Unsustainable America

Subject: Unsustainable America Sat May 23, 2020 7:57 pm

Don’t underestimate the sociopolitical consequences of declining fertility.

Americans are having fewer babies than ever, or at least than since the government began tracking the general fertility rate in 1909. The total fertility rate ticked down to 1.7 in 2019, meaning that the average number of babies an American woman would have over her lifetime is well below replacement level.

Unsustainable America Babies2

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Birthrates fell or held steady for women of all ages except those in their early 40s. Teenagers saw the sharpest drop, with a 5 percent decline in their birthrate. Since peaking in 1991, the teen birthrate has fallen 73 percent.

Does that trouble you? It troubles me.

Some people will look at the forthcoming population decline and give a satisfied smile. Perhaps they believe that more humanity will be too great a Malthusian burden on the environment itself, with the annoying human demands for energy, food, and leisure. Or perhaps they see a wave of automation coming down the road, and believe that the already growing portion of non-working men could, in the absence of a declining birthrate, balloon to a point that a decent society — a decent life — becomes politically unsustainable.

I think the problems run almost all in the other direction.

First, there is literal atomization. Lower fertility very quickly withers the family tree, as more people are raised with fewer or no siblings, fewer or no cousins, fewer or no aunts and uncles. That is, more people in the future will grow up with shriveled kin networks, fewer relations with people who are obliged to socialize and network with each other. I think this is a disaster for many people trying to develop a sense of comfort and confidence in the world. And the family itself is a school and support for the kinds of independent civic associations that give a society its free character. The shriveling of nuclear and extended families means the diminishment of a powerful bulwark against the forces of social conformism, whether those come by mass media or direct political tutelage.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/unsustainable-america/?fbclid=IwAR2pDc40h97cvyaRDyVzSiWi61N9bOHaoPgyi0Hmgl_RhSBsTy46dVKYuSY

Unsustainable America

Unsustainable America

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