hoops902
Senior Associate
Joined: Dec 22, 2010 13:21:29 GMT -5
Posts: 11,978
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Post by hoops902 on Aug 17, 2015 9:55:42 GMT -5
Whether it's increasing over time or not, the number would have to be 100% for the eventual number not to be higher than the current number. If 59% of a group has a kid right NOW, the number of that group who will eventually have a kid MUST be over 59%...unless no women in that group have a child who don't currently have one (which seems unlikely given a good portion of that group is well below the normative age for having kids in this country).
That's not to say that in 100 years the actual % might not be lower than 59% of all women having children, but that's not what is being measured. What is being measured is the current population of women. The only way it's NOT higher than 59% cumulatively is if all childless women remain childless.
Not necessarily. You have women aging into the range, and women aging out. As the number of childless women has increased 12% for this statistic since 2008, then why hasn't it decreased as more women have had children? Because we aren't measuring how many women have kids right NOW, we're measuring how many women would have kids over their lifetime. The total % of this single measured population might be moving downwards in terms of how many will have kids compared to previous measured populations, but the % can never be lower than 59% for this population of people, because 59% already have kids.
If I have 100 people in front of me, and 59 of them a quarter when we start...the number of people in that population who will have a quarter when an hour is up will be at least 59, it can never be lower than that. The number can only stay the same or go higher.
You seem to be arguing whether the 59% number will change over time as the population changes...it likely will change in some form or another. That 59% number is irrelevant in reality, it's only a measure of who has kids at this very moment, not anything to do with how many women will have kids over their lifetime. In fact, the number of women who have kids in their lifetime could stay constant (let's say 80%), and the 59% who have kids now could fluctuate wildly. If everyone starts having kids at age 16 that number would skyrocket, if everyone waits to have kids until they're 40 that number would plummet...all while the 80% could remain constant since the 59% is both a measure of how many women are having kids, but also of the timing of when those women first become mothers.
For this particular population being measure though (which is not the age range, the population is the specific group of women in that range when it was measured), the number can never go down. Once you're in the category of "they have had a child" you can't go back again (even if some new mothers wish they could to gain some needed sleep).
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