Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
As if we don’t have enough to worry about already, I read this piece yesterday, suggesting that demographic trends in America are going the way of, well, the rest of the Western world. This concerns me. Demographic slumps are depressing insofar as they tend to signal a lack of hope and vitality in a nation’s population. Even more significantly, they can precipitate some very serious longer-term problems. As a youngish person, I want people to be having babies now, so that when I do eventually reach retirement age, there will be a nice crop of younger people in place to run the country and keep the economy going. But, as countries like Germany and Japan have discovered, steady birth rates are not something we can take for granted in our brave new world. So the question becomes: how can we reverse these demographic trends?
The short answer is that it’s hard. Once they grew out of the “overpopulation” phase, some European countries started trying to spur higher birth rates with a slate of pronatalist policies, including government subsidy for pre-natal care and delivery, lengthy paid parental leaves, and government-sponsored childcare. Some countries have been more inventive. Russia apparently tried instituting a regular “day of copulation” in which workers were given a half-day off so they could go home and have sex. (NB, I’ve seen this mentioned on a few blogs, but have not found a reputable corroborating source. It sounds like the kind of wacky thing the Russians might try, though. Makes you think of 1984 and “our duty to the party”, eh?)
It seems that these measures have had at least a modest effect. Birth rates in Germany, for example, have gone up since the implementation of aggressive pronatalist policies. Of course, as a conservative I implicitly find such interventions distasteful, although it does also occur to me that pronatalist benefits might be a needed counterbalance to entitlements for the elderly. In most human societies, children were the primary retirement plan, and raising them was an investment in one’s own future as well as theirs. Nationalizing benefits for the elderly opens the opportunity for the childless to be “free riders”, enjoying the support of other people’s children without having to invest in raising their own. From one perspective, then, pronatalist benefits could be seen as just compensation to parents. Would there be a way to offer these without giving government an objectionable degree of control over family life?
Given the present financial state of our nation, such questions are mostly academic, and the obvious solution to the demographic problem (along with many other problems) is to fix the economy. People will have more children if they feel financially secure. Unfortunately, I think the reality is that the economy probably isn’t going to be surging back to flushed, rosy-cheeked health anytime in the near future. We need to consider ways to make families feel more secure even in an unstable economy.
What I want to see is a more flexible and dynamic labor market, which opens opportunities for people to prove themselves and potentially learn on the job. For a whole host of reasons, credentialing has become the main ticket to employment nowadays, and this makes people more reluctant to take on serious responsibilities (such as parenting) because these present such a significant handicap in the lengthy and tortuous credentialing game. If people could move in and out of the workforce more easily, parenting would become less daunting financially. It seems to me that our resume-building process is incredibly inefficient, and the hamsters running on the resume-wheel are mainly young people, who should be expending that same energy to start families.
Other thoughts? Are there better ways to encourage people to have babies? Or can someone assuage my worries that these demographic trends portend an ugly future?
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
If you're willing to wait a few hundred years, the best way to win a war against the West is by producing three or four times as many children. And it's not that difficult anymore.
Jul '12
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
Demographic slumps are depressing insofar as they tend to signal a lack of hope and vitality in a nation’s population.
I disagree with that as a long term proposition. Birth rates have gone done with the industrial revolution. Total Fertility went down in the England from 6 children in 1800 to below 2 on the eve of World War II. The Baby Boom was an aberration. The same thing happened in the US. Both countries saw declining TFRs before the advent of state sponsored old age pensions. In a modern urbanized economy, children are not income producing as in agrarian days but costs. If anything the opportunity costs of having children has risen much more than pure financial costs.
Apr '11
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
Reading Ricochet savant Paul Rahe's "Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift" taught me that one of the biggest worries of the founding fathers was that the new country was likely to be too large to sustain self rule. The classical Greeks had the same concern: the infirm majority will always eventually vote themselves the riches of the producing minority.
Singapore is of small enough size to sustain its (admittedly one-party and paternalistic) self-rule. When I was living there, a massive propaganda campaign was going on known as the "Graduate Mothers Scheme". They unabashedly encourage women with college degrees to have more children. Such a thing is unthinkable in such an extensive and diverse USA.
I am indeed convinced that the GOP is the party of white people, and demographics leave it with only a few years more to survive. There is no "scheme" that can save it.
Edited on September 11, 2012 at 7:16pmRe: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
AP: Russians offered day off, prizes to procreate
Sep '12
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
I'll just leave this here:
America Alone by Mark Steyn
Dec '10
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
No, you should be alarmed. The entire Western World is embracing death. I may post about this later using Sandra Fluke as an example. She is 31 and childless and seemingly wants to remain that way forever (at her fellow citizens' expense). This is a tragedy.
Apr '12
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
Agreed with Mark Steyn and with Steven above. By the time my father was thirty, he had three sons. By the time my mother was twenty-five, she had three sons. Of those three sons, one has two children. The one grandson is almost as old as my father was when his youngest son was born, and he's not even married. Those types of numbers leave either mass immigration for growth or Obamanomics to shrink the economy with the population.
Feb '12
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
The biggest thing would be a massive cultural change in how we view marriage and child-rearing.
A society that treats marriage as the end of sex, rather than its beginning, is inherently doomed to fail. This fact is *almost* enough to get me on the pro-gay-marriage bandwagon as a way to move toward a greater stigma on co-habitation. I'd be willing to accept a civil marriage for gays if we could get "shacking up" to be as shameful as it was in years past.
We need to abandon this idea that someone is "too young" to get married. If an 18 year old is old enough to choose to die for his country, he's old enough to choose to live for his spouse. Moreover, far from holding one back in academic success, a spouse and even children can actually foster the necessary maturity to succeed. I doubt it was coincidental that most of the older and married law students had higher than average grades, even with the greater responsibilities it entailed.
(continued)
Feb '12
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
Moreover, we need a fundamental reform of our healthcare services and insurance industries to allow younger people access to the health care deemed "necessary" to have children. A simple, healthy, vaginal delivery with standard prenatal care is $20K, and that number only goes up. Currently, a young person has three options if they want to have children:
(continued)
Feb '12
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
Finally, we need a cultural shift in our expectations of parenting; namely, parenting needs to be seen as an important phase of life through which everyone should go instead of a competitive sport. Every choice a parent makes from conception on is questioned and condemned by someone, and it should be no surprise that anyone not already wanting to have children is dissuaded by the treatment they see of other parents. In a world where "breeder" is an insult, we need to show parents as heroes.
One thing I've been thinking strongly about is what advice we give to young people regarding marriage and children. Everyone I've ever talked to -- from law firm partners to my high-school-dropout unmarried mother-of-two coworker -- has said that if they had to choose, they would choose their children over a high-flying career. If that's the case, why do we encourage young people put off creating their families in order to "establish themselves", i.e. get a career. If something is more important, valuable, and meaningful, shouldn't one work on it first in this unpredictable life?
Apr '12
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
Marriage may in some ways contribute positively to career development, but children are a whole different ball game. I'm in favor of lionizing parents and urging people to value family more, but financial stability is a real problem that can't just be brushed aside with assurances that family matters more. It's precisely because you love your kids so much that you want to ensure they have a stable, secure home and income, which is why parents need earning power.
Feb '12
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
But at the same time, the things we have traditionally suggested to create earning power have in fact reduced it. When more than 50% of college graduates are unable to find a job that requires a bachelors, all that money has done nothing but reduced one's net earnings (if one took on any debt) while wasting the time one could spend increasing earning power through experience in the job. Going to college wasn't just a mistake in my life; it has been a mistake for millions of people like me.
Mar '12
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
One needs 2.11 children per married couple to maintain the population. (NOTE: I don't know how cohabitation is counted for this purpose.)
One can look at Italy, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, Russia and others which have an imploding demographic. They aren't reproducing themselves. Amazingly enough, they have abandoned religion.
They want to maintain a lifestyle bereft of hope. Hope is usually expressed in children being born. Hope is cardinal virtue. It is associated with the belief that God exists, however He may be thought of, and that He has an active interest in His creation, including us.
No God. No children. No hope.
Starting on 9/11, a lot of Americans expressed a need for God, for His guidance, His benevolence, and His comfort, that went on for a while. God as parachute is not an uncommon idea, however using God for a temporary pick up doesn't recognize how much He loves us and wants the best for us.
He is always calling us back. Maybe He'll have to call louder to get our attention.
Apr '12
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
Sorry to nitpick, but I just had to point out that hope is a theological virtue, not a cardinal one. Otherwise, lovely comment. :)
Mar '11
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
Great post, Rachel.
Complaints about the national fertility rate have always struck me as akin to well-educated "experts" claiming that we need more people working in manufacturing: who among us is smart enough to know what the ideal population is? As MichaelC19fan pointed 0ut, some decreases in fertility are very rational and beneficial both to society and the individual family.
The principle of laissez-faire is that economic decisions which are good for the individual will also be good for society. What evidence exists that childbearing - which in many ways is also an economic activity - should be any different?
I think the main focus should be eliminating incentives which distort the economics of childbearing - including access to healthcare (as Amy described) and the decoupling of retirement expenses from personal savings. Otherwise, let individuals decide for themselves - if society needs more children, the invisible baby hand will send the proper signals.
Edited on September 11, 2012 at 9:40pmMar '11
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
I don't buy this argument. If simple numerical superiority was the only requirement for cultural domination, then every resident of Israel would be speaking Arabic.
History has shown that cultural dominance is much more dependent on other factors - intelligence, higher-order organization, wealth, etc. - which are not intrinsically inherent to large populations, and indeed may be hindered by fast population growth.
Jul '12
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
David Goldman, aka Spengler, has documented how TFR has collapsed in Iran and throughout the Arab world. I doubt anybody would describe that part of the world as having "abandoned religion".
Feb '12
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
Mendel
I don't buy this argument. If simple numerical superiority was the only requirement for cultural domination, then every resident of Israel would be speaking Arabic.
It should also be noted that even in these countries, the birth rate drops dramatically after a generation or two of an industrialized economy. Iran's birthrate is 1.7, from 6.8 fifty years ago; Egypt's is down to 2.9; Jordan 3.3; Saudi Arabia 2.26. Sure, it's not the self-elimination numbers of Europe, but it's not the kind of demographic runaway chain reaction some pessimists think.
Mar '11
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
Amy Schley
Mendel
If simple numerical superiority was the only requirement for cultural domination, then every resident of Israel would be speaking Arabic.
It should also be noted that even in these countries, the birth rate drops dramatically after a generation or two of an industrialized economy. Iran's birthrate is 1.7, from 6.8 fifty years ago; Egypt's is down to 2.9; Jordan 3.3; Saudi Arabia 2.26. Sure, it's not the self-elimination numbers of Europe, but it's not the kind of demographic runaway chain reaction some pessimists think.
Good point - although it is telling that even 50 years ago, the Arabic countries tried and failed so spectacularly to marginalize Israel.
Jun '10
Re: Let's Talk Long-Term Demographics
Just to state the obvious: killing over 1 million babies per year in utero ain't helping the situation. That's over 40 million missing young workers and taxpayers since Roe v. Wade.