Fulfillment or Obligation?
Excellent review of two books about the population implosion: Fewer by Ben J. Wattenberg and The Empty Cradle by Phillip Longman. Link. Excerpts:
Longman writes as a progressive worried that only "fundamentalists" will have children in the future. He wants liberals to have larger families, and he believes that public policies that reward parenthood are the best chance for averting the economic crisis of an aging world and the cultural crisis of religious fanaticism.
On the question of Europe, Japan, and other modern democracies, both authors are in agreement: Depopulation is coming, and the economic and social consequences will likely be disastrous.
[Wattenberg writes], 'By any historical collective standard, the postwar generation has it all, or almost all. It has made individual decisions with its own best interests in mind. It wanted cars and vacations abroad. Women wanted education and career choices. It wanted its children to be well cared for and to attend good schools. And it decided to have fewer children than any cohort in human history. Individually, it apparently made sense.' But socially, it may prove disastrous, as whole civilizations shrink in the decades ahead, seeking a paradise of personal freedom in the present but unable to perpetuate themselves into the future.
Looking at America, the future is more complicated. The United States has virtually the highest fertility rate of any advanced nation at 2.01, with Israel as the most notable exception. Yet there are dramatic differences between different regions (low fertility in the northeast high fertility in the west) and between native-born whites and Hispanic immigrants.
And while many individuals and couples believe they are having fewer children (or none at all) because of the expense of raising children responsibly, their behavior has much deeper roots: It is not fundamentally an economic issue, but a cultural one. For those who see children primarily as sources of personal fulfillment, other routes to happiness may seem more trouble-free. Children will often lose out in this utilitarian calculus, even if the state makes raising them less expensive.
The economic and social effects of these trends will be enormous, but the deeper question is why so many modern people are choosing to live for themselves and for today, with so little thought for the human future.
