From the standpoint of having a hope of preserving civilization and some level of planetary health, falling birth rates, and eventually, falling population levels, would seem to be highly desirable. And before the Industrial Revolution, population levels were generally static.
But with modernity came the notion of progress and in parallel, the rise of capitalism, which seems to find growth a necessity. Population growth (absent massive disruptions like war and economic crises) creates a baseline of demand growth. The other source of economic growth is productivity increases.
The perceived need for growth is so strong that a new Wall Street Journal story, Suddenly There Aren’t Enough Babies. The Whole World Is Alarmed, does not feel the necessity to unpack much why declining birth and population rates are perceived to be highly problematic. Ambitious young men need new worlds to conquer, and that impulse can become destructive when the economic pie shrinks or increases only slowly. And lordie, what will happen to real estate prices?
Similarly, the press and punditocracy covers Japan, which has merely had a static but aging citizenry, with horror, even though the Japanese, between having generally very robust oldsters, plus high levels of social cohesion, seems to be wearing its affliction awfully well.
Authors Greg Ip (a sometimes Fed whisperer) and Janet Adamy describe expert puzzlement and distress. But as we’ll explain, this might not be so difficult to understand if undue sentimentality did not get in the way.
While we’ll get to factors that make modern parenting hard despite much higher levels of affluence, some people are better suited to become parents than others. And that matters because raising kids, particularly ones that turn out to be functioning adults, is a hard and more than occasionally not as rewarding as widely depicted, particularly in advertising showing always smiling families. In the US, surveys have repeatedly found that couples with children are on average less happy that their childless peers, but they report a greater sense of purpose in life. Consumer marketing reinforces the idea that pursuit of enjoyment, as opposed to duty, is an important aim.
This is before getting to the fact that childrearing duties fall preponderantly on women (no offense meant, but to simplify the discussion, we will focus on traditional families, since single parents and same-sex couples bringing up kids face additional obstacles). The male partner has the option of how involved he is, including leaving entirely.
It seems odd for a business paper to be so puzzled as to what is happening. Late stage capitalism is not child-friendly. It expects workers to be mobile when that can mean moving away from relatives that provide back-up junior care. The now scarce-as-hen’s-teeth 9 to 5 day for office workers and professionals, and regular shift work for factory laborers, gave scheduling predictability that helped with organizing child supervision and gave the kids themselves a sense of order in the world. Late-stage neoliberalism has also produced in the US and many other advanced economies a large increase in income and wealth inequality and a corresponding fall in income/class mobility. That further increases the stakes of raising children well: getting them into the right schools and/or making sure they travel in circles that increase the odds of landing good jobs and/or good romantic partners.
A final factor is at least some, and perhaps many, potential parents are concerned about the state of the world and wonder if having children is the right thing to do. And that does not just mean that their progeny will add to the environmental load but also that those offspring might suffer from societal upheaval, violence, and other dystopian outcomes as competition for scarce resources becomes desperate.
We’ll turn to key parts of the article:
The world is at a startling demographic milestone. Sometime soon, the global fertility rate will drop below the point needed to keep population constant. It may have already happened.
Fertility is falling almost everywhere, for women across all levels of income, education and labor-force participation. The falling birthrates come with huge implications for the way people live, how economies grow and the standings of the world’s superpowers.
In high-income nations, fertility fell below replacement in the 1970s, and took a leg down during the pandemic. It’s dropping in developing countries, too. India surpassed China as the most populous country last year, yet its fertility is now below replacement.
Let us point out the obvious: women cut back on how many children they had as soon as the Pill and other new types of contraception gave them greater reproductive control. While many women relish being mothers despite its bodily-fluid intensiveness (and here I mean a lot more than nursing), the harsh reality is that in England and Europe, most aristocratic women farmed out child-rearing to servants (see the bios of Talleyrand and Churchill among many others). They regarded it as drudgery. So unless societies affirm that motherhood is important and back that up with action, and not just Hallmark schmaltz, many women will gravitate towards paid work, particularly now that women increasingly can land and hold good, interesting jobs.
Back to the Journal:
Many government leaders see this as a matter of national urgency. They worry about shrinking workforces, slowing economic growth and underfunded pensions; and the vitality of a society with ever-fewer children. Smaller populations come with diminished global clout, raising questions in the U.S., China and Russia about their long-term standings as superpowers.
Some demographers think the world’s population could start within four decades—one of the few times it’s happened in history.
Notice lower groaf is assumed to be bad. But does this necessarily mean lower per capita GDP, particular with all the much hyped productivity enhancing wonders, from AI to self-driving cars to other deployments of robots? Otherwise, shrinking workforces can and probably will translate into having to pay workers more and being more accommodating to now marginalized groups like oldsters and the handicapped (and the ugly!!). The horror! And is the “underfunded pensions” merely about Social Security, which is actually a pay as you go program, or is it a dog whistle to the concern that peppy stock markets may become a thing of the past?
We’ll skip over the detailed discussion about demographers having been surprised by an accelerating decline in global birth rates that began in 2017 and whether the world has already hit the point where the current reproduction rate is below the replacement level. Note here that nowhere does the piece mention that physical fertility is declining, as in more couples are having trouble conceiving, and how much that is lowering birth rates among those who are keen about the parenting project and might have even more if they could.
Next, the piece turns to how parental-commitment-intensive bringing up kids has become in the US, particularly among parents with college degrees. It briefly describes the Pittmans in Raleigh, North Carolina, a dual income couple who decided to have only one child, and the cost of his various enrichment activities seems to have borne their decision out.
From other parts of the world:
Fertility is below replacement in India even though the country is still poor and many women don’t work—factors that usually sustain fertility.
Urbanization and the internet have given even women in traditional male-dominated villages a glimpse of societies where fewer children and a higher quality of life are the norm.
Do not underestimate the power of TV. I was in Bali in the early 1990s when TV was introduced. Thanks to soap operas, wives (recall most married women in Bali then were part of polygamous setups) suddenly started consulting various elders about their worry that their husband did not love them any more.
Back to the article:
Mae Mariyam Thomas, 38, who lives in Mumbai and runs an audio production company, said she’s opted against having children because she never felt the tug of motherhood. She sees peers struggling to meet the right person, getting married later and, in some instances, divorcing before they have kids. At least three of her friends have frozen their eggs, she said.
“I think now we live in a really different world, so I think for anyone in the world it’s tough to find a partner,” she said.
Sub-Saharan Africa once appeared resistant to the global slide in fertility, but that too is changing. The share of all women of reproductive age using modern contraception grew from 17% in 2012 to 23% in 2022, according to Family Planning 2030, an international organization….
Once a low fertility cycle kicks in [president of the Global Aging Institute].
The story then turns to how governments are implementing policies to increase birth rates, but nothing much has worked. They start with Japan’s many efforts, which only briefly reversed the decline in childbirths.
What the article fails to mention is that (implicitly) women in Japan en mass are in revolt against what a lousy deal it is to be a wife and mother. Husbands with normal jobs (the kind that can support a family) work long hours so that their spouses barely see them except on weekends. And the home is the domain of the woman, so I infer they don’t help out much if at all with kid care or household duties. The 1990s saw the rise of “parasite singles,” women who got jobs and stayed home with their parents rather that get married. The post-crisis rise of “freeters” (men who did not land full-time jobs and had erratic employment) didn’t help.
And immigration isn’t a great solution:
Neil Howe, a demographer at Hedgeye Risk Management, has pointed to a recent World Bank report suggesting that worsening demographics could make this a second consecutive “lost decade” for global economic growth.
The usual prescription in advanced countries is more immigration, but that has two problems. As more countries confront stagnant population, immigration between them is a zero-sum game. Historically, host countries have sought skilled migrants who enter through formal, legal channels, but recent inflows have been predominantly unskilled migrants often entering illegally and claiming asylum.
High levels of immigration have also historically aroused political resistance, often over concerns about cultural and demographic change. A shrinking native-born population is likely to intensify such concerns. Many of the leaders keenest to raise birthrates are most resistant to immigration.
Notice (and this is typical) that there is almost no consideration of how reproductive control reduced the risk of hiring women and gave women access to better jobs over time. Women’s liberation (remember that hoary term?) encouraged women to expect more from their marriage partners, when male role expectations have barely budged. This outtrade seems to me to be a significant factor in why women as the primary child-carers are not so keen to have as many kids, yet is weirdly ignored in favor of 50,000 foot explanations, like “women are more educated so they aren’t having kids.” Erm, by itself, that does not have a lot of explanatory power. When my mother went to college, women were depicted as seeking a Mrs. degree. Similarly, when Radcliffe had its centenary, the jibe was “100 years of enlightened motherhood”.
The article also ignores the reality staring policy-makers in the face: they will need to learn to manage stagnant and eventually shrinking populations.
