Is the Decline in the Birth Rate a Coming Disaster



It is widely known fertility rates have declined to below the replacement rate. There are groups with vested political and economic interests who hype this as a terrible thing and say send us money to stop this. Only occasionally does one come across a balanced view of the seemingly inevitable decline in the world population. One appeared recently in The Atlantic but I'm unable to link it.

We all know the dilemma of fewer births. More old people drawing Social Security and money for healthcare and fewer young people paying in. No let up in the need for "blue collar" workers but fewer workers. Salaries/costs will rise. 

The article reaches the same conclusion I have mentioned here many times. What we call the standard of living may well fall, the article guesstimates 10%. 

On the other hand, there will be some offsetting benefits. Less traffic, shorter line and smaller crowds. Natural resources will last longer and the severe impacts of climate change will be less. Part of the reason droughts and flooding are so bad are the number of people harmed. 

A lot of our "standard of living" is the space we live in and the style and amount of travel. A reduction of house/apartment size and vehicle size of 10% does not seem like something we would call a hardship. 

If there was a need for an increase in birth and family size, what might cause this trend to turn around? We might find an answer in the reason it has fallen. Self interest. Women and couples are having fewer births because they do not see more children as something they want or will benefit from. For this trend to change some reason more births are in the interests of women and couples will need to come along.

 This is way outside the box, but there is a demographic change that might trigger a new attitude toward family size. This is long lives. The long term direction of life expectancy has been up. Longer lives, brings complications we are not really prepared for now. It is inevitable a large proportion of the aged population will be poor as it is now. Humans change their thinking in unexpected ways. One possible future twist could be family economies returning and government backing out. Couples may see they only retirement security as being from the children. This would motive couples to have more children. 

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