Demographic decline is imminent – ​​what now? – Baptist News Worldwide

When I told my mother I was getting married, she smiled and gave me a big hug.

About five seconds later she asked me when we were going to have kids. I told her I wasn’t sure if we would have children.

“What’s the point of getting married if you’re not going to have children?” she asked in surprise, with a hint of contempt in her voice.

This was more than 40 years ago, by the way. My mother was from a generation earlier, when parenthood and marriage were like eggs and bacon. It was expected. There was something wrong with you if no babies appeared for a year or two, three at most, after the wedding.

I saw myself as a modern guy, so I was slightly offended by my mother’s question. Maybe we have children, but maybe we don’t, I replied, somewhat hesitantly. My future wife had worked very hard to build her career. I wanted to encourage and support her to pursue her professional ambitions – and not feel pressure to stay home and raise children. Of course it was impossible that I should stay at home; It was not me That modern.

Mother bit her tongue and changed the subject to wedding plans.

Yes, we ended up producing two wonderful children who are now wonderful adults. So we did our utmost to spread the species. grandchildren? We will see.

(Source: Institute for Health Statistics and Evaluation)

Declining birth rates

I share this personal story because the American baby boom of the 1940s and 1950s, of which I was a part, is now a distant memory—along with the secondary boom in children born to the Boomers, which was almost as big.

According to Census Bureau projections, the U.S. population will grow by 32 million to a total of 336 million by the year 2100. It will peak at 369 million in 2080 and then decline until the end of the century. But much of that growth projection, the agency warns, will depend on immigrants. Without robust immigration—and immigrant families producing children—the U.S. population could decline by 107 million between 2022 and 2100.

“Without immigrant families producing children, the U.S. population could decline by 107 million between 2022 and 2100.”

Fertility rates in the US have been declining since the late 1950s, when I joined. By 2038, the number of deaths will exceed the number of births. The number of people over 65 – again, me – will exceed the number of children within ten years. By 2100, nearly 30% of the U.S. population will be 65 or older – almost twice as many as today.

If you think that’s a good thing, you better think again.

No, I’m not preparing for a rant lamenting the demise of the traditional family. But we must produce enough offspring to prevent America from turning into a giant nursing home, where too few working-age adults support too many elderly parents and grandparents. If this trend continues for too long, it will mean economic decline, social stagnation and ultimately demographic ruin.

And we are far from alone.

For the sixth year in a row, South Korea recorded the world’s lowest fertility rate, falling to a new low of 0.81 children per couple in 2023, down from 0.84 the year before. This year it is predicted that interest rates will fall to 0.68. Twelve other countries, from Europe to South Asia, join South Korea in the less-than-one-child club. Women need to have an average of 2.1 children to maintain long-term population stability without significant immigration.

As recently as the 1970s, women in advanced Asian economies such as South Korea and Japan had an average of five or more children. No longer. In part, these societies have become victims of their own success. Women have much greater educational and career opportunities, along with easy access to contraception. National economies now depend on women in the workplace for economic growth.

That’s a good thing, right? Women have been waiting for such progress for a long time. But there are social costs involved when Asian men are unwilling or unable to help shoulder the burden of raising children.

Writes Astha Rajvanshi Time: “In South Korea, declining birth rates are one of three crucial factors characterizing what is called the ‘Sampo’ or ‘three give-up generation’: women in their 20s and 30s who give up dating, marriage and getting children have given up, partly due to economic pressure. In 2018, then-Vice Minister of Finance Kim Yong-beom called this trend a “death cross.” In Japan, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida recently issued a dire warning that the country was “on the brink” of “socially dysfunctional.” China, which reversed its one-child policy in 2016 to encourage families to have more children, lost its record as the most populous country to India last year after its population fell for the first time in 60 years.”

China’s new population reality carries with it a particularly tragic irony: the “one-child policy,” which was brutally imposed by the government starting in 1980 to counter poverty and the then-ubiquitous fear of a “population explosion.” , resulted in unimaginable human suffering – including widespread forced abortions, especially of female fetuses.

This practice has so drastically disrupted the birth ratio between men and women that tens of millions of Chinese men today cannot find wives; their potential brides were never born. The policy also created a national labor shortage that now threatens China’s continued economic development. (Editorial aside: proponents of international population control who have supported this cruel policy for decades, knowing – or ignoring – that its human costs will be accountable to God in eternity, I believe.)

For the first time since ‘Black Death’

The population crisis extends far beyond Asia and the Americas. Here’s the headline I’ve buried so far: By mid-century, the world’s population will wipe out 50 million people in Europe and beyond for the first time since the “Black Death” (bubonic plague) of the 13th century. That is the prediction of a new study The Lancetthe prestigious British medical journal.

“By 2050, as many as 155 countries will have birth rates too low to maintain population levels.”

The world population first reached 1 billion in 1804 and doubled in 1927. In 2022, the world population rose to 8 billion and will continue to grow for about a generation. But by 2050, birth rates in as many as 155 countries will be too low to maintain population levels. The Lancet. By 2100, that number will rise to 198 countries.

Much sooner than that, declining fertility rates will “completely change the global economy and the international balance of power and necessitate reorganization of societies,” predicts research scientist Natalia Bhattacharjee, co-author of the book Lancet study. “Global recognition of the challenges of migration and global aid networks will become even more important when there is fierce competition for migrants to support economic growth.”

Historian Stephen Davis outlines the change in these terms in a piece The Telegraph: “By 2100, the world’s population will have peaked and begun to decline. This is an important historical turning point. Moreover, it is not simply a matter of a static or declining world population; the nature of that population will also change. It will be much older, with the report estimating that there will be twice as many people over 80 as under 5 – almost 900 million people over 80 worldwide.”

Global economic growth will decline as a result. Innovation will decline. Fewer people will enter or remain in the labor market. The demand for goods and services will decrease.

“Is this something we can or should try to resist?” asks Davis. “The evidence suggests that controlling or reversing demographic trends is not easy. Pro-natalist policies have been tried in several countries, but with little or no effect. … We’ve known for a long time that economic development and urbanization lead to women having fewer children because of changed incentives, but something additional seems to have happened in the last two or three decades and we don’t really understand what that is. Maybe we need to radically change our entire way of life to make it much more family-friendly.”

In America, perhaps we could start subsidizing child care for dual-wage families—in other words, most families. When our economy depends on men And For women who work full-time, why can’t we help them do that without forcing them to sacrifice parenting – or pay more than they can afford for childcare?

And perhaps we can start treating immigrants not as threats to be feared and avoided, but as a valuable, even essential part of our future – if we want to have a long-term future.

Those are just two changes to take into account. There are many more that we must achieve in the coming years to avoid an impending demographic disaster.

Erich bridges, a Baptist journalist for more than 40 years and has covered international stories and trends in many countries. He lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Related articles:

Those who fear migrant workers “are wrong and have always been wrong,” Durbin says

What makes for a sustainable seminar now that the international student population is declining? | Analysis by Andrew Gardner