plummeted from 3 children per woman in 1960 to 1.2 in 2003, according to the World Bank.

    It began rising again somewhat after 2003, and got a boost after Kaczynski’s government introduced a monthly cash benefit of 500 zlotys ($108) per child after winning power in 2015, hoping to encourage larger families.

    But the birthrate is again declining and Kaczynski admitted last month the program isn’t working as intended. The birthrate stood at 1.32 children per woman in 2021, according to Polish state statistics.

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