Catalyst March Issue 2013, From William A. Donohue
Jonathan V. Last is a senior writer at the Weekly Standard,
the prominent conservative magazine that features Bill Kristol and Fred
Barnes. He is also a gifted writer, a strong pro-life advocate, and a
man not afraid to challenge the conventional wisdom. His new book, What to Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster, is a much needed wakeup call for the nation: we need more children, and we need them now.
It is commonplace for academics and
pundits to assume that we have too many people in the world. They paint
scary environmental scenarios and trot out mind-numbing data on how our
limited resources cannot sustain current rates of population growth.
They’re wrong. As Last makes clear, it is precisely the current
population growth rate that cannot be sustained any longer.
Today, Al Gore likes to wax hysterical
over the so-called population problem. A lot of his ideas are traceable
to the intellectual godfather of population mania, Paul Ehrlich. His
1968 book, The Population Bomb, had a tremendous effect, and it
was not salutary. Looking back at its incredible influence, Last labels
it “one of the most spectacularly foolish books ever published.” He does
not exaggerate.
Ehrlich was all over radio, TV, and
college campuses in the late 1960s and the 1970s. He was known for
proclaiming with dogmatic certainty, “The battle to feed all of humanity
is over.” Indeed, he predicted that the scale of famines in the 1970s
would lead to the deaths of “hundreds of millions of people,” all
because of overpopulation. But as Last ably shows, Ehrlich’s prediction
was not only wrong, his “silly book” was wrong when he penned it. To be
specific, “Fertility rates in America and across the world had been
declining gradually for decades,” Last says, “but beginning in 1968 they
sank like a stone.”
Unfortunately, in many circles data
matter less than perception. It was the perception of overpopulation,
fed by those like Ehrlich, that allowed elites to see people as the
enemy, a foe that must be curtailed. An anti-child culture soon took
root, aided and abetted by leaders in education, the media, and
government. Foundations also jumped on board, rewarding liberal think
tanks with plentiful grants.
The development of an anti-child culture
required more than this. Technology played a role. Once the pill became
commercially available in 1960, it would not take long before fertility
rates would plummet. In 1973, abortion was legalized, adding more fuel
to the fire: sex without consequences was the dream of irresponsible men
throughout the ages, and now they could get what they wanted in the name of women’s rights.
As Last points out, the migration of
women into the workforce all but insured the prevalence of two-income
families. Consider that in 1965, 44 percent of women worked outside the
home; by 1990 the figure was 70 percent (about where it is now). Let’s
not forget about the sharp increase in shacking up (politely called
cohabitation). These arrangements, based on convenience, not commitment,
pay lousy social dividends: while 78 percent of marriages last more
than five years, only 30 percent of cohabitations last that long.
Moreover, the divorce rate for couples who previously lived together is
much higher than those who waited until they were married.
The illegitimacy rate (thoughtfully
called the out-of-wedlock rate) is also related to these social
dynamics. What’s new is the fact that the rate of illegitimacy has more
than doubled for women over the age of 30. The declining influence of
religion surely figures here: the stigma once attached to illegitimacy
has all but vanished. The good news is that those young people who are
faithful churchgoers are happier in their marriages, and are less likely
to divorce. So religion matters.
Is it any wonder why young people are
waiting longer to marry, and are having fewer children when they do?
This is not the kind of social base upon which a child-friendly society
can be built. And it shows: dogs have replaced children as a source of
affection in urban America. In 1994, we spent $17 billion on pets; today
we’re close to $50 billion. The same phenomenon is also true in nations
that have adopted an anti-child culture, namely Japan and Italy: the
“dog mommy” is now a common Japanese stereotype.
But does it matter? Yes, in terms of
economic productivity, a declining fertility rate (2.1 percent is the
replacement level) is the kiss of death. For senior citizens, the
outlook is devastating: every dime paid by workers to the Social
Security Trust Fund is spent on current retirees—none of it is
put away for those who are currently paying into it. To put it another
way, thanks to collapsing fertility rates, the huge Social Security bill
for the swelling ranks of senior citizens will be paid for by a
declining number of workers. The worst is yet to come.
Jonathan Last has given us much to think
about; after all, he is really talking about the fate of our nation.
While all is not doom and gloom—we are an eternally resilient
people—there are plenty of problems built into our demographic profile
that cannot be neglected any longer.
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