Are Birth Rates an Economic Casualty?

Here's a report from the Centers for Disease Control, observing the fairly significant decline in birth rates over the last few years (since 2007). Note the short-term time series chart at the bottom of the document. Is this a result of the recent financial downturn?



Here's a long-term chart of birth rates, which also shows periods of economic recession (thanks to www.calculatedriskblog.com ).



Digging deeper into the cause / correlation would make for an interesting student project.



- Rick