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NEW YORK (AP) — When the economy tanks, women have fewer babies. But what happens in the following years, when conditions improve?
A new study suggests that for some U.S. women, experiencing a recession in their early 20s can mean they will never have children.
Researchers based that on tracking childbirth patterns among some 18 million women who were born in the U.S. between 1961 and 1970. The women were followed up to age 40.
The study projects that because of the deep recession that ended five years ago, about 151,000 American women may never have kids. But that's just a tiny fraction of the young women who faced the recession in their early 20s.
The work was released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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