Oh, baby! Look how your ranks grow

Make way for babies. The sound of lullabies and nursery rhymes is abroadin the land.

What culture watchers are calling a "fertility boom" has pushed US births to their highest level in almost 30 years. Women now average 2.1 children over a lifetime, according to a new government report. During most of the 1970s and 1980s, they gave birth to fewer than two children, on average.

As the pitter-patter of little feet echoes across the country, demographers, politicians, employers, and marketers are weighing the implications of this increase. Births topped the 4 million mark in 2000 for the first time in eight years.

Some of the growth stems from a prolonged economic boom. Immigration also plays a role: For Hispanic women, the total fertility rate is 3.1. Births to unmarried mothers, which account for more than one-third of all births, went up 3 percent in 2000, mostly among women in their 20s.

In addition, women in their 30s and 40s who had delayed childbearing are catching up. Equally significant, observers see a marked change in attitudes toward children and families among so-called Generation Xers, those in their 20s and early 30s. This could portend long-term changes in birth rates.

"Young professional women are saying very clearly that they want to have children," says Laraine Zappert, author of "Getting It Right," a book about working mothers. "There's far less embarrassment than there was five or 10 years ago about saying, 'I really want to have kids.' They're asking, 'How do I fit my career around having children?' as opposed to 'How do I fit children around my career?' "

Unlike baby boomers, who had been willing to postpone childbearing or make family sacrifices for careers, Gen-X women expect to achieve success without making the same domestic trade-offs, says J. Walker Smith, president of Yankelovich Partners, a market research firm.

Higher birth rates inevitably trigger speculation that women are going to leave their jobs. But workplace consultants insist that this will not happen.

"Despite the fact that we all know somebody who left the workplace, the statistical reality is that working mothers are here to stay," says Arlene Johnson of WFD Consulting in Watertown, Mass. What women will do, she adds, is reduce their hours when their children are very young.

Ms. Johnson calls the rise in birth rates an important business issue. If the birth rate continues to increase, it will "shine the spotlight on any deficiencies in child care," Johnson says. It will also serve as a clarion call to create more high-quality part-timework. Typically, she notes, part-time positions involve some kind of underemployment.

Low-income mothers who need part-time work face an even greater challenge, Johnson says, because they often hold dead-end jobs with no benefits.

As employers accommodate a growing cadre of parents with infants and young children, Smith anticipates more flexible schedules and more at-home work.

"Baby-boom women fought the battle for day care, and for a way to be at the office and not have to worry about family priorities," he says. "Gen-Xers will have to fight the battle to work at home."

Marketers, too, will need to pay attention to the family-related needs of new Gen-X parents during the next decade. These new households are important, Smith notes, because couples buy such big-ticket items as houses and second cars.

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