Awareness of the Low Birthrate Crisis is Essential to Solving It

In the past few years, leading voices including @ElonMusk and others have begun sounding the alarm about the low fertility crisis faced by many countries. This has led to some pushback.

But there is a vast difference between environmental doomerism, where the ‘solution’ is fewer people, and frank discussion of the low birthrate crisis. Low birthrates are not a hopeless problem, for the answer of forming families and having more children is readily at hand.

We need to be honest about what is happening. Fertility collapse points to devastating consequences for society and for the quality of life of everyone if people don’t have more children, and policy makers and prospective parents need to know this so they can do what they need to do.

But also, history supports the idea that fear about population decline can be a powerful spur to action and can lead to a turnaround.

Understanding how we got here

The idea that we should avoid discussing the low fertility crisis is silly when you realize that alarmism about overpopulation is a big part of how we got in this mess. Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, published in 1968, was an incredible force in society whose echoes reverberate today. Talk of overpopulation was extremely effective at driving down birthrates, spurring not just China’s brutal one child policy and India’s forced sterilizations but also population reduction messages around the world and especially in Asia.

Below are Korean population control posters from the 1970s and 1980s. The middle poster reads, “Two is too many!” The lowest birthrates in the world didn’t just mysteriously happen. They followed many years of intentionally induced panic about overpopulation.

Now that the opposite crisis is unfolding in part because anti-natalist messaging took hold and went way too far, are we just supposed to shut up about it? Are we to abandon the powerful tool of messaging after anti-natalists used it to help drive birthrates far below replacement?

What a weak response that would be, especially since Ehrlich ended up being wrong and losing every bet. Thanks to the work of Julian Simon and other economists, we know large populations of innovators working together bring prosperity, not poverty.

The low birthrate crisis is real, and it will cripple country after country. If these trends continue, the economic and human toll will be devastating.

We have to talk about it.

The greatest demographic turnarounds came through staring into the abyss

There have been plenty of cases where fertility rose for a little while, giving a temporary reprieve in the face of the birthrate decline of the past century. The Baby Boom is the most famous example.

But there are two examples of demographic turnarounds that have lasted many generations. One example most people know about is Israel. Following the tragedy of the Holocaust and other historical persecutions, every Israeli citizen has come to see having children as existential. Out of that burden has come new life. Israel is the only developed country in the world with above replacement fertility, averaging nearly 3 births per woman, twice the average in developed countries. Worrying about its demographic future has been very beneficial for Israel, and has led to much better outcomes.

It is easy to dismiss Israel as a peculiar case. But another there is another example.

France was the powerhouse of Europe for most of its history, and its security was ensured by its sheer size. Then the French Revolution led France to secularize and become individualist and in the 1800s, France had the lowest fertility in the world. By 1939 France, which had once been more populous than Germany was now far smaller.

In that year, France passed the Code de la famille, the most comprehensive pronatal policy in the world, and its leaders went from being indifferent about population to being consciously pro-natal, a stance that continues to this day.

France’s conscious pronatalism came too late to save it from devastation of World War II, but it changed France's trajectory. For the past 85 years France has had among the highest fertility rates in Europe. Early this year, French President Macron spoke of “demographic rearmament,” echoing the same fears of demographic decline that turned France toward pronatalism many years before.

Most Western leaders would have a hard time talking like this. Yet such honest talk makes a big difference. As any successful negotiator will tell you, the first step is to have the courage to ask for what you want, or what you need.

Where do French leaders find the courage to advocate openly for people to have children? They fear demographic decline, and that is a powerful motivator.

Raising the status of motherhood

I recently wrote about the extraordinary case of Mongolia. By celebrating mothers of many children, Mongolia has raised the status of motherhood and helped forge a culture where birthrates are 3-4 times higher than they are for its neighbors. Below, honorees descend the steps of the national palace, having been recognized for their nationally important role by the president himself.

We should elevate motherhood like this. But what is the logic? Why are they heroes?

In a war, the heroes are the men who take up arms and sacrifice themselves for the greater good in combat. But in the battle against population collapse, the heroes are mothers and especially mothers of many, who sacrifice themselves for the good of greater society.

If we talk about the birthrates honestly, then the status of parents is immediately elevated.

Pronatal efforts make no sense if you can’t see the crisis

Recently JD Vance was panned as being weird for talking about low birthrates. Elon Musk’s pronatalism too has gotten a mixed reception.

Why? Because most people cannot understand negative compounding. Below is the population pyramid for Korea. If fertility rates stabilize where they are, 100 Koreans today will have just 4 great grandchildren, and the country we rely upon for everything from ships to chips will not survive for long.

Country after country is following a downward path like this. If critics had any idea how devastating the low birthrate crisis will be, they would not mock the messengers as weirdos. They would be joining the messengers in looking for solutions.

How can we argue for marriage or religiosity (two of the most powerful forces supporting family formation) without talking of the calamitous population effects when we lose these social technologies?]

Once you understand that people aren’t having enough children, and that civilization is fading because of this, all the things that support people having kids suddenly make sense. Marriage makes sense. Religious faith has a clear purpose. Houses in the suburbs, often derided as “urban sprawl,” suddenly are incredibly important.

As well, many other policies that pronatalists favor, like child tax credits, are justified because we know that birthrates are too low.