Rapid Fertility Decline Is an Existential Crisis - "Few countries remain above replacement—except for those in sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia. Furthermore, fertility rates are declining more significantly and, importantly, at a faster pace than anyone anticipated a few years ago. This trend is evident in both wealthy and poor nations, in religious and secular states, in countries with right-wing governments, as well as those with left-wing governments, and in nations with free abortion access and those with restrictive abortion laws. Pick any country at random from a world map, and the chances are high that its fertility rate is falling rapidly. In the Americas, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, only Haiti, Honduras, Bolivia, Paraguay, and a handful of small Caribbean nations are on pace to exceed replacement levels in 2025—and only slightly. The region’s demographic giants—the US, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and Canada—are already significantly below replacement. Notably, as of early 2025, the US has a higher fertility rate than Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and Canada... Between 1991 and 2019, Japan’s GDP grew at an annual rate of 0.83%, significantly lower than the US rate of 2.53%. The main driver of their weak economic performance? Japan’s dramatic demographic collapse... The consequences of significantly slower output growth will be severe for the US economy. While we consider output growth per capita when assessing welfare (and output per capita growth will not decline as sharply as total output growth), total output growth is crucial for addressing the funding of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, servicing our public debt, and financing our armed forces in the face of increasing international competition. Once we begin to contemplate the fiscal implications of a declining population, it becomes difficult to focus on anything else. When I reach this point in seminars, lectures, or media interviews, I invariably receive three questions: climate change, immigration, and artificial intelligence... A stable or slowly declining population can help ease pressure on the environment and facilitate the transition to net-zero CO2 emissions. However, a collapsing population, like the ones we are likely to encounter given current fertility rates, will generate so many fiscal problems that there will be no room left in government budgets for environmental concerns... The US has a welfare state. This means that those individuals who are below 60th percentile or so of the income distribution are net receivers of funds from the government during their lifetime (i.e., the net present value of what they contribute less than what they receive later in life, like Social Security and Medicare), those between the 60th and 90th percentile are approximately net zero contributors, and only at the top 10th percentiles are net contributors. In other words, all immigrants that come to the US are below the 90th percentile and won’t help solve the fiscal woes created by low fertility. European countries that have the detailed databases required to compute these numbers carefully have found that not even the second-generation (i.e., the sons of immigrants born in the country) is a net contributor to the welfare state. We need to assess immigration policy based on various factors in addition to its fiscal implications. My argument is more modest: “If you think that raising the number of low- and middle-skill immigrants will solve the long-term fiscal issues facing the US, you are mistaken.”... This is Moravec’s Paradox: programming computers to perform tasks that most humans consider very difficult (e.g., advanced math) is much easier than programming them to carry out tasks that most humans find trivial (e.g., making a bed). Unfortunately, the problems we will face due to the falling population, such as the need for old-age care, require skills like making a bed and not doing advanced math. So, what can the US do to address the fertility crisis? This is the one-quadrillion-dollar question (yes, tackling fertility has an impact measured in discounted terms of quadrillions of dollars, not just small change like a miserly trillion dollars here or there)... Returning to the topic of climate change, many young people are deeply concerned that we face extinction due to this issue. While I share the concern about climate change, it’s not at the level of urgency of our fertility crisis: we have already developed the technologies needed to transition to net zero emissions. The current challenge lies mainly in political implementation. This will require effort and may lead to more damage to the planet than what an ideal policy would have caused, but I believe we will achieve this goal. The true economic challenge of our time, for humanity overall and the US specifically, is the fertility crisis. Let’s get to work on it—as soon as possible."
Thread by @MoreBirths on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "A recent study found that giving men a pay raise led them to have more children, while giving women a pay raise led them to have fewer children. 🧵.
For women, the effect of a pay raise was significantly reduced future fertility. A pay increase at 25 was associated with a large decrease in fertility at age 30, regardless of the skill level. For men, a pay increase was associated with persistently higher fertility. Why? The authors argue that "the substitution effect between children and labor supply is dominating for women while the income effect is dominating for men." Since childcare falls more on women, the competition between work and family is greater for women than for men. Policies which set out to combat pay disparities between men and women may therefore be inadvertently pushing fertility downward."
Nate Schlomann on X - "Civilization literally lives when you give men more money and dies when you give women more money. Literally. That's the Natural Law. And it is screaming at us."
Another disadvantage of equal pay
Thread by @cremieuxrecueil on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Wow! Across basically all of Europe, people at higher income levels are now *more likely* to become parents! This is a stunning shift! Among men, this relationship goes a while back now, and in several places, the income gradient has gotten more extreme. Among women, there are some recent crossover events, where the low-income used to be more likely parents than the rich, but now it's different. The authors' preferred explanation for this is that the cost to start childbearing has increased. That's unfortunate, but knowing that means it is at least addressable!"
'We Can’t Even Afford to Have Sex': China’s New Condom Tax Draws Ire | TIME - "The Chinese government is testing out a new solution to falling birth rates: making sex more expensive. Consumers will pay a 13% value-added tax on contraceptive drugs and products, including condoms, beginning Jan. 1, as part of China’s newly revised Value-Added Tax Law. Those products have been exempted from tax since 1993 as part of China’s one-child policy, which heavily penalized families for having more than one child from 1980 to 2015. As the country’s birth rate has fallen in recent years, the government has turned to seeking to boost birth rates with a range of incentives and subsidies... China remains one of the most expensive countries in the world to raise children relative to household income. A 2024 report from the YuWa Population Research Institute in Beijing found that the cost of raising a child until the age of 18 is more than 538,000 yuan ($76,000)... China has also introduced measures to curb the number of abortions not deemed “medically necessary,” as part of guidelines announced in 2021"
Meme - Way of the World @wayotworld: "While the West is dying out, its huge aid programmes are fuelling massive population growth in a continent that cannot even feed itself."
Civixplorer @civixplorer: "Nigeria currently has more births per year than all blue countries combined.
6.3 million births per year *Europe including Asian Russia*
7.5 million births per year *Nigeria*"
Thread by @cremieuxrecueil on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "About a decade ago, a theory emerged: If men do more of the housework and child care, fertility rates will rise! Men have been doing increasingly large shares of the housework and child care. Fertility is lower than ever. In fact, they're doing more in each generation, but fertility has continued to fall. The original claim, that men's household work would buoy fertility, was based on cross-sectional data that was inappropriately given a causal interpretation. The updated cross-sectional data is as useful, and it affords no assurances about the original idea. We should move on. Source:"
James Pethokoukis ⏩️⤴️ on X - "Since 2006, South Korea's government has spent $270bn, or just over 1% of GDP a year, on babymaking incentives. Here's the dismal result:"
ɖʀʊӄքǟ ӄʊռʟɛʏ 🇧🇹🇹🇩 on X - "Lee Kuan Yew on why Government Policies aimed at increasing the birth rate which pay people money to have children will fail “If I were in charge of Singapore today, I would introduce a baby bonus equal to two years' worth of the average Singaporean's salary. The sum would be enough to see the child through to the start of primary school at least. Would I expect the number of babies to increase substantially? No. I am convinced that even super-size monetary inducements would only have a marginal effect on fertility rates. But I would still go ahead and offer the bonus, for at least a year, just to prove beyond any doubt that our low birth rates have nothing to do with economic or financial factors, such as high cost of living or lack of government help for parents. They are instead the result of changed lifestyles and mindsets. … Once women are educated and have equal job opportunities, they no longer see their primary role as bearing children or taking care of the household. They want to be able to pursue their careers fully just as men have always been able to. They have very different expectations about whether or whom they should marry because they are financially independent. There is no turning back the clock, unless we want to stop educating women.”"
Clearly, they just didn't spend enough money
More Births on X - "An extraordinary relationship: The lower the share of households in a metro area that live in an apartment, the higher the birthrate will tend to be!"
Why left wingers want to force everyone to live in an apartment with a land tax
Thread by @lefineder on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - ""In 2007, Patriarch Ilia II of the Georgian Orthodox Church made a decision: facing a country with a declining population...the church leader announced that he would personally baptize and become godfather to any third-or-high Orthodox child born to a married couple in Georgia" This shifted the Country of Georgia to above-replacement fertility. The effect is concentrated on third or higher births."
Carl on X - "My big problem with this argument (that people don't have kids because kids are too expensive) is: On average, poor people have MORE kids than rich people! Explain that Mustache Man!"
More Births on X - "A stunning visual by demographer Philip Cohen. Nearly all countries that fell below replacement fertility are still stuck below 2.1 today. The only exceptions are Mongolia and Kazakhstan. What is it about 🇲🇳 and 🇰🇿? Both are purposefully pronatal and honor mothers of many kids."
Wilfred Reilly on X - "This is an obvious but rarely made point. It's not cost alone, or primarily, that is causing the fertility crisis: people had far more kids when incomes were much lower. The proximate cause is the use of "onanist alternatives" to having procreative sex - birth control, Plan B, for that matter pornography. But, a big reason for THAT is that motherhood is often considered low-status in developed countries: in an odd twist, both feminists and aggressive male executives CONSTANTLY attack housewives and good moms as "do nothings." Changing this, with an ~10 year campaign to emphasize the social value of motherhood, the fact that home management is a 40-50 hour a week job, the idea of the guys being involved fathers (!!!), etc would raise birth rates. This isn't theoretical - one of probably a dozen national examples appears below."
Meme - Paul Vanitas @Dr_Vanitas_: "Germans stopped having kids and are getting cats and dogs instead. Dogs now outnumber children < 10 years of age in Germany. I'm not judging; everyone should be free to choose the lifestyle they want for themselves, But my personal opinion is that this outcome is sad."
"Dogs now outnumber children < 10 years in Germany"
Freedomain - with Stefan Molyneux, MA on X - "Your ancestors lived in mud huts, and still had children."
Wilfred Reilly on X - "This is the basic problem with "kids are too relatively expensive." The claim doesn't even make sense. People aren't having kids because they get married at 33, and gibberish theories like "gentle parenting" make it an annoying pain in the ass."
Plus, poor people have more kids. But of course, expanding the state in terms of regulations and spending pushes the left wing agenda, so
'No-kids' holiday venue? Think again, says France - "While Paris is considered one of the most child-friendly cities in the world, more and more venues in France have been shunning children in an effort to shield customers from kids' unpredictable behaviour and noise. The government on Tuesday held a roundtable meeting with key industry players to discuss a trend that France's high commissioner for childhood, Sarah El Hairy, has said should end. Socialist senator Laurence Rossignol has introduced a bill that would make it illegal to ban children from venues in France. "Children are not a nuisance," said Rossignol, adding that the bill is aimed at promoting "a society that is open to children"... El Hairy said excluding children was infringing on their rights, putting pressure on their parents and dividing society. "There is a growing intolerance, and we must not allow it to take hold," El Hairy told broadcaster RTL. "We are pushing children and families out, and in a way, this is real violence," she added... In France, adult-only services are currently limited. According to estimates from a travel industry union, they represented around three percent of the market in 2024... the government's High Council for Family, Children and Age (HCFEA) warned about the lack of spaces for children, pointing to the "harmful consequences for their physical and mental health"."
John B. Holbein on X - "Do people who belong to right-wing political parties have more babies? This paper takes a look at this important question in Western Europe. In some places--like Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, and Spain, right-leaning people do have more babies than left-leaning. But in many other places, this pattern isn't present! Right and left-leaning people have similar number of babies. Fascinating!"
Felix Helberg on X - ""More than half the drop in America’s total fertility rate is explained by women under the age of 19 now having next to no children.""
‘One and done’: How Britain became a single-child nation - "having just one child is increasingly seen as an enviable choice rather than a consolation prize – and perhaps the best chance women today have of achieving that old adage of “having it all.” In a study of 35,000 Danes, parents of only children were found to be happier than anyone else, while European data showed that only 17 per cent of women moved to part-time work after one child, compared with more than 30 per cent of those with two. Indeed, many millennials are looking for a way to have children while retaining their social lives and careers – along with the time, money and freedom to travel, go to concerts, the theatre and out to dinner. Of course, this often also means staying in hugely expensive cities like London, where upgrading to a bigger home is all but impossible... A lack of grandparents living nearby also contributed to their decision. Millennials, more than any previous generation, are likely to live in a different part of the country from their parents. This not only means a lack of childcare support but can also make those first few destabilising months with a newborn feel incredibly isolating. Without the support networks older generations took for granted, the thought of a second child can feel impossible... For Stuart Gietel-Basten, a professor of social science at Hong Kong University who studies family size, this shift is also happening because couples are doing something relatively novel – asking themselves exactly why they are having children. “If the answer is about passing on genes or loving someone deeply, then these evolutionary or anthropological needs can easily be met by one child,” he says. “And nowadays, it is very rare for that child to die, so you can be confident you will have them for the rest of your life.”... “Most people I spoke to said they have the first baby for themselves and the subsequent baby for their existing child,” says Sandler. “But that premise is flawed, as there is no evidence that a child with siblings is better off.”"
The chart that shows Europe is doomed - "Clearly the rise of the smartphone and the transformation of social norms are part of the answer, but what is also apparent is that desired fertility in most European democracies is higher than the current fertility rate. In the UK, for example, surveys indicate the existence of a strong “birth gap” with women wanting on average 2.35 children rather than the 1.41 fertility rate reported in 2024. This massive gap, found in most European countries, should be at the heart of European politics. The countless debates this continent has had on Brexit, immigration or even the war in Ukraine will be deemed to be largely secondary by future historians relative to the demographic question we have been avoiding. And yet few politicians in Western Europe had taken this existential issue seriously. For decades talking about fertility was once deemed to be slightly paternalistic in polite society, or irrelevant when not outrightly compared with fascist regimes of the past. The tone has shifted somewhat in the last five years. In 2024, French president Emmanuel Macron stated that “demographic rearmament” was a national priority. Prime minister Giorgia Meloni created a minister in charge of birth rates and said in 2023: “we want to give Italians back a nation in which being a father is not out of fashion and being a mother is not a private choice but a socially recognised value.”... For all the economic and political implications, it is important to remember that a childless continent will not just be smaller, poorer, and older; it will also be lonelier and sadder."
hyper(bolic) disco(unting) girl on X - "this is going to sound terminally authority-brained but at some level i find it amazing that you can just get pregnant and create a new human being without any government regulation of the process"
ZUBY: on X - "I have never seen or heard a publicly proposed solution to this that would actually work. Not once. The truth is, you can't have widespread feminism AND high birth rates. And people have chosen implicitly that feminism is more important. Very few modern men or women have the appetite or will to cut back on these 'gains'. Including conservatives. There are other contributing factors, but this is the uncomfortable crux of the issue. You cannot have mass feminism (both in policy and culture) and high birth rates. They are opposing forces."
Andy Ujku-Dardania | Facebook - "And quite ironically, the biggest feminists out there and their so called “male allies” are the biggest proponents of both unfettered access to abortion and a wide encompassing welfare state. They just can’t or won’t put two and two together. You can’t have a generous welfare state by killing off or not reproducing the next generation that is needed to pay for it. These people are simply nihilistic hedonists who don’t care about the long term. They got the worst traits of their boomer or early Gen X parents. They want instant gratification and not have to worry about how it is paid for or any consequences thereafter. The post 1945 liberal democratic order is a house built on sand. It’s a highly unsustainable system propped up by massive debt/money printing… And the blessings of a high tech version of bread and circuses. Eventually it’ll run out of road. And the reckoning that will come with it will make life literally unbearable for a significant number of people. Stay strapped and batten down the hatches friends."
Meme - Andrew Torba @BasedTorba: "They always use the White people stock photos for antinatalist articles"
"Having children DOESN'T make you happy: Becoming a parent provides no boost to wellbeing, study claims - but it does ruin your relationship"
James Pethokoukis ⏩️⤴️ on X - "'Being around babies makes people want babies. ... As fertility declines and infant exposure falls, the conditions that sustain the desire for children weaken, and the decline can become self-reinforcing.' @nberpubs"
To Improve U.S. Birth Rate, Give Parents Money and Time - The Atlantic
Amazingly, this doesn't even mention that poor people have more children, or that the US has higher fertility rate than other developed countries despite not giving parents time. Curious how the "solution" is pushing the left wing agenda
Liam Out Loud on X - "The Gender Gap No One Is Talking About:
- Young men and women are 30 points apart ideologically. 5x wider than 2000.
- Only 31% of young adults are dating. Less than a third.
- 0.6 liberal men for every liberal woman. 0.5 conservative women for every conservative man. Neither side can find what it's looking for.
- 60% of liberal women rank political alignment above a stable job in a partner.
- 63% of Americans say they'd struggle to date someone who voted differently.
- US fertility: 1.7. UK: 1.4. Italy: 1.1. Every Western nation below replacement.
- 62% of countries tried baby bonuses and tax incentives. Minimal effect.
They don't disagree about tax rates. They disagree about what this is all for."
With a record-low 1.25 children per Canadian woman, stop dismissing falling fertility rates as a choice - "A 2023 Cardus study found that Canadian women without kids wanted an average of 2.2 children, and expected to have 1.9. The reality is that they’re having far fewer than that, with Canada’s fertility rate hitting a record low of 1.25 as of 2024, putting it into the “ultra-low” category, a category that includes countries like South Korea and Japan. One reason researchers have found for the decrease in fertility rates is the rising prerequisite of parenthood, specifically, what would-be parents feel they need to be ready to have kids. That bar has risen drastically over the past few decades, and it correlates with all the costs we’ve been burdening young people with: high costs of education, expensive housing costs, and a shortage of family-sized rentals. Credential inflation is also to blame, stretching education well into the mid-20s. You’re much less likely to feel established enough in your career to have a child if you’re only just starting that career at 25. A 2025 Brookings study put data behind what a lot of parents already feel: that child-rearing has become an arms race of educational investment. Social media plays a huge role here, offering constant glimpses into the successes of your peers’ kids and the lives of parenting influencers, who all seem to have perfect Montessori-inspired nurseries, screen-free playrooms, and organic meals made from scratch every night. The message viewers take away is that anything less is falling short. The result is a feeling that having children is a project that requires perfect conditions to begin, and we know that the later people begin having kids, the harder it is to have them. That delay has been getting steadily worse for decades. The average age of a first-time mother has risen from 23.5 years in 1965 to 29.4 years in 2019, and even higher in B.C. and Ontario, home to Canada’s most expensive housing markets. Saskatchewan, with comparatively lower housing costs, still had the youngest first-time mothers in the country, at 27.3 years. The geography of delayed parenthood tracks almost perfectly with the geography of unaffordability. And since those numbers are now seven years old, with the cost of living only rising since, the delay has likely grown further. Anecdotally, we’ve noticed that society now treats having kids in your 20s as young, even though biologically, it isn’t. Part of what’s driving the shift is how dramatically the expectations of parenting have changed. A generation ago, eight-year-olds walked home to empty houses and made their own peanut butter sandwiches. Today, children are expected to be constantly supervised and enrolled in structured activities. That’s a significant increase in both the time and financial cost of raising kids, and it starts before they’re even born. One of the most meaningful policy-driven changes to the cost of parenting has been the introduction of universal childcare. It’s too early to measure its full impact on fertility rates, but we can get a sense of how it might play out from Quebec’s experience. In 1997, Quebec introduced $5-a-day subsidized childcare. A 2024 study looked at the results and found that for younger women aged 20 to 24, the reform increased the likelihood of having a first or second child by 7 percentage points. However, for women in their 30s, subsidized childcare actually decreased the probability of having more, by 5 to 7 percentage points. The theory is that affordable childcare made returning to work easier, and once women were back in the workforce, the opportunity cost of another pregnancy rose substantially. Policies can simultaneously decrease the cost of having children for some, while raising it for others. There’s a parallel here to the impact of home prices on fertility rates, where increased home values simultaneously made homeowners feel wealthy enough to have more children, while pricing out younger would-be parents who felt anything but secure... The 2026 World Happiness Report ranked Canadians 58th in the world for the freedom to make life choices, a dramatic drop from just a decade ago when the country was in 12th place. That’s an area worth taking seriously and fighting for improvement"
More Births on X - ""I don't know why people say the policies in Hungary didn't work. The trends are relatively healthy." -R.H. Efforts to raise birth rates (both in culture and in policy) do work! But there is no magic bullet, and you have work hard at it because many forces push fertility down."
Thread by @MoreBirths on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Elevating the Status of Motherhood Solves Low Birthrates: The Extraordinary Case of Mongolia For 68 years, Mongolian leaders have given the Order of Maternal Glory to mothers. This raised the status of motherhood and helped forge a remarkably pronatal culture. 🧵, please share!
Mongolia's pro-motherhood culture stands out on a fertility map. Fertility in Mongolia has consistently been 2-3 times(!) higher than neighboring areas in recent years and it has been increasing over the past 20 years, even as its neighbors have seen birthrates plunge!Mongolia's incomes are comparable its neighbors. It is urbanized. This is also not a case of religiously driven fertility: 🇲🇳 is primarily Buddhist and non-religious. This is about the status of motherhood. In 🇲🇳, the president himself gives an award to every mother of four! Mongolian mothers of six are presented with the Order of Glorious Motherhood, First Class. Second Class if you have four. Here celebrated mothers descend the steps of the State Palace in Ulaanbaatar on a red and gold carpet, the statue of Genghis Khan directly behind them.The Mongolian president holds separate ceremonies by district, in order to be able to give more personal attention to recipients. There is a cash award too, but it is just $60 for a mother of six. Clearly, this a story motherhood and status in Mongolian society.So important is this award that Mongolia's consulates are even tasked with conferring the award to Mongolian mothers abroad. Here, Mongolia's ambassador to the United Nations presents the award to a mother in Geneva.
Status around motherhood is a crucial and under-appreciated driver of birthrates. We have seen this elsewhere! By honoring parents, Patriarch Ilia of Georgia created a baby boom, something generous financial incentives elsewhere could not achieve.Status is incredibly important for most people, and we strive for status perhaps more than anything else. Status helps explain the paradox that as societies become richer, fertility usually drops. Even though absolute well-being has risen, living in a wealthy society offers no increase in relative status. In fact, the status competitions of modern life, like education and career, directly compete with family life. This also tracks with how in cultures where parenthood is elevated to high status, such as among religious subgroups like the Amish, Haredi Jews and traditionalist Catholics, fertility can be much, much higher. As well, this helps explain the remarkable fertility of England and Wales during Victorian Times. Queen Victoria, the personification of the era, both inherited and carried forward a culture that conferred high-status on motherhood in raising nine children.
In Korea meanwhile, the highest status people are childless, and culture is filled with every status competition but one around parenthood. The message is that we have to find a way to honor motherhood like our civilization depends on it. Mongolia helps show the way!"
The truth about population decline - "In general, the more prosperous the place or the people, the fewer the births. This is not just true across countries. Within India, the state of Tamil Nadu has the eighth highest GDP per head and a fertility rate of 1.8, while Bihar, with the 34th highest GDP per head, has a fertility rate of 3. Again, graduate women tend to have fewer children than non-graduates. Prosperity is the most powerful contraceptive of all. The explanation I addressed last week was the transformation in the role of women. But even that is part of a broader set of changes. Two others — urbanisation and mass education — also matter. The former moves people to places where land is relatively expensive. The latter transforms children from productive assets in the quite short term into costly long-term investments. Grown children may also now move far away from their parents. Modernity also creates capital markets, pensions and welfare states, all of which are a substitute for children’s financial support. Finally, it creates new pleasures, which compete with those of having children. We can see the effects of all these changes in the fertility data... should we be worried about the possibility of population falls in many places, perhaps ultimately for humanity as a whole? No, argues the British economist Lord Adair Turner. A favourite argument why the declining fertility rates are potentially catastrophic is that “dependency ratios” will soar. Measured in the normal way, as ratios of people over 65 to those aged 15-64, this is true. But this ignores the fall in the proportion of the young, many of whom are now dependent until their twenties. Overall dependency ratios will rise far less, except in the more extreme cases of low fertility. It also ignores the potential for people to work longer. In South Korea, 38 per cent of people over 65 were working in 2024, against a ludicrous 4 per cent in France. Furthermore, adds Turner, rising productivity, possibly accelerated by artificial intelligence, offers a way out. Note that people work far fewer hours than they did two centuries ago, because they are so vastly more productive than they used to be in, say, 1800. Thus, notes Turner, the share of available hours spent working after the age of 15 in high-income countries has fallen by at least 60 per cent since then. But real output per head has increased 15-fold. If this continues, as is likely, a modest increase in the dependency ratio would be extremely manageable. Some also argue that there will be “too few innovators”. Nonsense! The global population is not even set to fall before 2100. Moreover, we now have a far better educated labour force, the inclusion of women and the gains from AI. Moreover, radical innovation has always been driven by the few. Not least, today’s population is a multiple of what it was a century or two ago, when innovation was doing just fine. What matters far more is providing the environment for innovation, not least support for science. Again, there has been much chatter about the “demographic dividends” that supposedly come from youthful populations. In fact, notes Turner, “there is no evidence that economies with sustained high fertility rates grow faster. On the contrary, persistently high fertility often leads to a demographic disaster of sluggish income growth and widespread unemployment.” India is a sobering example... India’s swelling population has, alas, created a sea of chronic underemployment around an island of prosperity. In much of Africa, this situation is worse. Finally, growing populations impose costs — not just the global environmental ones, but local ones as well. These include the soaring prices of urban land and so of housing in many countries (themselves an explanation for low birth rates). Indeed, the competition for intrinsically scarce “positional goods” is exacerbated by rising populations and so would be ameliorated by the reverse."
This assumes that people are all identical and that it doesn't matter which populations have kids
The unspoken truth about the baby bust - "All theories for the baby bust, other than choice, get undeserved shrift. One is that practical barriers — such as lack of childcare — stops people having the kids they tell surveys they want. So, Chad has a 6.1 birth rate because of subsidised crèches, does it? Shared child-rearing duties and free IVF explain Afghanistan’s 4.8? Finland (1.3) should send a research delegation to Mali (5.6)? The United Nations, an activist group with a sideline in diplomacy, published a report last month that blamed a “toxic” mix of economic and gender rigidities for low birth rates. All we learn from this is that the use of the T-word outside a strictly chemical context has become an excellent warning of impending bullshit. And this isn’t even the silliest explanation for demographic decline that does the rounds. What is? That people can’t in good conscience “bring a child into this world of ours”. Well, the birth rate was high during the cold war. Parents were knowingly bringing kids into an open-ended nuclear stand-off. Today, the most fertile countries are those most stalked by climate change and violence. Meanwhile, the havens that are Switzerland and New Zealand are well below the replacement rate. If dystopian dread was the issue here, the numbers would be the other way round. Why kid ourselves like this? Why go through contortions to avoid the obvious?Some of it is just academic confusion. To clear up one thing: asking people whether they want more children is close to pointless. The question is whether they want them above other things. Stated desires are not useful information unless ranked. I want to be more successful, but not as much as I want to sleep until 10am. People want larger families, but not as much as they want leisure and surplus cash. The rest is politics. The notion of voluntarily small families is too awkward for either left or right to accept. For the left, there is no social problem whose answer isn’t government action. If that problem exists out of choice, that leaves them with nowhere to go. For conservatives, the family stands between the individual (liberalism) and the state (socialism). If people are choosing to minimise or avoid the domestic realm, that cuts to the quick of an entire worldview. And so we have a winner, as it were. Liberalism has had a bad electoral decade. In the “discourse”, too, it is on the back foot. But in the one way that counts — how life is lived — its triumph is total. From Ireland to South Korea, the evidence suggests that once people are rich and free enough to choose, they choose individualism. Many do so with a pang, of course. They really do want more kids. But not as much as they want to live in the city of their choice or hold out for a relationship that is fun and not just stable. Consumption, selfhood, the pursuit of happiness: all the things that are said to be not enough, seem to be enough. How telling that even the most widely heard argument for pronatalism — that we need more workers to support the old — is itself materialist."
