When I was starting college, in 1968, “The Population Bomb,” written by Paul Ehrlich, predicted “worldwide famines” due to overpopulation, as well as other major societal upheavals, and advocated immediate action to limit population growth. In 1968, the world population was approximately 3.5 billion. Today it is 7.8 billion. I remember feeling anxious about how all the people of the world were going to be fed, housed, and even survive. The doomsday predictions have failed to materialize, but something else is now happening.
We are facing a Population Bust.
He number 2.2 is important. It is the “replacement rate,” the number of children, on average, a woman needs to produce to keep the population stable at the current level. Another term for this is “fertility rate.” There are many countries around the globe where this is not happening, not even close. In the U.S., the rate is currently 1.62, having fallen back from a brief uptick during the “pandemic baby boomlet.” The U.S. population is augmented by immigration, which is apparently the reason our population is not falling.
In other countries, the situation is even more dire. South Korea has the lowest rate (0.72) in the world. Japan’s replacement rate reached a historic low of 1.26 and has not budged in seven years. Their Prime Minister at the time, Fumio Kishida, said, in 2023, that they are “standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society. ” Their aging populations face daunting problems, including who will care for their senior citizens, who will pay the taxes to guarantee their retirement, and who will work in their businesses and manufacturing plants. These questions plague any nation facing reproductive annihilation. Initially, this population bust was more rapid in the developed countries, but it is spreading to the rest of the developing world as well. Fertility is now below the replacement rate in India. In that country there are many poor, and many women don’t work outside the home. These are usually factors which encourage fertility. China finally cancelled its one-baby policy, which turned out to be a disaster. “The demographic winter is coming,” according to Jesus Fernandez- Villaverde, an economist specializing in demographics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Why is this happening? There is no simple answer. Are the numbers falling due to social, financial, or biologic reasons? These are just a few of the factors that might explain the phenomenon of declining population. We have all observed the delay in childbearing in the U.S. According to the Pew Research Center, the average age of first-time motherhood was 27.3 in 2021, up from 25.6 in 2011. Families with more than two children are now uncommon. My wife, a registered nurse, was in the market in the early 1980s, shopping with our four children. She was chastised by a stranger in the produce department, who asked if she knew “where they came from.” The cost of raising children is substantial, factoring in food, housing, medical care, education, entertainment, etc. Many prospective parents are still single, and living with their parents, who are desperately wishing their adult son or daughter would meet someone, get married, and produce some grandchildren. As an aside, dogs have become the new surrogate children and grandchildren. Delaying parenthood for reasons such as getting a college degree, paying off student loans, and establishing a home, seems almost inevitable in modern times.
The Issue of Fertility
Even if a couple establishes a stable relationship and wants to have children, can they actually conceive and deliver a baby? Have they started too late? Sperm counts are falling in men, and the ability to conceive drops off with age among women. There is reason to believe that the covid pandemic and the vaccines given, have exacerbated the fertility decline. The infertility business is booming for various reasons. Conception is more difficult with higher maternal age and lower sperm counts. Couples are spending large amounts of money attempting medically assisted pregnancy and for the advice of specialists in high risk pregnancy, which sometimes is the result.
What are the social and political consequences of a falling birth rate? France was once a homogenous nation, with people who we would think of as “French.” What is the population of France like now? It is rapidly becoming a Muslim nation. They are experiencing immigration from the countries they had colonized. The consequences include police no-go zones, social disruption, and mosques replacing cathedrals. An entire French culture is being erased and replaced. This is happening all over Western Europe. Some Eastern European countries are less likely to have open borders, and they are fighting the EU over their fences and more restrictive border policies.
In the U.S., we are (or at least were) witnessing the intentional abandonment of our southern border and the normal process for naturalization of foreigners wanting to move here. Whether the immigrants want to assimilate is unclear, and the conflict between the native born and the immigrant population increases by the year. “The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam,” was written by Douglas Murray in 2017. The Amazon review sums it up: "bestselling account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide… Declining birth rate, mass immigration, and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves, and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive alteration, as a society, and an eventual end.” The fact that the world is changing at a breathtaking rate is obvious to anyone who has eyes and ears. Ask anyone who has visited Europe lately.
A new factor exacerbating the decline in the population of the world is those who died of Covid, as well as the “excess mortality,” that has persisted in many countries. The nations most heavily vaxed are at the top of the excess mortality list. We should have seen a return to pre-Covid death rates after Covid became the more benign Omicron variant, and those who had died disappeared from the reported death rate. The persisting higher death rates in a population is called “excess mortality.” Ed Dowd reports on insurance companies seeing unusually high claims for death and disability benefits in a group of people once thought of as a good risk for the insurance companies. His book, “Cause Unknown” The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022,” spells all this out. The fact that mRNA covid vaccines have caused injury, death, and ongoing disability, is becoming steadily more obvious.
Political Forces Accelerating the Demise of Humanity
One thing to consider is looking at those who have stated that there are just too many of us, and review their plans to reduce the population down to what they think is ideal. Bill Gates and the WEF (World Economic Forum) come to mind. In a TED talk, Bill Gates said “The world today has 6.8 billion people, that’s headed up to about 9 billion. If we do a really great job on new vaccines, healthcare, reproductive health services, we could lower that by 10-15%.”
Many countries have used financial incentives to encourage having children. Hungary is guaranteeing no income tax for life for women under 30 who have a child. To quote a recent article in The Wall Street Journal on this subject, “The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation found little evidence that pronatal policies lead to sustained rebounds in fertility.” An article was just reported by John Stonestreet in Breakpoint Daily. The story is “The Fertility of the Religious.” He references a piece by sociologist Lyman Stone at the Institute for Family Studies. He reports that “total fertility among Americans who attend religious services weekly has never dropped below replacement for long and has increased in recent years. Active participation in church, or another faith community, is strongly correlated with the decision to have more children than their secular neighbors.”
These are complex issues, and whether declining population is even a “problem” is debatable, depending on whom you ask. One thing for certain, the global replacement rate is headed into negative territory at a rate that has surprised nearly everyone.
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References Pew Research Center Key Facts about Moms in the US Schaeffer and Aragao Short Reads May 9, 2023
WSJ May 20, 2024, Suddenly There Aren’t Enough Babies. The Whole World is Alarmed
Anthony De Barros contributor
Colson Center for Christian Worldview Breakpoint Daily
Shane Morris at Breakboint.org
CNN.com South Korea’s birth rate is so low, the president wants to create a ministry to tackle it Yeung et al May 9, 2024
The Left in America is obsessed with population: either there are too many people (those who don't vote for them) or too few (illegal immigrants who might vote for them). But I don't think it's just population they want to control, but the number of families. That's what the Left really hates and wants to destroy through abortion, trans operations and putting people into “affordable” housing projects where “family” will mean the government that “takes care” of their health (through mandatory vaccines and manufactured food products) and education (indoctrination) and punishes and exiles any parent who objects.
Thank you, Dr. Aijian, for another fine article. I always enjoy reading you. I'd like to throw into the mix, that tandem with decreased birth rates in the West, the turning away from traditional marriage, the foundation for childrearing. We are two sexes for one primary reason: the propagating and rearing of offspring (over an extensive period of time for higher order mammals). There is now this trend either rejecting marriage, especially among women; or, grotesquely, the narcissistic belief that anyone can be a parent regardless of what is in the best interest of the child. That single question -- What is in the best interest of the child? --is left out, legislated out, of any consideration. Also meriting serious examination, the government's increasing role in childrearing. Is it really to a child's benefit to lower school entry to Pre-K? Many students are now deposited at school early morning where they are fed breakfast, remaining on campus until early evening with only the last few hours of the day with a parent or parents whose job is now relegated to tucking them into bed.