The Fears of Stoddard Linger

Rather than see a decline in the birth rate as a good thing, nations in such "straits" often turn to economic incentives aimed at inducing their citizens to procreate. Someone out there may be writing to the effect that a decline in the population (both its rate of growth and its actual numbers) should be celebrated, but if so, I have yet to come across such sentiments. There is plenty of evidence on the other hand of panic setting in in various European capitals (or their offshoots in the former colonies) when there are fewer white babies being born:


Germany Plays With Procreation’s Price Point
By Mike Nizza
Tags: aging, europe, foreign affairs


Days after The Lede’s look at declining birth rates in countries around the world, from Asia to the United States to Europe, The Financial Times is reporting some contrarian news on fertility from Düsseldorf, Germany:
In the first quarter of 2007, nearly 15 percent more babies were born in Düsseldorf than in the same period last year. The Kaiserwerther Diakonie, one of the city’s three large hospitals, reported a rise in births of more than 16 percent in the first half of the year.

While noting that it is too early to declare a trend, The F.T. nonetheless lists some possible explanations for what a German newspaper is calling “a new baby boom.” Along with a stronger local economy that is attracting young couples, a policy known as Elterngeld is held up. The Elterngeld program now offers subsidies of as much as 25,200 euros ($34,700) a year to mothers who bear children in the year 2007 and beyond. Before this year, the subsidy was set at 7,200 euros ($10,000), leading to reports that mothers were delaying labor in December 2006, hoping to qualify for the extra cash by giving birth in the new year.
Germany’s policy was inspired by its Scandinavian neighbors, who offer even more munificent benefits to new mothers. They also enjoy stronger birth rates. A BBC graphic outlines Europe’s various offers.
The possible success of the higher payment in Germany and elsewhere in Europe prompts a question of procreation’s price point. How much would it take to induce you to have a baby? And can your government afford to fuel a new baby boom while taking care of the original baby boomers?


Supposedly, the economic pressures to maintain population growth are real. That is to say, if we put aside purely blatant racism as the motivation to encourage essentially white demographics, various arguments are made the aim of which is to convice us that not only is a growing population a good thing but also a necessary thing. Among those arguments is the notion that great powers must have large populations. Another is that, as populations age, that is, as the older citizenry represents a larger and larger percentage of the total population, more babies must be produced so that they can pay for the maintenance of their elders through the various tax or social welfare programs. Of course, from the perspective of a consumer society, there is yet a third factor--and perhaps this is the most important--fewer people mean fewer sales.

In the ensuing segments of this essay, I will try to address each of these factors. I will only say here that all of these factors must be measured against what I consider to be the over-riding issue, namely, there are just too many people on the planet right now. Sooner, rather than later, the disastrous impact of the estimated six billion of us that presently tax the resources of our planet will undoubtedly make itself felt, perhaps in ways that we have not yet been able to imagine. A paradigm shift is necessary if human life is to be sustained in a manner that allows us to cohabit with rather than exploit to the point of extinction the organisms with which we reside.