D
David_Paul
Guest
Ethics and Public Policy Center
By Eric Cohen
PROGRESSIVES HAVE LONG WORRIED that world population is rising too much and too fast, and that poor nations will never modernize if they continue to procreate without limits.
But in reality, concerns about overpopulation are wholly misplaced, and the real danger ahead may result from “depopulation”: a world of fewer babies, aging populations, and pension systems in crisis.
To sort out the consequences of the “new demography,” we have the benefit of two valuable new books: “Fewer” by American Enterprise Institute scholar Ben J. Wattenberg, and “The Empty Cradle” by New America Foundation fellow Phillip Longman.
Both books cover similar territory and tell the same basic story. But they are written for different reasons. Wattenberg writes as an “optimistic realist” and “American exceptionalist.” He believes that Europe and Japan are in demographic trouble, that developing countries may largely benefit from falling birth rates, and that America alone may have the civic resources to avoid the pitfalls of an aging society.
Longman writes as a progressive worried that only “fundamentalists” will have children in the future. He wants liberals to have larger families, and he believes that public policies that reward parenthood are the best chance for averting the economic crisis of an aging world and the cultural crisis of religious fanaticism.
The new demography is best understood in three parts: the less developed countries (LDCs), the more developed countries (especially Europe and Japan), and the United States.
Contrary to public perception, the most dramatic fertility declines in recent decades have occurred in the LDCs. From 1965 to 1970, the “total fertility rate” (or TFR, the number of children per woman) for all LDCs was 6.0; from 1985 to 1990, it was 3.8; from 2000 to 2005, it will be below 2.9 and falling.
In 20 LDCs, fertility rates are already below replacement levels or soon will be— including Iran, Mexico, and Brazil.
Central to this story is China, the world’s most populous nation, whose TFR fell from 6.06 between 1960 and 1965 to around 1…8 today. This drop is due largely to China’s coercive one-child policy. But it is also clear that the fertility free-fall in the developing world is not predominantly coercive; it is, rather, a spontaneous change in human behavior. And given that many of these nations are still poor, it suggests that modern wealth is not a prerequisite for fertility decline . . .
Depopulation is coming, and the economic and social consequences will likely be disastrous. The data are indeed staggering:
Since the late 1950s, the TFR in Europe has fallen from 2.7 to 1.38—an astounding 34 percent below the replacement level of 2.1. Japan’s fertility rate is 1.32. A large number of nations have TFRs between 1.0 and 1.2, including Russia, Spain, Italy, South Korea, and the Czech Republic. Generations of modern children are growing up without brothers and sisters, and roughly 20 percent of women in the leading nations of Europe have no children at all at the end of their child-bearing years . . .
The United States has virtually the highest fertility rate of any advanced nation at 2.01, with Israel as the most notable exception. Yet there are dramatic differences between different regions (low fertility in the northeast high fertility in the west) and between native-born whites and Hispanic immigrants. Unlike Europe and Japan the American fertility rate has risen (if slightly) over the last two decades. But whether America is truly “exceptional” is unclear: Wattenberg says yes, because we continue to have children near the replacement rate, and we continue to welcome and assimilate working-age immigrants.
Longman is skeptical, and worries that American over-spending on health care could erase any demographic advantages we might have . . .
full text here
By Eric Cohen
PROGRESSIVES HAVE LONG WORRIED that world population is rising too much and too fast, and that poor nations will never modernize if they continue to procreate without limits.
But in reality, concerns about overpopulation are wholly misplaced, and the real danger ahead may result from “depopulation”: a world of fewer babies, aging populations, and pension systems in crisis.
To sort out the consequences of the “new demography,” we have the benefit of two valuable new books: “Fewer” by American Enterprise Institute scholar Ben J. Wattenberg, and “The Empty Cradle” by New America Foundation fellow Phillip Longman.
Both books cover similar territory and tell the same basic story. But they are written for different reasons. Wattenberg writes as an “optimistic realist” and “American exceptionalist.” He believes that Europe and Japan are in demographic trouble, that developing countries may largely benefit from falling birth rates, and that America alone may have the civic resources to avoid the pitfalls of an aging society.
Longman writes as a progressive worried that only “fundamentalists” will have children in the future. He wants liberals to have larger families, and he believes that public policies that reward parenthood are the best chance for averting the economic crisis of an aging world and the cultural crisis of religious fanaticism.
The new demography is best understood in three parts: the less developed countries (LDCs), the more developed countries (especially Europe and Japan), and the United States.
Contrary to public perception, the most dramatic fertility declines in recent decades have occurred in the LDCs. From 1965 to 1970, the “total fertility rate” (or TFR, the number of children per woman) for all LDCs was 6.0; from 1985 to 1990, it was 3.8; from 2000 to 2005, it will be below 2.9 and falling.
In 20 LDCs, fertility rates are already below replacement levels or soon will be— including Iran, Mexico, and Brazil.
Central to this story is China, the world’s most populous nation, whose TFR fell from 6.06 between 1960 and 1965 to around 1…8 today. This drop is due largely to China’s coercive one-child policy. But it is also clear that the fertility free-fall in the developing world is not predominantly coercive; it is, rather, a spontaneous change in human behavior. And given that many of these nations are still poor, it suggests that modern wealth is not a prerequisite for fertility decline . . .
Depopulation is coming, and the economic and social consequences will likely be disastrous. The data are indeed staggering:
Since the late 1950s, the TFR in Europe has fallen from 2.7 to 1.38—an astounding 34 percent below the replacement level of 2.1. Japan’s fertility rate is 1.32. A large number of nations have TFRs between 1.0 and 1.2, including Russia, Spain, Italy, South Korea, and the Czech Republic. Generations of modern children are growing up without brothers and sisters, and roughly 20 percent of women in the leading nations of Europe have no children at all at the end of their child-bearing years . . .
The United States has virtually the highest fertility rate of any advanced nation at 2.01, with Israel as the most notable exception. Yet there are dramatic differences between different regions (low fertility in the northeast high fertility in the west) and between native-born whites and Hispanic immigrants. Unlike Europe and Japan the American fertility rate has risen (if slightly) over the last two decades. But whether America is truly “exceptional” is unclear: Wattenberg says yes, because we continue to have children near the replacement rate, and we continue to welcome and assimilate working-age immigrants.
Longman is skeptical, and worries that American over-spending on health care could erase any demographic advantages we might have . . .
full text here
