Teens are now joining the ranks of women who are waiting to have children—which could actually cause a problem.
Texas State demographer Lloyd Potter said it's good that less teenagers are having children because that improves their continuing education and socioeconomic status. But, it's problematic when women aren't having enough children to repopulate the earth.
“If you look at a lot of countries that have low fertility, they don’t have enough labor, so they’re having to then import labor from other countries,” said Potter.
The UT-San Antonio professor said declining fertility is good...up to a certain point...because women are able to finish their education and get better paying jobs. However, in the long term, too low is bad economically.
“We have a potentially growing labor force-which is important to fuel a growing economy. If we don’t have that, then we’re more dependent on immigrant labor,” said Potter.
He said having "healthy" fertility...that's slightly above replacement fertility...is most desirable.
The only group having fewer children than teens—was women ages 40 to 44.