Right at the end of last year the singer Chappell Roan caused a little kerfuffle with her comments about families and ‘not knowing anyone with kids who was happy.’ She articulated the great ambivalence many western women have about becoming mothers. Which is something of a problem: the ambivalence & the narrative.
Back in June last year I wrote about population decline. Since then there has been a constant stream of publications issuing alarming notices about the relatively imminent year when we will reach ‘peak human.’ There are still plenty that are still talking about humanity peaking at around 10 billion in 2080s and they are all wrong. The projections are annually revised downwards and the current most likely scenario is that humanity will top out under 9 billion in the 2050s. From then on it’s all downhill.
America is having a fertility crash, many of the largest countries in the world have peaked and are shrinking, and stunningly the point at which we reached peak baby (the year with the largest number of births) is over a decade ago.
There is also every reason to think the decline will accelerate in some places (just watch what is happening in South Korea) and this more than any other issue, perhaps even more than climate change will shape the world of my children.
The signs are not encouraging: less sex, sex no longer being for procreation, fewer marriages, fewer babies. Unless you’re Amish.
Some think a smaller global population will be good news for the environment but it seems unlikely to make enough of a difference in time and also, importantly, children are not a harm to be reduced.
Reaching peak human is not likely to be something most of us will notice after all there will still be 8 billion people on the planet. It will, though, be something historic. I have a decent chance of living to the point where the global human population starts to shrink. That is something that hasn’t happened for 700 years. And that was because Black Death stalked the globe.
The biggest point to remember of course is that we live locally and not globally. The pressure nation states are going to come under in the next 30 years is going to be intense and at this point the only solution that will make a difference in time is immigration. And almost the only place you will be able to import people from is Africa. Which is why the future of Europe lies not in Europe but Africa. Even that might be only a temporary fix as even in Africa as countries develop their birth rates are declining too.
Anti-immigration parties around Europe are like the mythical story of King Canute ordering the tide back. They can kick out all the illegal immigrants out that they want but demographics will kick them in the butt and shrinking, ageing, weakening populations will mean they’ll eventually have to let them back in or face an even worse national decline.
It seems at this point the fertility decline is acknowledged and is, at least amongst policy types, accepted as true. You can see governments clearly believe it as they are starting to spend huge sums of money trying to nudge the TFR upwards. What is yet, I think, to happen is a willingness to assess the cultural assumptions that lie behind this trend.
The Handmaiden Barrier
Right now there are some huge cultural barriers towards the idea of trying to shift some of these narratives – pop stars like Chappell Roan carry a lot more weight than government policy and politicians’ words and plans. Or think about the cultural power that the image on the left has. It screams to women be afraid of having children, be afraid of governments trying to make you have babies. It’s a powerful symbol that has become widely known and deeply held. There are generations of women who will see this costume as one of protest and resistance. You cannot, will not, force me to have children.
And of course, no one, outside of China, wants to force any woman to do any such thing but governments do want them to want to have children. I remember a song about Jonah that I learned as a child, “God does not force us to go ‘gainst his will, he just makes us willing to go.” It’s a bit like that.
By contrast can you think of a similarly powerful image or symbol for families or having children? I can’t.
In effect until we start seeing mass cultural stories (songs, books, TV shows, films) that show the power and beauty of families and the blessing of children, then most government programs are likely to fail. Remember the architecture of the entire global economy is choice. And so what will nudge people to choose children and families on a societal level? I don’t think those things exist. What is more likely is attempts to scare people into changing tack. I would guess that we will see more stories with The Children of Men type premise to go with what is now established fact and not at all science fiction.
And what of the church?
In theory churches should be persuasive outposts of family life as they are instinctively pro-family and pro-children. The reality on the other hand is clearly already hitting many churches who have neither families nor children. They’re struggling and will continue to struggle to survive. Western churches are just as under the spell of consumerism and subject to the all-conquering narrative of choice as their secular neighbours so until we have a robust theology that produces disciples who understand this and can make the big choices in the opposite direction to the prevailing culture, the church is unlikely to be a major factor in leading the change. But churches may still win out, as families tend towards or be more open to faith and those churches that are pro-family and have children are likely to stand out even more in their communities. We’ll see.
Links & other sources
Louise Perry has regularly explored the issues of fertility on her podcast. Here are two episodes worth listening to and the third link is an article worth reading:
- Imagining a Low-Fertility Future
- High Income, Low Fertility
- Immigration is not the answer to low birth rates
Alice Evans has written consistently on the subject of global fertility
- Why is Fertility Collapsing, Globally?
- The Global Rise of Singles
- The Global Collapse of Coupling & Fertility
- How do we Boost Birth Rates?
And from The Economist which has included this issue regularly in its coverage
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