Demographic Winter
Interesting and rather alarming article over at First Things by Steven W. Mosher about the collapse of birth rates around the world - the article is written in the form of an argument between Mosher and a lefty who insists that the concerns about the brith rate are actually just racists worried there aren’t enough white babies being born, but as Mosher points out, the demographic winter is spreading rapidly around the globe:
The unprecedented fall in fertility rates that began in postwar Europe has, in the decades since, spread to every corner of the globe.
Take Latin America, for example. The image of the loving Mexican mamacita surrounded by a passel of barefoot children remains scratched on the minds of Americans, even when it has largely vanished in the dusty pueblos of Mexico itself. Government-enforced sterilization campaigns, along with simple modernity, have dramatically shrunk family size south of the border in recent years. When I speak to American audiences, they are invariably surprised to learn that the average young Mexican family now numbers no more children than its American counterpart.
But Central and South American countries, too, are seeing their birthrates fall. Most Latin American countries are now rapidly approaching replacement rate fertility, if they are not already there, according to the United Nations Population Division (UNPD). Women in Brazil, the largest South American country, currently average only 2.3 children. The inhabitants of Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile are even less fertile.
Across the Pacific, China has become a byword for forced-pace population control. Since the early eighties, Chinese women have been allowed an average of only 1.7 children, a birthrate so low that by 2020 China’s median age will be older than that of the United States.
India’s de facto two-child policy is neither as well known nor as brutal as China’s. But this policy, in conjunction with simple modernity, has effectively brought the fertility rate down to about 2.8 or so. India is projected to reach replacement rate fertility in a decade or so.
The voluntary childlessness of the Japanese exceeds even the forced-pace population reduction of China’s one-child policy. With a total fertility rate of only 1.25, Japan is on the brink of a major demographic meltdown. Its population of 127 million has stopped growing and—if the birthrate continues at this low level—will soon begin to shrink at an alarming pace. A population bust, like an explosion, proceeds in geometric progression.
The old-age tsunami that is about to hit Japan will not spare other Asian countries. The Four Tigers—Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore—are already getting long in the tooth.
Wherever we turn in the world, we see the same general picture. The only seeming exception is Sub-Saharan Africa, where birthrates are still fairly robust. But Africa has another problem: It languishes in the grip of an HIV/AIDS pandemic, which is sending some nations, such as South Africa, into absolute population decline.
The latest forecasts by the UNPD show the number of people in the world shrinking by mid-century, that is, before today’s young adults reach retirement age. I am speaking here of the UNDP’s “low variant” projections—historically the most accurate—which show that the population of the world will continue to creep up until about the year 2040, peaking at around 7.6 billion people. This is only a fraction more—one-sixth or so–than the 6.5 billion that the planet supports at present. Then the global population implosion, slow at first, but accelerating over time, begins. We fall back to current levels by 2082 and then shrink to under five billion by the turn of the next century.
I first took note of this around the year 2000 - when I came across the “low variant” projection and noted that the global population in 2150 could be 3 billion people, less than 50% of what it is today. From what I understand, the “low variant” revolves around whether or not birth rates will continue to fall at their current rate - and since that time, I’ve seen no indicators of a reversal of the demographic trends. In short, the “low variant” does seem to be the way things are going - though we must always keep in mind that things may change.
But, of course, things won’t change just by accident - it took a consistent effort by governments and pressure groups to bring us to this condition, and it will take a similar effort to swing things the other way. In my view, we live in a pretty wrecked world - a century or more of leftwing influences have entirely destroyed the basis for civilization; and not just our civilization, but all civilization. That we still have a semblance of civilization is akin to the way the Romans had civilization in the late 4th century - only because the final crash hadn’t happened, yet.
We’ve bought a lot of lies over the past century - that we can in the normal course of events engage in uncommitted sexual liasons; that we can in the normal course of events divorce for the most trivial of reasons; that we can in the normal course of events consume massive amounts of pornography; that we can in the normal course of events use abortion and birth control to decouple sex from its procreative aspect; that we can in the normal course of events farm out the raising of children to day care and public schools…the net result of all this lying to ourselves is what you see in front of you: random school shootings; massive illegitimacy, serial divorce when people even bother to marry…and, most devastating, the lack of willingness to produce the next generation. And, by the way, how do I plead? Guilty - I bought the lie, too.
We can rebuild our world and reclaim our civilization from the ruins - but for us to do so, it will take a conscious decision on our part to stop lying to oursleves, and to start acting like real men and real women.
21 comments March 14th, 2008
