I assume it’s about wanting to make sure there are more of Us and fewer of Them.
But if that were the case, China wouldn’t have put forth the One Child Policy within its own nation. It would have called for Chinese in the 1980s-1990s to have more babies while demanding Africans or other races to have fewer.
I mean, this is honestly the correct answer. The only people worried about this are old people, who are worried they’re running out of young people to exploit.
China’s One Child Policy is a perfect example of trying to extrapolate into the future and failing.
The policy was introduced in 1980. The country was recovering from the horrors of Mao. It hadn’t yet become an economic superpower; quite the opposite. The population had grown by 20% in the 1970s and the country didn’t have the money to build housing, while there wasn’t yet a private economy to take the burden. Immigration was the last thing they wanted.
The policy gave them breathing room. Now it’s catching up with unpredicted modern reality, a lower birth rate from a smaller population and a greater percentage of older adults.
Then why are so many not old people wringing their hands about low birth rates?
Because they’re afraid that they’re not going to get theirs? Because the surplus of old people might mean many of them will have to work longer, and figure out ways to take care of themselves, instead of relying on a growing generation of younger people? Because, just like their middle-aged lives, their old age lives will be worse than their parents?
I would be a lot more worried about this if I were 50 than I am now at 76.
Robots might alleviate some of the issues.
At least the US is dismantling the education system along with vaccinations, so the stupid ones that don’t die, can support the economy.
The big difference between then and now is that we weren’t supposed to live longer. Paul Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb, the first blockbuster doomsday book, in 1968 At that time a 40-year old white male in the U.S. was expected to live to age 72; a white female to age 78; non-white males to 68 and non white females to 73.
30 years later, the now 70 year old groups were expeccted to live to 77,79,77, and 79 respectively. Millions more were living beyond their 1970 predicted lifespan, while the U.S. birthrate (which had already been dropping in the 1960s) went from 16.83 per 1,000 in 1970 to 14.18 in 2000, and has continued to fall (below 12 per 1000 in 2026.)
The “acceptable price” we were expected to pay in 1970, turned out to be a lot higher by 2026 as the elderly population increased. Not to mention that the cohort over age 75 needs a lot more medical care and other support than the age 65-75 cohort, driving the cost even higher.
My recollection is that the concern in the 1980’s was an exploding world population - which was a valid concern. However it seems that the increased availability of food and healthcare that permitted the population explosion also led to higher education and other benefits that have largely caused the population to stop exploding, so the problem fixed itself.
From what I recall from the 1980s, people envisaged or hoped or assumed that correcting the population explosion problem would result in a reduction in reproduction to maintenance levels.
What was not predicted was that as people realised they don’t have to - and it might not be in their personal interest to - have numerous children, they would actually go further and realise it might not be in their interests to have more than one or two, or even any at all.
I see. It looks like there was a split of opinion among the lower-birth-rate crowd. Half wanted maintenance-level birth rates, and half wanted outright reduction of the population itself - they wanted the 8 billion population to dwindle down eventually to maybe 4-5 billion.
At least to my recollection there wasn’t too much thought about reduction.
It was more like being in a bus full of people speeding towards a sharp corner above a cliff - everyone is screaming about hitting the brakes. At the time, nobody is thinking about the possibility that if you do, the bus may slow down too much and you may be late.
They could change that policy if they saw things were getting out of hand.
I recall this as almost a panicked tone back int he 70’s.
The problem today is that all of our economic measures are based upon growth instead of sustainability. Every company I’ve ever worked for was addicted to growth metrics. Earning a good profit from one quarter to the next was considered a dismal failure, and people were fired for it. Stocks had to rise, therefore revenues had to constantly increase and market share had to be ours, ours, ours.
In the end, it’s the symptoms of a society serving the billionaire class instead of society at large. There is no reason that a medium sized company can’t continue for decades providing a reliable product in sustainable numbers to a loyal consumer base. But if you do it that way the banks won’t lend to you when you need it because your numbers don’t look good.
So the product gets shoddier as cuts here and there increase profits. The employees turn over and expertise tanks, but we squeeze out one more billionaire’s worth of profit, so it’s all OK.
An economy based upon sustainability would adjust to a reduced birth rate easily.
Another problem that hasn’t been mentioned here is cultural demographics.
I’m not talking about race, but about culture. Every society has various subcultures, some of whom who consider it acceptable to have more children, and some of whom who prefer less. More often than not, the subcultures with more children are more religious and more socially conservative, which means that as time goes by, the proportion of religious and conservative people out of society in general will increase, pushing the country to the right. I’ve been seeing it happen in my country for the past couple of decades, and I think it’s starting to happen in the U.S., too.
So yes, a lot of the liberal hand-wringing is political in nature: “We need more kids like OURS, and not more kids like THEIRS.”
The recent BBC comedy series Ann Droid has an interesting take on this. Most of the characters in this series are (highly eccentric) retirees who are being looked after by humanoid robots, with hilarious results. One interesting aspect is that none of the oldies can cope with programming or assembling the droids, so they rely on younger people to set them up and so on.
The androids also need to be connected to the internet - woe betide if you lose signal.
I was in school in the 80s and 90s and as far as I recall the population explosion was framed as an environmental, resource allocation, and by extension moral/ethical issue. I think all those concerns still apply, but they’ve been masked by some temporary improvements in oil and other resource extraction that themselves raise sustainability concerns. In any case it was a mostly factual statistical analysis in an environmentalist framing.
Despite those concerns still being present, if not as dire, the economic and cultural implications are now the ones that are coming to the forefront. Our economic systems are almost without fail dependent on some level of continual growth, and a declining population makes that a lot more difficult, but not impossible.
The aging demographic is something I’d like to see more analysis of (this may not be the place for it). In short though, more old people put a higher burden on the healthcare system and pensions/welfare. However, it’s not like their pensions go into a black hole. They still spend that money on housing, services, utilities, food, etc. which recirculates into the economy. That said, the aging cohort is a strong voting block, and we’ve already seen that they refuse to relinquish power (so many higher level politicians in the US only quit because they get so old they die). They’ve already pulled the economic ladder up behind them, and that’s creating more and more generational friction.
Agreed, and I think economics plays more of a role than any environmental concerns. Having, supporting, and educating children is very expensive. Personally, the biggest economic plus I have is not having any children.
Are there liberals hand-wringing on this issue? I’ll admit that I don’t pay much attention to pro-natalists, but the two most prominent, Elon Musk and JD Vance, are anything but liberal. At any rate, those two may not admit it aloud, but they also just want more kids like OURS and not like THEIRS. Although in their case, OURS = white kids and THEIRS = non-white kids.
I’m with those who see the below-replacement birth rate as a good thing and not a problem. It may become a problem in a couple-three generations, but we’ll let the people in that era solve it.
I was about to say the same thing. I have known of very few liberals who want to increase the birth rate. Now, there are a few who complain, somewhat cautiously and quietly, that Arab Muslims or African Muslims are having lots of births in Western Europe, and hence agree with right-wingers to some extent, but only quietly.