We Are Facing A Demographic Collapse Of Epic Proportions
By Michael Snyder/Economic Collapse Blog December 18, 2023
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Birth rates have plummeted to record lows all over the industrialized world, and this has very serious implications for our future. If something is not done to reverse this, native populations will fall very rapidly in wealthy countries during the years ahead, and there won't be nearly enough young workers to support the entitlement programs that the elderly are counting on.
Meanwhile, nations where birth rates are still above replacement level (such as in the Islamic world) will become more powerful and will play a more dominant role in world affairs. Despite all of our advanced technology, population numbers still matter, and we really are facing a demographic collapse of epic proportions.
Here in the United States our birth rate has been below replacement level for many years, and now the average woman in the United States is only giving birth to about 1.6 children over the course of a lifetime...
In the US, the birth rate has been falling since the Great Recession, dropping almost 23 percent between 2007 and 2022. Today, the average American woman has about 1.6 children, down from three in 1950, and significantly below the "replacement rate" of 2.1 children needed to sustain a stable population.
Our birth rate has already been cut in half, and it is being projected that it will fall even more during the years that are in front of us.
Many have pointed out that we will not be able to economically support our aging population if this continues...
Institute for Family Studies senior fellow Brad Wilcox said that we may already be seeing the effects.
"Below-replacement fertility means closing schools, shrinking college enrollments, fewer workers and consumers, and not enough taxes to pay for entitlements. We're already seeing low fertility fallout hitting schools and colleges. But it will have big consequences for the economy as well, given that there will be relatively fewer workers and consumers, and less entrepreneurial activity, as the population of young adults in America falls across much of the nation," Wilcox told Fox News Digital.
Illegal immigration is the primary reason why the U.S. population has continued to rise even though we aren't replacing ourselves.
This year, we are seeing an enormous tsunami of people coming over our southern border each day...
Illegal entries at U.S. borders remain at historic levels as the Biden mass migration catastrophe continues to intensify.
Apprehensions of illegal aliens along the southwest frontier alone are now surpassing 10,000 on a daily basis, while migrants and smugglers also exploit other borders and ports of entry.
On Friday, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded more than 13,000 apprehensions across the U.S. -- a figure that does not include known or unknown 'gotaways.'
It is the same story over in Europe.
Native populations are not replacing themselves, and immigrants are making up the difference.
As of 2020, the average woman in Italy was only giving birth to 1.24 children over the course of a lifetime...
The number of newborns in Italy has been in steady decline since the 2008 financial crisis, with the average number of children for each woman standing at 1.24 as of 2020 - among the lowest fertility rates in the EU. At the same time, the population is rapidly ageing - the number of centenarians in Italy has tripled over the last 20 years to 22,000 - placing even more pressure on government finances.
The birth rate in Italy has continued to fall since then, and on Saturday Elon Musk publicly encouraged Italian women to start having more children...
While addressing the crowd Musk also encouraged Italians to have more children. And it's no wonder. Despite Musk's interest in procreation, Italy does have one of the lowest birth rates in the world.
Between January and June of 2023 there were 3,500 fewer births than in the same period of 2022, according to data from national statistics ISTAT. And in the year 2022, birth rates fell for a 14th consecutive drop by 1.7% to 1.18 for women of Italian nationality, and 1.24 to include new mothers who are immigrants. To address these unprecedented numbers, Meloni set aside around 1 billion euros to combat the declining birth rate in October.
Of course Italy is far from alone. In my new book I share statistics from other countries in Europe where birth rates have also fallen to depressingly low levels.
In Asia, things are even worse.
If you doubt this, just check out these numbers...
In South Korea, the birth rate is down to 0.81 children per woman. In China, after decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy, the population is shrinking for the first time since the 1960s. In Taiwan, the birth rate stands at 0.87.
When your country is more than 50 percent below replacement level, that is a major crisis.
South Korea actually has the lowest fertility rate in the entire industrialized world, and that rate is expected to keep dropping for at least several more years...
South Korea's total fertility rate, the number of births from a woman in her lifetime, is now expected to drop from 0.78 in 2022 to 0.65 in 2025, according to the government's Statistics Korea.
In a worst-case scenario, that rate could go as low 0.59 births per woman in 2026, the agency said.
What is South Korea going to look like if this continues?
Needless to say, governments around the world have recognized that there is a problem, and many of them have put incentives in place to encourage parents to have more children.
But despite everything that has been tried, nothing has really worked...
The drop has frightened lawmakers and commentators alike, with headlines warning of a coming "demographic crisis" or "Great People Shortage" as economies find themselves without enough young workers to fill jobs and pay taxes.
To stem the tide, the world's leaders have tried everything from generous social welfare programs to pink-and-blue awareness campaigns to five-figure checks to veiled threats, all to relatively little avail. "Even the richest, savviest, most committed governments have struggled to find policies that produce sustained bumps in fertility," Trent MacNamara, a history professor at Texas A&M who has written about fertility rates, told Vox in an email. "If such policies were discoverable, I think someone would have discovered them."
Unfortunately, many people out there simply do not understand the importance of this issue.
The family is one of the fundamental building blocks of civilization.
Without strong families, we cannot have a strong society.
For example, one recent study discovered that neighborhoods in the United States "with a greater percentage of traditional two-parent households have less crime"
Conservative Christians have known it all along: Neighborhoods with a greater percentage of traditional two-parent households have less crime. That's likely why the traditional family has been under direct assault by what can only be called satanic forces for many decades. As goes the traditional nuclear family, so goes Western civilization.
The proof is plain as day. A report Tuesday by the Institute for Family Studies concluded that neighborhoods with strong families are safer. Safer neighborhoods mean safer cities and towns. Safer cities and towns mean safer counties and states. A safer country leads to prosperity and stability for all.
If we want our country to succeed, we should be doing all that we can to encourage strong marriages and strong families.
Sadly, at this point more Americans than ever are not getting married...
A quarter of 40-year-olds in the United States have never been married, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Pew Research Center.
As Statista's Anna Fleck reports, this marks the highest figure since the data first started being published back in 1900, and a major leap from the 6 percent low of 1980.
Instead, young Americans are increasingly opting for alternative lifestyles.
Let's hope that Americans start having more children, but at this stage there are no indications that current cultural trends will reverse any time soon.
Originally published at The Economic Collapse Blog -reposted with permission.
