The Birth Dearth By Mrs Vera West

Alex Berenson has offered some material on the rapid decline of births seen right across the developed world. The article is of interest for covering the decline of births in the advanced Asian countries, while most of our attention has been on the West. Thus, South Korea and Taiwan are on the road to demographic death, with far below replacement level birth rates, having less than one child on average. This is interesting, as most thought by Western theorists, especially conservatives, have pinned the blame upon the rise of Leftist values such as feminism. That is a quite reasonable hypothesis, but it cannot be the full truth for the entire world, as the example of Asia shows.

My own hypothesis is that there is no one cause of the birth dearth, but it is a multi-variable caused phenomenon, where Leftist values feature, but it is clear that the culture of materialism over spiritual and religious values also has much to do with it. People may choose material things over children. But, even people wanting more children face economic problems. Indeed, the present cost of living crisis, and rent housing crisis will make matters even worse as young people will not even be able to get living space, let alone have children.  As Berenson rightly notes, “nothing less than the future of humanity is at stake.” 

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/why-are-so-many-adults-in-rich-countries

“Humanity has never had it better.

Especially the couple of billion lucky folks who live in the United States and Canada, Western Europe, and East Asia (including, now, much of China).

The details of the miracle that is modern life are worth repeating, since they are the water we swim in and easy to forget.

Deaths in childbirth and childhood are nearly nonexistent. People live longer than ever and can expect to be (physically) healthy into their seventies, not stooped by hard farm, industrial, or household labor. War and conscription have largely ended. In Europe and East Asia, all deaths of violence are stunningly rare.

Formerly unthinkable material luxuries are not merely common but expected. Inexpensive, nutritious food is available everywhere. After facing the prospect of famine for all of human existence, we suddenly must deal with obesity.

—

(And don’t forget Unreported Truths among the joys of modern life. Yours, for 20 cents a day!)

—

Cars and airplanes have made movement easy. Once exhausting and risky, travel is now so cheap the biggest problem is the crowds it creates - of tourists and migrants.

Free schooling through adolescence has turned literacy from a luxury of the rich into a basic right. More recently information technology has opened the deepest banks of knowledge to anyone with an Internet connection, which is everyone.

—

In the face of this unprecedented bounty of knowledge, health, and abundance, more and more humans have responded by —

Refusing our most basic biological drive and failing to have children.

This depressing reality hit me again recently, after the wedding of a couple I know. Husband and wife are in their early thirties, stable, employed, apparently happy and in love - and insisting they will not have children.

Of course, they could change their minds. But they have been together for several years and have always agreed they want to be childless. I find that choice even more depressing and confounding than people who are childless because they cannot find a partner. These are heterosexuals who have decided to pair for life (theoretically, anyway), yet they do not believe having children is their natural next step.

They are far from alone.

The “replacement rate” - the number of children a woman must have on average to keep population stable - is about 2.1. Birthrates have been below that level in many wealthy countries for decades.

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(With 23 million people, Taiwan will have about 130,000 babies this year - not even half as many as it needs to keep its population steady. The country is erasing itself.)

You are probably aware of the baby bust. But you may not know how bad it has gotten. Since Covid, birth rates have fallen off a cliff.

Women in Asian countries like South Korea and Taiwan are now expected to have fewer than 1 child on average. Men do not have children (despite what the LGBTQIABCDEFGH+-* crew sometimes pretend), so you don’t need a degree in statistics to figure out that birthrate translates into demographic catastrophe.

Fertility disruption from mRNA Covid jabs may be contributing, but it is not the primary factor. The baby bust is occurring in countries that did not use the shots, too.

This choice represents individual tragedy and societal failure on an unprecedented scale.

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The American left pretends the baby bust is economically driven, blaming a lack of subsidized child care for young kids and the overall expense of raising children in the United States. As one feminist author said in September:

I had really been talking about a lot of these issues like paid leave, lack of childcare, and how they affected parents, primarily in the United States… People are not having their ideal number of children, even when they become parents, because they just can't make it work.

The only problem with this theory is that births are lower across Europe and Asia than the United States. And Northern European countries, which have much less income inequality than the United States, as well as the parental leave policies, heavily subsidized childcare, and national health insurance that the left demands, have seen some of the biggest recent declines.

No, whatever is happening cannot reasonably be viewed as economically driven. It is a cultural trend. And it is phenomenally powerful, because it is happening all over the world, across ethnicities, in countries and societies that are otherwise vastly different.

And it is overcoming basic human biology.

So what is it?

I don’t know if that question has an obvious answer, but I intend to explore it in the months to come. And I hope you will contribute your own views on the subject in the comments.

I’m not exaggerating when I write that nothing less than the future of humanity is at stake.”