baby boom news stories on Newser

China Braces for Dragon-Year Baby Boom

Matt Cantor — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:44:05 CST

Babies born in the Chinese year of the dragon are believed to have lives marked by success and fortune—so China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other countries are expecting a baby boom to begin right around Jan. 23. That's the first day of the Chinese New Year, and this year...

'Rude' Fertility Chalk Giant Linked to Baby Boom

Mary Papenfuss — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:25:00 CDT

The outline of a naked "fertility" giant carved into the chalk of a steep English hillside is being linked to a baby boom in the surrounding community. Folklore has it that women who sleep somewhere on top of the 180-foot-long club-wielding Cerne Abbas giant—also known as the "Rude Man,...

Gores Exemplify the Rise of the Late-in-Life Divorce

Kevin Spak — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:30:00 CDT

The Gore divorce has marriage experts everywhere discussing it, and late-life divorce in general. Divorces like the Gores are bound to become more common, most agree, both because couples are living longer, and because of generational shifts in marital expectations. “Baby Boomers are part of the 'Me' Generation—what's better...

Social Security Faces Grim Forecast for 2010, 2011

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:40:24 CDT

Big job losses and a spike in early retirement claims from laid-off seniors will force Social Security to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes the next 2 years, the first time that's happened since the 1980s. The deficits—$10 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in...

Live With It: Retirement Must Shrink

Matt Cantor — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:13:35 CDT

With people living longer and having fewer children in developed countries, the population is aging even as the workforce shrinks. And with retirement ages in the 60s, retirees are living longer on pensions. Those demographic shifts make a policy shift inevitable: we’re all going to have to work longer, the...

Docs Prep for Hurricane Ike Baby 'Boomlet'

Matt Cantor — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:40:02 CDT

A Houston hospital is bracing for a baby boom due 9 months after Hurricane Ike cut power to the region for days, the Chronicle reports. “There’s about a 25% increase in the number of deliveries coming up in mid-June to mid-July,” said one doctor. Another physician is herself expecting. “You...

US Births Hit Record High

Nick McMaster — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:56:02 CDT

A record 4.31 million babies were born in the US in 2007, USA Today reports, topping the 4.30 million born in 1957, the height of the “baby boom”—although that year remains impressive because the overall population of the US was much smaller. Unmarried women bore 1.7...

House Mess Blocks Octuplet Homecoming

Mary Papenfuss — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:21:22 CDT

Octuplet mom Nadya Suleman has been given a list of work that must be done on her new four-bedroom home before her babies can leave the hospital, said disappointed inspectors from Kaiser Permanente, reports Radar. The news was a major setback for the hoped-for homecoming this week for two of...

Dutch Blackout Leads to Baby Boom

Ambreen Ali — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:50:12 CDT

A mini baby boom in the Netherlands has dark origins: The 44% jump in births in September came nine months after a 2-day blackout left most of the 24,000 residents of a small area in the eastern part of the country freezing. "They went to bed early to keep...