The fertility countdown
Issue 86 - 1 February 2022 (7.5-min read)
Usually when billionaire Elon Musk tweets something and the social media goes crazy over it, I ignore it to preserve my own mental health. But this time when he tweeted about an impending population collapse, it piqued my curiosity.
Why is a man who is so focused on jetting off this planet so concerned about declining fertility levels on Earth? Is he worried that he won’t be able to sell as many Tesla cars in the future? Or is he worried there won’t be enough people to work in his factories?
This week, The Global Tiller takes a look at the global population levels and why the likes of Elon Musk are worried about them. How likely is it that we will face a population collapse and what could be some harmful consequences of pushing public policies focused entirely on fertility rates?
So as it turns out, the reason why Elon Musk is worried about a population collapse is because he fears there won’t be enough people to send to Mars. His concerns may be selfish and perhaps a bit exaggerated but it is true that the world population is growing at a slower pace and could peak at 11 billion by the year 2100.
The Covid-19 pandemic has not helped the cause by lowering all the markers of population growth: fertility, migration and life expectancy. Australia recorded its first population decline since World War I in 2020 due to border controls while an estimated 300,000 fewer babies were born in the United States as a result of the economic insecurity surrounding the pandemic.
On its own, this population growth trajectory does not seem alarming. After all, with the environmental cost of human activity, it can be argued that having a few billion less people on Earth cannot be a bad thing. They will buy fewer cars, they will take fewer vacations and they will produce lesser waste. However, underpopulation will not necessarily reduce carbon emissions, the same way as overpopulation in itself does not contribute to climate change. This depends on how much carbon is emitted by that population, which we know comes from a handful of wealthy elites.
What is worrying is that the global population structure is changing towards an ageing population. This means an added burden on the existing economy to provide for the elderly while not having enough workers to sustain the economic pie. This has implications for policymakers who will have to account for a future society that will look markedly different than it does today, or who will have to make policies now that will boost population growth.
The knee-jerk reaction to any call for population management is to focus on fertility rates. When we were worried about overpopulation in the past, countries discouraged women from having children. Now with population collapse a big concern, governments are pushing women to have more babies in a broad spectrum of ways, from China moving to criminalise non-medical abortions in an attempt to boost its birthrate to pro-natal initiatives, such as child tax credits, carried out in Hungary, Poland, Greece, Korea, Japan, Latvia and Finland.
However, these policies do not always address the systemic roots of fertility decline. Any policy intervention that aims to encourage women to have more babies will have to address the fact that the current generation does not have access to the same wealth and economic opportunities as their parents. They cannot afford larger houses needed to raise children and, frankly, a lot of them don’t see the point of bringing life into a world that will suffer the consequences of the climate catastrophe.
Focusing merely on female fertility is a simplistic solution to the complex issue of demography. It is a global issue and should be treated as such. Instead of looking inwards for a solution, how about we focus on the poor countries that will continue to experience population growth in the coming decades? How about we help their younger populations now so that they grow up to be productive workers not just in their own countries but for anyone who can pay a fair price for their labour? Can we create systems that will allow rich countries to share their prosperity with the poor countries so that we all reap the benefits of the global youth?
Do you have other ideas on how we can tackle a population collapse? We’d love to hear your thoughts.
Until next week, take care and stay safe.
Hira - Editor - The Global Tiller
Food for thought
When population collapse enters the consciousness of our mainstream politics, don’t be surprised if the focus stays entirely on fertility, and by extension, women’s reproductive rights. Already a lot of women are shamed for their decision to delay pregnancies or choosing not to have children at all. This article 'I regret having children' pushes the boundaries on what’s accepted and what’s taboo when it comes to motherhood and maternal instincts. I hope you enjoy this thought-provoking read.
…and now what?
Whenever we talked about the future of humanity and what lies ahead of us, a lot of the conversation revolved around the demographic boom. We were told that, decades from now, there will be too many people everywhere as the population was bound to grow consistently.
For some time now, this trend has been debunked and we know that humanity is actually about to reduce in numbers. And if overpopulation has alarmed quite a lot of us, it seems that depopulation is having the same impact. We’re scared by everything and its opposite! So which one is worse eventually?
From the governments’ perspective, it’s important to have a dynamic demography. A few decades ago, it was important to provide soldiers for the military and now it’s more about the geopolitical weight. India and China are becoming important powers in part due to the size of their populations so anyone who cannot compete is bound to lose the race. That’s the reason why China is trying to reactivate its birth rate.
Demography is also important for the economy: you need consumers. That’s the reason why more and more businesses, especially in the US, are paying for their employees’ fertility treatments or covering adoption costs.
Demography is also important for the society: you need taxpayers to fund public policies, especially social security. That’s why in European countries you have so many programs giving money to people the more they have kids.
Driven by these practical reasons, governments have reduced demography to just another factor in the bigger equation of power and influence. Approaching the problem in a very utilitarian way leads to the kind of solutions we see today: women, make more kids. That’s the new order.
But these changing demographic trends signal deeper issues and broader questions. We talked about the tang ping movement in China, where young people are just not willing to buy into the political and societal goals that define their society, including having kids. New generations are no longer interested in following a preset narrative.
And this is certainly not restricted to China alone. In other parts of the world, we hear about climate anxiety that has forced people to think twice before procreating. No longer hopeful of the future, they are just not willing to put the burden on their descendants.
Are we losing hope in ourselves? As humans, have we reached a point of fatigue where we just can’t sustain ourselves anymore? Have we exhausted so many resources on the planet that we’re also running out of motivation to participate in a very natural drive?
Or could it just be a natural way for our species to self-regulate. Other species have eaten their own or killed themselves to bring their populations to sustainable levels, are we doing the same by choosing not to reproduce? And if we are, would it be a bad thing?
Of course, by self-regulation I don’t mean inoculating half of the world population for an involuntary and secret population control. (If you have heard any such claims recently on your social media, that’s purely coincidental 😏.) Maybe we’re just self-regulating because, for years, we kept hearing how much we’re consuming that one day we will outrun the capabilities of the planet. Some of us are responding by looking for ways to travel outside the last frontier while others, with far less money, are dealing in a way that’s within our control.
And if that’s what’s happening, how can we do it in a way that will give our systems time to adapt, update and reshape themselves. Considering how much global wealth we have accumulated, won’t less people mean more for everyone? Will we eventually decide to share it with everyone?
Demography is a global problem, much like any other problem humans are facing. No matter how unevenly this process unfolds, the consequences will impact us all. Then how about we think about how we will surf this wave of change, instead of trying to keeping going until we crash against the seawall.
Philippe - Founder - Pacific Ventury