{"id":1576573,"date":"2022-07-28T11:45:30","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T15:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1576573"},"modified":"2022-07-28T11:45:54","modified_gmt":"2022-07-28T15:45:54","slug":"overpopulation-fears-give-way-to-another-bogeyman-a-fertility-slump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/overpopulation-fears-give-way-to-another-bogeyman-a-fertility-slump\/","title":{"rendered":"Overpopulation Fears Give Way To Another Bogeyman, A Fertility Slump"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Foverpopulation-fears-give-way-to-another-bogeyman-a-fertility-slump%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1576573&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A few decades ago, parents of big families found themselves getting lectured for littering the planet with their offspring.<\/p>\n<p>Global warming hysteria, then climate change fears convinced some ethicists that having a large brood was unethical, almost immoral, and many adopted this view. The internet is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/think\/opinion\/science-proves-kids-are-bad-earth-morality-suggests-we-stop-ncna820781\">awash<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vogue.co.uk\/mini-vogue\/article\/having-a-child-sustainable\">in<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/environment\/article\/climate-anxiety-is-widespread-among-youth-can-they-overcome-it\">articles<\/a> wondering if it\u2019s still okay to bring children into the world who will supposedly face a dystopian future.<\/p>\n<p>Now though, experts are starting to murmur about a new problem, the Western world\u2019s plummeting birth rate.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. fertility rate has dropped by about 2% per year since 2014, hitting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/data\/vsrr\/vsrr012-508.pdf\">record lows<\/a> in 2020, 2019, and 2018. The COVID-19 pandemic dealt a particularly potent blow, sinking the fertility rate by about 4% in 2020. It bounced back slightly last year, rising by 1%, likely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2021\/11\/19\/growing-share-of-childless-adults-in-u-s-dont-expect-to-ever-have-children\/\">because<\/a> people delayed having children in the thick of the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>The total fertility rate has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/data\/statab\/t991x07.pdf\">dropped<\/a> from 3.77 average children per woman in 1957 at the height of the post-war baby boom to just 1.66 average children in 2021, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/data\/vsrr\/vsrr020.pdf\">according<\/a> to the CDC. In 2020, the rate dipped even lower to 1.64 children per woman, a record low since the government began tracking the rate in the 1930s.<\/p>\n<p>Now, the U.S. is nowhere near \u201creplacement-level fertility,\u201d or 2.1 children per woman.<\/p>\n<p>Billionaire and futurist Elon Musk brought the issue to the forefront of the national conversation this year, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1545046146548019201?lang=en\">tweeting<\/a>\u00a0that \u201ca collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome people think that having fewer kids is better for the environment. It\u2019s total nonsense. The environment is going to be fine, the environment is going to be fine even if we doubled the size of the humans,\u201d Musk said in May.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">USA birth rate has been below min sustainable levels for ~50 years <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/v5PSLbvEAE\">pic.twitter.com\/v5PSLbvEAE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1529097667858546689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 24, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt least maintain our numbers,\u201d the Tesla CEO said. \u201cWe don\u2019t necessarily need to grow dramatically, but [at] least let\u2019s not gradually dwindle away until civilization ends with all of us in adult diapers, in a whimper.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hope you have big families and congrats to those who already do!\u201d Musk <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1545049944796516357\">said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Musk\u2019s warnings are a far cry from more than a century of dire warnings about overpopulation.<\/p>\n<p>The first economist to raise the alarm about overpopulation was English scholar Thomas Malthus, who died in 1834. Malthus posited that population growth would always end up outpacing food production, keeping a utopian society out of reach.<\/p>\n<p>More than 100 years later in 1968, American biologist Paul Ehrlich dropped his book \u201cThe Population Bomb,\u201d which would turn out to be one of the most influential \u2014 and alarming \u2014 books of the last century.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe battle to feed all of humanity is over,\u201d the first sentence thuds. \u201cIn the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After the book took off, the number of people who wanted large families dropped precipitously, falling from 70% to 52% from 1967 to 1971, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/236696\/americans-theory-think-larger-families-ideal.aspx\">according<\/a> to Gallup.<\/p>\n<p>In the 1990s, the current bogeyman appeared, climate change.<\/p>\n<p>However, some climate scientists have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/obituaries\/2022\/07\/19\/patrick-michaels-climate-change-dead\/\">declared<\/a> climate change isn\u2019t the crisis situation we\u2019re being told it is. Other climate scientists\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/22399882\/climate-change-kids-children-overpopulation\">say<\/a> having fewer children won\u2019t solve the problem of a rapidly warming earth quickly enough anyway, apparently reluctant to tell people who have that \u201cchild-shaped hole\u201d in their heart that they shouldn\u2019t have children.<\/p>\n<p>Now with the U.S. fertility rate in sharp decline,\u00a0experts warn an economic slump could be around the corner.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Conceptions dropped just before the last three economic recessions, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/news.nd.edu\/news\/study-points-to-fertility-as-a-leading-economic-indicator\/\">study<\/a> by University of Notre Dame researchers.<\/p>\n<p>Many factors are at play besides climate change. More women opt to have children later in life as they focus on their career in their 20s. Many couples also find it more difficult to make ends meet now than in previous decades, prompting them to delay having children until they are more financially stable. More families find today that they need two incomes to pay their bills, which leaves them facing sky-high child care costs.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, an aging population <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2018\/07\/21\/the-aging-childless-future\">threatens<\/a> to hurt the economy in the long term. With fewer younger Americans in the workforce paying the costs of caring for older Americans, economic conditions could decline sharply over the next several decades.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have an aging population. People might say, \u2018So?\u2019\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/news.umich.edu\/whats-behind-the-falling-u-s-birthrate\/\">said<\/a> Pamela Smock, professor of sociology at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>Smock gave the example of \u201cSocial Security, a program designed to financially help support our older population.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFewer working-age adults, who are paying for Social Security, does not bode well for the Social Security program and the financial security of our older population,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>So far, the U.S. has fared better than other places with falling birth rates such Japan and many European countries. This is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2018\/07\/18\/how-immigration-could-save-the-post-industrial-world?utm_source=newsletter&#038;utm_medium=email&#038;utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&#038;stream=top#_ga=2.222678747.1306487565.1658867976-1494115433.1658867976\">partly thanks<\/a> to immigration, which so far has kept the U.S. population from declining.<\/p>\n<p>One country in particular is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few decades ago, parents of big families found themselves getting lectured for littering the planet with their offspring. Global warming hysteria, then climate change fears convinced some ethicists that having a large brood was unethical, almost immoral, and many adopted this view. The internet is awash in articles wondering if it\u2019s still okay to &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1576658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1576573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1576573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1576658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1576573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1576573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1576573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}