World Population is Collapsing
How to Fix it?
Will humans go extinct?
In an interview last week Elon Musk was asked what keeps him up at night. His response was that crashing birth rates could destroy civilization.
Or even wipe out humanity.
Population Decline in Rich Countries
Elon noted that in some countries births are one third replacement level.
In Japan, for example, on average 4 grandparents yield a single grandchild.
In Korea, 100 Koreans will become just 8 great-grandchildren. As in a country shrinks to a single city.
China is on track to lose 600 million people in a single lifetime — 5 times the population of Japan.
Europe's not for behind; fertility rates for native-born Europeans are roundabout 1.3 -- meaning you lose a third of your people every generation.
For native-born Italians or Spaniards it's nearly half lost per generation. So much for Catholic families.
The US is similar to Europe; native-born fertility -- of any race -- is at a record-low 1.5 per couple.
So you lose a third of Americans per generation.
The collapse is now worldwide, including many countries you might not expect.
Fertility is now below replacement in nearly all of Latin America and East Asia. And half of the Middle East including Turkey and Iran doesn’t have enough kids to sustain their population.
It's even below replacement in Bangladesh and India — poster children in the 1970’s for the population explosion.
Even Sub-Saharan Africa went from 7 kids a generation ago to just 4 today. To get a sense, that's the fertility rate of the US just before World War 1.
What’s Driving the Collapse
What’s driving the crash is 3 things that changed the cost-benefit of kids:
Kids don't earn.
They cost a lot thanks to inflation.
And government pensions mean don't need kids when you’re old.
So rather than kids helping on the farm — or in the family business — urbanization, union restrictions on teen employment, and the decline of small business left kids as pure cost.
College blows it out to more than $200,000 per kid.
Meanwhile, relentless inflation since the Fed was formed drove mothers into the workforce.
Meaning now the kids potentially cost a second salary. You’re forced onto a two-income treadmill.
Finally, government pensions replaced nature's pension -- kids -- with a government check.
Throw in public schools that actively turn kids against their parents and many potential parents need kids in old age — nor feel they can rely on them.
Put it together and kids were financial assets in 1910 America. But today kids are financial costs -- indeed, enormous costs.
What’s the solution?
So far countries have focused on direct payments with little impact.
Japan and Singapore give out thousands in baby bonuses that have been largely ineffective. Hungary just combined that with a lifelong income tax exemption for mothers that should work better.
Still, we've got 3 very good options to go after the root causes.
First is income: make it easier to work part-time -- which is already happening -- and to start a small business, which has been in free-fall in the West.
This lets women have a meaningful career with kids while the kids can start earning in their teens, whether its website design or mowing lawns.
Second is costs. Inflation and stagnant wages force parents into two-income careers. And unban the competency tests that used to do for free what college now does for a hundred grand.
Finally, pensions. Minimal government pensions force parents to have kids. This isn't politically palatable, but it's the truth. If parents fear growing old childless — as they have for thousands of years — they’ll do what it takes.
We can absolutely fix population decline. But it means ending the government policies that are driving it.
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Hi Peter, have you looked into the pro-natal policies of Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore? He did everything he could to increase Singapore birthrates, including all sorts of government incentives and public cajoling, and he failed. Singapore birthrates remain basically the lowest in the world along with Hong Kong.
Sometimes issues are deeper than economics, relating to religion and worldview and outlook. Urban areas are "IQ shredders" which attracts the smartest who have much fewer children than replacement - this is across time and culture...
Personally, I'm much more worried about the ongoing Holocene extinction event (basically the total destruction of the environment) than I am about declining populations not being able to contribute to civilization's economic ponzi schemes pushing forever growth: https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/the-sad-skinsuiting-of-the-environmental
It is amazing that we are the only species that has given up on the driving element of evolution, namely propagation of our DNA. Certainly the egalitarian indoctrination that everybody is just as good as the next one and that it is not important if the child is yours plays a role. We are also being told that "just having fun" is a guiding life concept and spirituality or religion is something that only hicks do. The success of your kids used to be your pride in having contributed something good to society, now you are told that you are selfish and "it's a crime to bring kids into this awful world".
Once folks without kids were seen as failures, which they are in an evolutionary sense, now it's the "smart" move.
Since the proliferation and even celebration of "birth control", from the pill to late term abortion, we are now in a position of enjoying natures incentive to have children, namely the sex act, without fulfilling its purpose, which is to have children. On top of that we encourage homosexuality and even celebrate it with parades, which is akin to indulging in food without any nutritional value. The end result is in either case is the same, the body is starved.