How can any country with a fertility rate below replacement (~2.1 children per woman) not make it a top priority to fix whatever is causing that. #asknostr
Discussion
Neo-malthusianism is in vogue among the ruling class.
I don't know, it seems like most people don't really understand what it means. A fertility rate of 1.6 means that the kids' generation will only be 80% as big as that of the parents, and that of the grandkids about 64%. In Europe with average fertility rate 1.46 (assuming it doesn't keep dropping even further) the grandkids generation will be about 50% the size of that of the grandparents. Not sure that people really understand these numbers.
Oh I agree with you. I think there are many reasons for it on a civilizational level. The deepest being that we have lost the Christian moral foundation that built—or, maybe more appropriately, birthed—the West.
Children are now seen as inconveniences, lifestyle decisions, accessories, etc.
Knock on effects of industrialism and feminism as well.
We murder millions of babies in the womb every year through abortion.
Those that are having children usually have many but there is a greater number of people who are deciding not to have children, or even marry.
There is also the fiat factor, of course, but that is downstream of the moral issues and a neo-malthusian ruling class that is literally hellbent on reducing population.
Japan had an even steeper decline than the West
Yes, some similar and some distinct reasons for that, as I understand it. Like South Korea, Japan is a more westernized country. So they suffer from some of the same moral decay.
This combined with the honor culture and dissafected younger generations who believe they will never achieve what their parents did has led to a steep decline in marriage, childbearing, and economic productivity.
Adjascent to all that is the rapidly declining value of the yen.
I had a few years of a Japanese language class and have close friends of Japanese background so I've learned a bit about this country in particular among Asian nations, but I'm no expert. Those who have a better understanding of Japanese culture and economics can correct me if anything I said is off base.
Because all the available solutions are either controversial, don't actually work well, or both, mostly both.
Because the countries are solving it with immigration