Why are birthrates falling off a cliff?

The greatest crisis in the history of humanity is upon us. It’s the birth dearth. The birthrate is falling all over the world, in every country of the world. Soon the world will reach peak population and the decline in overall population will begin. The problems this creates are enormous as I dealt with in a previous video.

But what’s causing it? I have a strong suspicion as to the real cause but let me give a number of reasons that are being floated for the collapse of the birth rate.

Feminism is often blamed for the birth dearth.

Norwegian demographer Mads Larsen says: “The core reason for our demographic collapse is that we are the first societies in human history to have “free women.” In all societies, various degrees of arranged marriage have prevailed until around 1968, when, after an 800-year process…individual partner choice has been universally implemented. This is a historically unique system that has only existed for about half a century…the deepest underlying desire of the Western individual was never simply the right to vote or the ability for women to work in offices. Instead, the fundamental longing was to have the ability to choose one’s own partner.” This freedom that women now enjoy has reduced the birth rate according to Larsen.

A lot of commentators are blaming the birth dearth on economics. Kids are too expensive. Government is not doing enough to help. Housing is too crowded or expensive. Cars are too small. On one level this reason makes sense but it really doesn’t work. Why? We are the richest people who have ever lived. Financially we have never been more able to afford children.

Listen to Mary Eberstadt: “Modern societies the world over have more of almost everything than ever before—more income, more food, more education, more healthcare, more housing, more private vehicles, more travel, more free time and vacation. Practically the only thing they don’t have more of is children.”

The Federalist argues that birth rates are declining because abortion is much easier. We are seeing an alarming rise in at-home abortive drugs. It may surprise you to know that at least in the United States more than half of aborted pregnancies are through the use of these at-home drugs. That is obviously one way to reduce birth rate. What we don’t know is if women would find other ways to abort if they didn’t have mail order drugs. 

 

A big reason for the decline of the birth rate in America is the emergence of a new culture that is hostile to children. Brad Wilcox, a sociologist from the University of Virginia, pointed to consistent evidence that recent declines in birth rates are driven almost entirely by declines in marriage: married couples may not have as many children as in previous generations, but they are having enough to stave off demographic collapse, if only enough people were getting married.

Or, listen to demographer Mary Eberstadt: “In the twenty-first century, we are experiencing a profoundly consequential retreat from lifelong, socially binding care relationships, including marriage and parenthood. This retreat is being led by women—a social fact recognized by everyone from TikTok tradwives to academic feminists. The consequences of the retreat will be literally epochal. Across the globe, rich democracies are pioneering a society such as was never seen before in human history, one in which women’s lives are no longer ordered toward care.”

The new birth trends reflect this change in women’s attitudes.  It would appear that tradition, duty, and sacrifice are exerting less of a call on our moderns than they did in the past, while the allure of convenience, autonomy, and self-actualization are increasingly affecting even family formation. Whatever else one can say about their many marvelous attractions, children are definitely not convenient.

Rob Henderson argues that the birth dearth is caused by the change in definition of what constitutes successful parenthood: In past generations, families raised children according to what they could afford. Today, parenting is judged according to what cultural elites consider acceptable.

Many parents feel pressure to provide their children with a full schedule of extracurriculars, travel sports, private tutoring and tuition for an expensive college. Add to that list a smartphone and travel experiences.

Parents who don’t provide these things risk feelings of inadequacy. The question for young adults, then, isn’t whether they can afford to raise children. It’s whether they can afford to raise a child in the “right” way. When the answer is no, many delay parenthood or skip it altogether.

Maria Baer in World: “Most intentionally childless Americans aren’t forgoing having babies because they’d be financially destitute if they did. They’re avoiding babies because they’re scared having a family will hinder their ability to live the kind of high-status life they’re now pursuing, and they don’t believe family is worth that sacrifice.”

 

Another reason the birth rate is declining is because of the Leftist Progressive hostility toward marriage and family that goes all the way back to Karl Marx. It’s a culture of death—the death of freedom, the death of family, the death of the elderly, and, of course, the death of the unborn either through abortion or the decision not to bear them in the first place.

In World magazine Colin Smothers had an interesting analogy: “While the ancient Near East worshipped fertility gods, the modern West worships infertility gods.

Today, progressives promote intentional childlessness as an optimal lifestyle choice and vibrant path toward self-actualization. Movements such as the “Shout Your Abortion” campaign, celebrations like World Contraception Day, and ostentatious displays like the inflatable IUD in our capital city all point in one direction: Our culture has been infiltrated by infertility cults.

While the ancient Near East worshipped fertility gods, the modern West worships infertility gods. This is the thought that came to mind when I saw reports of a 20-foot inflatable birth control device (IUD) that had been erected in front of Union Station in Washington, D.C., with leftist groups like Planned Parenthood venerating their idol.”

A common reason given for the birth dearth is Environmentalism—people are killing the planet. Global warming is killing the earth. We are running out of resources. That’s because the earth has too many people. Leftist environmentalists rejoice in the falling birthrate. They view human beings as a cancer to be eradicated and for the earth to return to its pure and innocent prehuman state. As absurd as that notion may be, that’s the heartfelt vision of the Green cult. They are unaware of how dependent their world is on other human beings, the very people they want to rid themselves of.

Anna Louise Sussman author of, “Inconceivable: The Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty.” writes in the New York Times she, “The future has never been assured, but it feels as though we are living in a time of spectacular uncertainty.” This uncertainty has been created largely through apocalyptic environmental nonsense.

Let’s get to the real reason for the birth dearth, or at least the main reason: We have gotten rich and we no longer need children. Louise Perry in First Things:

“Once societies pass a per capita income threshold around $10,000 per year, they begin to lose their will to reproduce themselves—children simply get in the way of too many material pleasures.” 

Historically, people saw children as advantageous for three reasons—for one’s social security in old age, as a source of labor and hence, income for the family, or third, to compensate for high infant and child mortality rates. In the past a lot of kids die before reaching adulthood so you have to have extras to allow for this.

Brink Lindsey: “It’s no coincidence that the precipitous drop-off in North Atlantic birth rates kicked off around 1870…”The demographic transition was just one spectacular byproduct of the larger transition from mass poverty to mass affluence made possible by capitalist mass production…urbanization increased the cost of raising kids, while expanding economic opportunities for women increased the opportunity cost of having extra ones. These and related factors combined to transform kids from productive assets into increasingly costly splurges — and parental demand for children fell accordingly.”

A Pew survey reported the top reason adults younger than 50 say they don’t have kids is that “they just don’t want to.” The second most common answer these adults gave is “they want to focus on other things.”

Sinful men and women are governed by self-interest. You don’t need children any more to live the good life. So you don’t have them. At the end the birth dearth is caused by human selfishness.

One of the main reasons for the birth dearth is the decline of Christian faith. Western culture is becoming increasingly pagan, and for pagans the purpose of life is to have a good time and kids prevent that. Having kids interferes with career advancement. Feminism fits in here. Women have gained a lot of freedom and they want to use it on themselves, living the good life full of fun and without responsibilities to tie them down. 

The writer in World magazine got it right.  “When Christianity recedes, it doesn’t leave a neutral space behind. Rather, it leaves a void, and voids don’t stay empty. They fill—usually with individualism dressed up as liberation, consumption marketed as meaning, and wellness culture doing the heavy theological lifting it was never designed to carry.

Christianity, whatever its critics prefer to remember, solved this elegantly for centuries. It placed family at the center of life, not the periphery. It taught that existence itself was a gift, and therefore something to be passed forward. It gave people a reason to work toward horizons they would never reach.”



Do you want proof that the final driver of the birth dearth is religious? Look at the people who are actually having children—they are almost all motivated by religious belief.

And that brings me to the topic of my next video. What can be done about the birth dearth? We will get to that in the next couple of weeks.