Pro-natalist policies are great, but declining birth rates are here to stay

If there is one thing that sends fear and trembling through a country’s political elite these days, it’s news that population growth is slowing down — or worse, that the population has begun to decline. As birthrates fall, people fear that a population bust is imminent. Even before China’s population had actually begun to decline, the official People’s Daily <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/08/health/china-one-child-intl/index.html" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">ran a special section</a> on the population crisis, including an op-ed entitled “Having children is a family matter but is also a national matter.” When census data showed slowing growth in the U.S., Ryan Cooper <a href="https://theweek.com/us/1007482/america-is-looking-down-the-barrel-of-population-collapse" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">wrote</a> in The Week that “America is looking down the barrel of population collapse,” while Business Insider <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-population-decline-worker-shortage-labor-birth-rates-immigration-economy-2023-5" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">warned</a> readers of “The Great People Shortage.” Along with the hand-wringing come solutions. In a world of two-earner families, we could provide free or affordable child care and more (paid) parental leave. We could provide family allowances or child tax credits. We could mount campaigns, like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jxU89x78ac" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Singapore did</a>, with rap videos and posters reading “Let’s Make Babies: It’s National Night!” Except for the rap videos, these are good social policy and should be pursued for that reason. But if the goal is to reverse declining birth rates, these policies won’t work. Demographers use a measure known as the Total Fertility Rate (TFR), the average number of births per woman during her lifetime. At the risk of oversimplifying, the number that results in a stable population without migration, known as the “replacement rate,” is 2.1. If the rate goes below that, a nation’s population will eventually decline. According to the <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">World Bank</a>, 84 countries or territories had a TFR below 2.1 in 2011. These were mostly, but not all, developed nations. I decided to see how many of those countries had a TFR above 2.1 ten years later, in 2021. The answer: none. <a href="https://urbanresilience.medium.com/pro-natalist-policies-are-great-but-declining-birth-rates-are-here-to-stay-f6f9401b1916">Visit Now</a>