A crisis is unfolding in the diaper industry, notes a new report from CNN.
Because the U.S. birth rate is plummeting, the international diaper sector is slumping, and it is widely expected to be the “normal for the foreseeable future.” Sales of Pampers and Huggies disposable diapers and training pants plunged six percent in 2018 and four percent in 2017.
The major suppliers – Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Kimberly-Clark (KC) – are already reacting.
Earlier this year, KC announced it was laying off 13 percent of its workforce and shutting down 10 manufacturing plants as part of cost-cutting measures.
You can blame the lack of children being born. From LifeNews:
“The latest official estimate—taken from two-year-old data—puts the U.S. fertility rate at 1.84. In other words, the average American woman will have just under two children in her lifetime. This is well below the replacement rate, or the average number of children necessary to keep a country’s population from declining.
But as Stone argues, this estimate is already hopelessly out-of-date. Using monthly birth data from 2016 and 2017, he suggests the birth rate in America has plummeted to somewhere near 1.77 births on average.
Millennials—who right now are in their prime childbearing years—are the ones mainly driving this downhill trend. Not only are they getting married at lower rates than their parents did, but they’re having fewer children total. Many struggle to find stable work, are too focused on their careers, and find themselves saddled with college debt. Others just don’t like kids, or vastly overestimate the cost of raising them, or just think the world is overpopulated—a myth now thoroughly debunked, by the way.
Whatever the reason, young adults are choosing to keep their nests mostly empty. And this is bad news for our economy, our culture, and our future as a nation.”
It makes sense that many young adults are choosing not to have children. It can be an expensive endeavor to raise children in today’s world – it can cost about $1,000 to buy diapers in a child’s first year (imagine having twins!). Plus society is turning into something from a Brave New World – men are becoming women, pedophilia seems to becoming acceptable, and drag queens are reading children’s stories in schools and libraries.
That said, it is definitely worthwhile to have children. They bring so much joy and happiness.
With our open borders and 1.5 million legal immigrations each year, should negate this low birth rate problem.