Feb 032013
With the fertility rate hovering below replacement level, Americans are depending on foreign countries to supply new, um, Americans, just like Apple making cell phones in China, right? Even Americans aren’t made in America any more.
Which leaves us with outsourcing our fertility. We’ve received a massive influx of immigrants from south of the border since the late 1970s. Immigration has kept America from careening over the demographic cliff. Today, there are roughly 38 million people in the U.S. who were born elsewhere. (Two-thirds of them are here legally.) To put that in perspective, consider that just four million babies are born annually in the U.S.