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Hawthorne Press Tribune
Herald Publications - Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Torrance & Manhattan Beach Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 - February 8, 2018
Sgt. Gabe Lira is Top Employee
During the most recent Hawthorne City Council meeting, Police Chief Robert Fager presented the January Employee of the Month Award to Sgt. Gabe Lira. Sgt. Lira joined the force in 1994 and has served
in a number of roles in the police department including patrol officer, school resource officer, narcotics K-9 handler for which he received recognition for sustained superiority award, SWAT team and
leader of the peer support team. Photo: City of Hawthorne
There Has Been a Bump in Motherhood
By Rob McCarthy
More women are having children, though
it’s too early to call it a baby boom, says
a new report about motherhood. And while
the bump in babies isn’t huge, it halts a
steady 20-year decline that had economists
and employers fretting.
The Pew Research Center compared
how many women by age 44 had become
mothers, using 2006 and 2016 data. What
they found dispelled the myth about a postrecession
“baby bust” -- the assumption that
couples and single women couldn’t afford
children after the financial collapse in 2008
that claimed jobs and homes. “Not only are
women more likely to be mothers than in
the past, but they are having more children,”
the Pew report found.
A sizable 86 percent of women by 2016
had become mothers -- higher than before
the crisis. Ten years before, 80 percent of
women had given birth by the time they
reached age 44, U.S. Census data showed. The
great majority of women bear children before
age 45, even though medical technology has
extended fertility.
Women of all ages are waiting longer to
have their kids, too. That includes what Pew
calls “never-married” mothers, a lifestyle
choice of 15 percent of American women.
Matrimony isn’t the barrier to motherhood it
once was either: Pew found that a majority
of women -- 55 percent -- who never wed
choose to become mothers. “This marks a
dramatic change from two decades earlier,
when roughly a third … of never-married
women in their early 40s had given birth,”
Pew researchers noted.
Motherhood rates have soared among
Caucasian never-married women in their
early 40s. In 2014, 37 percent were mothers,
compared with just 13 percent two decades
ago. Rates also ticked up among their
African-American counterparts: 75 percent
were mothers in 2014, compared with 69
percent in 1994.
Teens pregnancies are falling and women
are delaying having children until well into
their 20s, a change that is behind the drop
in U.S. fertility rates. In the mid-1990s, the
median age of women giving birth was 23.
Today, women aren’t becoming mothers until
age 26. They’re also putting off marriage
for school and careers.
Not only are more women deciding to
have children, but they’re having bigger
families, too. Three children is closer to
the norm now, compared to a decade ago
when family size was closer to two -- a
record low for the country. School districts
with declining enrollment could soon find
themselves adding classrooms and teachers.
New arrivals throughout Los Angeles
are being born at full term, too, and with
fewer premature complications, according
to another report from the University of
Southern California. Premature births and
low birth weights are leading causes of
infant death in the United States, according
the USC Children’s Data Network.
Infants born too early or too small are at
increased risk of serious long-term health
problems. Using the latest available data
from 2012, USC officials found that full-term
births barely exceeded 50 percent. Physicians,
clinics and social service agencies have
done a commendable job getting women
-- especially teens -- into prenatal care.
“Public health efforts to decrease preterm
births and improve birth weights appear to
be working,” the network said, crediting
programs and policies put in place to address
health pregnancies in the county since 2012.
Gains came between 2007 and 2012 when
more than half of the expectant mothers
countywide carried their babies to full term
more than half the time. Physician and
public health outreaches were credited with
raising the number of healthy deliveries by
teens -- 56.6 percent -- and women overall.
Fertility rates follow a healthy economy.
More babies now means more school kids
in the short term, plus more working adults
later to pay taxes and keep the nation’s
retirement safety net (Social Security)
properly funded •
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................5
Classifieds............................3
Film.........................................2
Finance..................................2
Food.......................................5
Hawthorne Happenings....3
Legals................................ 6-7
Looking Up......................... 6
Pets........................................8
Police Reports.....................3
Politically Speaking............4
Sports....................................4
Weekend
Forecast
Friday
Sunny
71˚/56˚
Saturday
Sunny
65˚/55˚
Sunday
Partly
Cloudy
68˚/54˚
The Weekly Newspaper of Hawthorne