The NY Post on Monday sounded the alarm on the city’s birth rate, which, according to the paper, is the lowest since 1936.
The numbers are truly troubling: half the city’s babies belong to foreign-born moms, mostly Asians; almost 6 out of every 10 mothers are on Medicaid; and some 40 percent of all new mothers are unwed.
In that gloomy scene, one group shines through with a robust birthrate and a sound family structure–you guessed it, Orthodox Jews. In fact, Borough Park, one of the city’s half dozen bastions of Orthodox Jewish life, was dubbed by the Post “easily the city’s baby capital,” with a birth rate of 27.9 per 1,000 residents. A whopping (and hopping) 5,458 babies were born in Borough Park in 2013, kein ein hora.
Upper middle class Bayside, Queens, received the dubious honor of having the city’s lowest birthrate: 652 babies in 2013, 5.5 per 1,000.
“Our community is making up for the rest of the city,” grandfather of six and also Borough Park Assemblyman Dov Hikind told the Post, adding, “In our community, having children is fundamental. They are our most precious resource.”
The richest and the poorest New Yorkers apparently share the lowest birthrate citywide, with 55 percent of African American women opting for abortions. 2013 saw only 12.7 babies per 1,000 in the black community.
One upside to this sad state of promulgation is that fact that the city’s teen birthrate has dropped a full 10 percent from 2012 to 2013, marking a 37.6 percent decline since 2004.