This article comes from a several month-old NYTimes Magazine, discusses the world’s fertility crisis and the fact that Europe’s fertility has dropped below the replacement rate.
The decline in fertility is different in every country, but generally people have lost the desire to have children. The only place that this is perhaps not the case is America (see other Nytimes articles about the Alaskan Governor!) which remains quite fertile. Of course places like NYC and San Fran birth a lot more like Europe.
How is this “fertility” philosophy rationalized?
– “Yuppy Philosophy”- how are you going to be upwardly mobile when you have a full litter (or quiver as the psalmist says)
-“Green Philosophy”- allow enough oxygen for the rest of us!
These perspectives dominate the discussion around the world, whether or not you are in Europe or China and both views are governed by fear rather than hope.
Sarah (my wife) and I joke (kind of) about having 12 kids so that we can field 2 hockey teams and have two goalies for family scrimmages. The most common response is that we are incredibly “irresponsible” both in our consideration of ourselves and the world. Perhaps it would be irresponsible given our current 400 sq ft apartment, but cheers to the family around the corner with 6 kids and boo to the responsible Europeans!
Pope Benedict is right in his comment on the second page of the article:
Europe is infected by a strange lack of desire for the future, children, our
future, are perceived as a threat to the present.
It is totally a hope issue. There is a lot there…
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This problem of the declining birth-rate is also one that we face in Singapore. We have an elaborate baby bonus scheme for the entire country. For my third child, the government gave us $1400 and a further $12600 in a dollar-for-dollar matching education grant. Yet, after years of doing this, it looks like this year looks like it would yield the lowest number of births in its history.
The situation here has actually brought out an interesting gospel inllustration…
This past week an op-ed piece came out on how Singapore has been trying to tackle this problem. The author pointed out that our “nanny-state” solution of talking about it (i.e. using “the law) is counter-productive. Instead, she pointed to how some “taciturn Nordic countries” have been much more successful with some of the “most enviable fertility rates” in the developed world!
PS. The article is only available to subscribers of the local paper, but if you want I can email a pdf copy to you if you ask nicely!
For what its worth, the “average” number of births has declined in Europe, yes. But a closer examination of sub-populations would reveal something even more alarming: The birthrate among Native (read “Christian) Europeans is virtually zero; the births that keep the numbers even anywhere near the replacement numbers are among immigrant (read Muslim) populations.
Notre Dame is already a lovely museum. The Berliner Dom will make a fabulous mosque in my lifetime. Hagia Sophia, anyone?