A Strongly Recommended Read.

In association with Birthrates below, I recommend you read Fran Porretto's piece Gender Wars: The Battle of the Bulge for another aspect on the topic of declining birthrates.

Excerpt:

No, you're not imagining the tone of disapproval in the above. Miss Hirshman definitely takes the Simone de Beauvoir attitude toward free choice: women who choose to be homemakers and mothers are choosing wrongly. By their free choices -- by opting for traditional women's roles rather than some alternative in the market economy -- they're helping to derail feminism. And the advance of feminism, we must remember, is what really counts, not the happiness of women or the well-being of their children.

That ought to pique your interest...