Why sounding the alarm on population decline is an important step toward solving the problem
If we share the awful projections of the global fertility crisis we face, could that feed doomerism and make the problem worse?
A loyal reader raises an important question:
Actually, we have every reason to believe that awareness of the problem, as bleak as it is, is essential to solving this. (Please share!)
History offers great recent examples where existential fears over population led to higher birthrates.
Case study, France
In the 1800s, France had the lowest fertility in Europe, and probably the world. France experienced a transition to low fertility before 1830, up to a century before many other countries in Europe, in the aftermath of the French Revolution and the secularization that followed.
But now when we think of France, we think of a country with relatively high birthrates. Over the past several generations, France has had one of the highest fertility rates in Europe, a complete reversal of the picture in the 19th century. How did France change?
France faced a terrifying outlook at the start of WWII. France's population in 1939 stood at 40 million, barely changed from 1839 when it stood at 35 million. Germany's population meanwhile had gone from 31 million to 70 million during that time, dwarfing France. Making matters worse, France's fertility rate was below replacement in the 1930s (replacement TFR was higher than 2.1 back then because of higher child mortality).
In the grim year of 1939, facing a war that they were totally unprepared for, the French passed the “Code de la famille.” This was a strongly pro-natalist set of policies borne of a national awareness that France faced a demographic crisis, which threatened its future.
Things for France would get very much worse before they got better. But France was set on a pro-natalist course that brighten its outlook after the war and ever since.
We think of France as the most fertile country in Europe, but for a very long time, France was the least fertile. Then, facing a sobering picture of national decline, France changed its attitude and laws around children and dramatically altered its path.
Case study, Israel and its Jewish forebears:
Most of us know that Israel is a young country full of children, and that it is the only country in the OECD that still has above-replacement fertility.
But how many know that in the 150 years prior to 1937, Jewish people in Europe had a birth rate that was far below the European average? Or that, by the 1930s the Jewish birthrate was probably lower than that of Japan today. That is the conclusion of Jana Vobecka' and other demographers.
In late December, I had the honor of being a guest in the home of a well-known rabbi in my area who had recently passed. He left behind 150 descendants, and I got to know several, babies among them. Incredibly moving, as you can imagine.
But this extraordinary fecundity was not by chance. The Jewish people faced unspeakable tragedy and as a result, are now continuously aware of demographic peril.
This awareness has not led to doomerism. In fact, awareness is at the root of the Jewish demographic revival we are now witnessing.
There are other examples (the Republic of Georgia and Hungary come to mind) where a reckoning with demographic decline led to a change in trajectory. But these two cases, which have held up for eighty years so far, offer hope of lasting, even permanent change in a nation's demographic path through coming to terms with existential crisis. (France saw some decline in 2023, but its fertility is still highest in Europe and higher than America's.)
Most people still don't know we have a low birthrate crisis
Those of us steeped in demographic minutiae feel at times hopeless, because the data has been getting worse for so long. "Countries have tried everything and nothing works."
Actually, the ethos of The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich, a book published 56 years ago, is still percolating through culture, even as the demographic numbers now show collapse. Its author never changed his tune, and the movement he started still grows.
There are plenty of young people still getting the message, now completely absurd, that the moral choice is to avoid children, due to climate risk and 'overpopulation'. They badly need a new narrative.
We know that messages matter because of how shockingly effective population control propaganda was in Asia, and how long its shadow has been.
There is an epidemic of unplanned childlessness that can be greatly helped simply through awareness
As @StephenJShaw reveals in his must-see BirthGap documentary, most of those past childbearing age who are childless actually wanted to have children. They were typically caught up in other things and missed their chance.
Many people in their 20s aren't even thinking about having children yet, even as their most fertile years pass them by. Meanwhile we witness the agony of friends in their late 30s and early 40s trying for children, often without success, as their fertility window closes.
How many of these people could have been helped if only someone warned them how things might turn out, while they were still young? A sort of ghost of fertility future?
As our X account @MoreBirths posted last month, if everyone was able to simply have the children hope for, there would no birthrate crisis!
The conclusion? Don't worry about sounding gloomy (or, for that matter, awkward). Demographic collapse is not inevitable, and sounding the alarm now will make a big difference.
Is it time to panic? Have you seen the latest data? Of course it is time to panic!
But after staring into the abyss for a while, remember that things can turn around. It has happened before. I believe we'll eventually fix this because we have no other choice.