Baby on Board
Via Tyler Cowen, Russell Shorto explains where babies come from:
So there would seem to be two models for achieving higher fertility: the neosocialist Scandinavian system and the laissez-faire American one. Aassve put it to me this way: “You might say that in order to promote fertility, your society needs to be generous or flexible. The U.S. isn’t very generous, but it is flexible. Italy is not generous in terms of social services and it’s not flexible. There is also a social stigma in countries like Italy, where it is seen as less socially accepted for women with children to work. In the U.S., that is very accepted.”
I go back and forth on whether the low fertility rates in places like Italy or Japan is a real problem. Some folks predict all manner of ills stemming from the possibility of population decline, but it also seems possible that it might lead to rising standards of living and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the issue given a really rigorous treatment with models and dull equations.
Photo by Flickr user Tedsblog used under a Creative Commons license
64 Responses to “Baby on Board”
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June 30th, 2008 at 9:09 am
If there weren’t this thing called “old age”, population decline might not imply problems. As that phenomenon does exist, low fertility rates imply a high ratio of really old people to folks still capable of working, which is a really big problem if the Japanese don’t get the bugs worked out in their bedpan changing robots in time.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:12 am
It is pretty easy to increase fertility rates. Just do what Yemen does, and stop teaching women how to read.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ym.html
42.42 births/1,000 population (2008 est.)
Total fertility rate:
6.41 children born/woman (2008 est.)
Literacy: female: 30% (2003 est.)
It seems that this is exactly what conservatives would like to do.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Standards of living will continue to rise until the percentage of productive population peaks. Either that or the elderly can’t retire. After that, standards of living decline. The advantage of rising population (or even population holding steady) is that you have fresh workers to replace and care for older workers.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I think it raises problems given that a lot of the countries with low birth rates have a robust welfare state. How can you pay to take care of the elderly and continue a variety of quality of life services if there’s no young workforce to pay for it?
June 30th, 2008 at 9:20 am
The economists, as usual, have an accurate understanding given their implicit model of a world with unlimited resources.
In the real world, though, population pressure is very real (see: the rising cost of oil and food, global warming, destroyed rainforests, etc.), and while we can conceive of an excessive drop in fertility, we’re not anywhere close to that.
When world population is variously predicted to peak at 10 to 12 billion, we *really* don’t need to be worrying about being insufficiently fertile.
The real cause for all this anxiety, though, is fear of a black (brown, yellow) planet. An exaggerated fear, incidentally – Western Europe was the first place to reach modern population densities, and will also be the first place to taper off. No cause for anxiety.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Two generations of one child per family and the generational cohort shrinks to 0.25 its original size. For Italy, this means going from 20 million young people to 5 million, and since somebody has to churn out these Fiats, these will be Romanians and Turks and some repatriated Argentines lucky enough to have had an Italian grandparent. In the larger scheme of things, this is the end of Italy as we know it.
Most people in Europe are not very keen on nationalism, but when nations start to shrink like George Constanza’s external organs, all bets are off.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I guess they don’t teach basic math at Harvard…. or common sense? For you not to recognize the consequences of low fertility rates in all of these countries just shows how the typically liberal mind doesn’t function when it comes to simple “cause and effect” relationships.
I guess if the government can’t fix it, you just can’t figure it out…..
June 30th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Cowen’s article was really good, but I went away wondering the same as Matt, is population decline a bad thing or no big deal?
We sure could use some of those models and dull equations. And even though Matt hasn’t seen them, I have trouble believing that they are not out there. There’s a lot of economists in the world and only so many things to write a book or thesis about.
Perhaps the smart, well-read people who read this blog can help. Does anyone have a reference or two that offers said ‘rigorous treatment’ on either side of this issue?
June 30th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Sorry, I meant Shorto’s article. Not Cowen.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Yeah, when I look around the US these days, I think to myself, “What we really need around here is more people. And more cars, roads and fast-food franchises.”
June 30th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I can’t believe you are missing the real problem with low fertility, Matt. With a declining working population, countries will be increasingly forced to turn to robots and we know what happens next.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:42 am
If there really is a need for more working-age people to help support an aging population, I’m sure that there are plenty of people from Eastern Europe and Africa who would be happy to meet that need. No reason to throw lots of money at schemes to increase the birthrate.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:52 am
With a declining working population, countries will be increasingly forced to turn to robots and we know what happens next.
If the robots look like Grace Park and Tricia Helfer, I’m willing to accept the inevitable Robot Holocaust as a price worth paying.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Since my ambition for us is a simple “We should be as gods,” I have no quarrel with a situation that allows, in fact demands, that we become very long-lived at our peak or nearly and/or work barely or not at all.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Since my ambition for us is a simple “We should be as gods,” I have no quarrel with a situation that allows, in fact demands, that we become very long-lived at our peak or nearly and/or work barely or not at all.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Since there seems to be no decline in the world birth rate or the world population on the horizon, the obvious solution to a locally declining birth rate would be to allow more immigration (or more precisely, to legalize more of the immigration that is certain to occur whether we like it or not).
June 30th, 2008 at 10:09 am
If you’re reading the comments, Matt, Google up “demography matters”. Hugely detailed blog, lotsa links, plenty of charts, models, equations.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:16 am
As some historians are fond of telling us, the black death was a pretty good deal for Europe, once all the dying was finished. The people who were left had more resources, and one imagines that certain parts of the population that had been “drains on society” were effectively weeded out.
But even if you can take this impersonal, long term view, the composition of the demographic in decline is of some importance.
Given the handwringing regarding overpopulation and global resources, if some percentage of the population across the board, across all demographic groups, disappeared, it might not be a bad thing (on a long term, impersonal level). And this may yet happen. There is a short term (if you want to call it that) problem, though, in that we don’t get to reap the benefits of this lower population until a bolus of old people die off. Until then, we will have a lopsided population, with fewer younger people trying to support many older people. This “problem” is compounded by the unprecedented numbers of people living to old age.
If you were looking strictly at numbers, you’d want to determine your “ideal population” number, and have your people have more or fewer children until they reached that point, at which point, they should just have 2 children–all of them. Or something.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:26 am
One clear issue with declining fertility rates is something the left ought to care about: the welfare state is simply impossible to fund without a decent sized working age population.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:39 am
The robust demography of the United States depends on teenage pregnancy and the exceptionally high fertility of our massive undocumented immigrant population. Any analysis which ignores those factors in favor of some purported “flexibility” is just a covert attempt to sell you labor market deregulation hogwash.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Standards of living will continue to rise until the percentage of productive population peaks. Either that or the elderly can’t retire. After that, standards of living decline.
Not so.
First, it’s obviously possible for the elderly to still retire, but just do so somewhat later. Although nobody wants to be forced to work longer than they’re comfortable doing, I suspect continuing improvements in health and medicine combined with lucrative market-generated incentives (ie., higher wages for experienced workers) will mean that in coming years many older workers will want to continue working (perhaps with reduced hours).
Secondly, average worker productivity really is the key here, not “percentage of productive population.” It’s entirely possible for a society to enjoy a higher standard of living despite a decline in the percentage of productive population if the now smaller cohort of workers has increased its productivity by a sufficient degree. I’m not saying this is easy, mind you, and I’m well aware that a declining dependence ratio is often a precondition for an increase in a society’s standard of living (seen most spectacularly for instance, in the Ireland of the last two decades). I’m just arguing it’s not impossible to maintain rising living standards once this dependence ratio begins to rise again.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:52 am
For starters, rare praise for Matt from me: That photo you clipped is the most cheerful, heart-warming pic I’ve seen in a while. Kudos to the photog and his baby.
James Robertson:
Correct. And all the liberal fantasies about taking the plutocrats to the cleaners, plundering corporate profits, or even simple means testing won’t fix anything. In the first two, you merely drive your intended victims out of the country, in the corporate case, taking the jobs you need to finance the pay-as-you-go entitlement benefits.
We’ll most likely wind up with means testing for benefits and a higher retirement age sometime, it’s just a question of when.
Liberal policy ideas are based either on the thought that we’re in the peak of the industrial age of smokestack, unionized industry or on the idea that people are the problem — humankind must be fought or driven back into stone age lifestyles to save the earth. Matt seems to fall in with that anthropophobic strain of the modern left, unfortunately: People are bad, so news of fewer people is welcome.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:53 am
There are a number of clearinghouses (right here in Washington!) for population information. Check out the Population Reference Bureau, Population Action International, Population Connection, and the Woodrow Wilson Center’s work on population issues. Also, two recent books, by Matt Connelly and Robert Engelman, explore the connections between family planning, population trends, and quality of life in both the developing and developed worlds.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:58 am
the welfare state is simply impossible to fund without a decent sized working age population. – James Robertson
I’m not so sure about that. More and more members of our aging populace have been so scared by talk of “social security crisis”, they figure they ain’t gettin’ nothin’ and are hoarding resources like heck to have enough for retirement. The effects of this on the markets are a whole ‘nother topic, but suffice it to say there’s a reason why they call it “social security” and not “retirement money for alter-kockers” — the prime beneficiaries of social security are not those receiving the money but society gaining the security of not having soon-to-be alter-kockers driving up costs on the futures’ markets.
A lot of the strain on our welfare state (such as it is) is actually from us young, healthy folks who gring %X of the flour, refine X% of the sugar, pick X% of the fruit, do X% of the baking, etc., in making our economic pie yet get back (partially as a function of our income distribution relaxing toward Pareto equilibrium, partially as a function of soon-to-be alter-kockers hoarding for retirement) Y
June 30th, 2008 at 11:04 am
BTW … if you want people to be able to have more babies, you need to enable people to have more flexible work hours that way they can manage to pick said babies up from day-care on time, deal with baby illness issues, etc.
Also, babies tend to involve people having to carry around lots of stuff, which does not work well with public transport (or having your car far away from your apartment), so you need to figure out how to get people into dense, inner suburb style living environments rather than urban environments — with efficient cars so that way gas ain’t too expensive, etc.
June 30th, 2008 at 11:52 am
The barriers to having children are pretty obvious. Children are a very significant financial burden. Flat wages for a generation and a half have made it more difficult to have children and what passes for a modern life.
Our society already works more than any other on earth. The conservative point of view is that we should work more so we can have more children instead of participating in the American dream of the good life. I am sure that would be a popular position for Mr. McCain in this election.
Here is a link to a calculator of the cost of a child:
http://www.babycenter.com/cost-of-raising-child-calculator
June 30th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I second the “demography matters” suggestion.
I used to think the comments here are good, but on this topic I am quite disappointed.
First, Italy is 60 mio. people, not 20.
Second, Eastern European natality is much worse than West European, don’t count on them for replenishing Italy, Spain adn Germany much longer.
Third, the ratio productive people to depending people is what matters, and baby are much more cost and time intensive than retirees. Older people cannot sustain themselves for what? one year? Babys for 20 years – housebound mothers, teachers…-
The money side is likely a wash, and if the productivity goes up 2% and the population stagnates, even if it is a small negative, we can muser the money without difficulties. Go back to the discussion about the different scenarii during for the Social security controversy.
The social consequences -creativity, mood, politics – and geopolitical ones are open to debate, and a choice we can make. But using the natality for saying let’s have less government is laughable.
European powers wanted more babies for going to war against their neighbors. At least it was logical…
June 30th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
I liked the second comment on Cowen’s blog:
This seems to be pretty much saying, “The more you expect women to give up the rest of their lives to have babies, the less likely they’ll be to have babies.”
Now, maybe this just seems obvious to me because I’m a woman, but, uh…I can’t figure out why the article is so long, honestly.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
This is not a discussion of fertility.
This is a discussion of birthrate.
June 30th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Who cares where babies come from. Someone tell me where that baby’s Bluetooth enabled iPod came from.
June 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
“If there weren’t this thing called “old age”, population decline might not imply problems. ”
Gee. If there weren’t this thing called “limited resources, population increase might not imply problems.
June 30th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
The conservative point of view is that we should work more so we can have more children instead of participating in the American dream of the good life.
This is sad. These two are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, working more to have more children is exactly the American dream. If Nat doesn’t understand that people get tremendous joy and happiness from children, then I feel sorry for him, since he will not get to share in that joy. Maybe his sentiment is part of the reason for the liberal-conservative happiness gap.
June 30th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
“Gee. If there weren’t this thing called “limited resources, population increase might not imply problems.”
Rapid change in population in either direction is hard on society, because it warps the demographics. Not wanting one form of rapid change doesn’t imply desiring it’s opposite.
June 30th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I would suggest that you educate yourself on the current discourse on population policy.
It’s been clearly demonstrated that social and political “improvement” results in reduction in population, and not the reverse. This generally results from the empowerment of women and the options they now have to be human beings and not baby factories.
Those nations with very high population growth also tend to be agrarian. In agrarian societies, children are contributing members to their family groups, quite unlike their consuming burden status in the developed world.
Rapid population growth reduction results in a top-heavy age-dependency problem. This is a growing issue, particularly in China, Japan, and, I assume, Italy (and much of Europe). It is even an impending issue in India.
The problem isn’t reduced population, but rapidly reduced population.
Pick up any article by Amartya Sen.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
I find it difficult to get too concerned about problems such as population decline in Europe.
In the grand scheme of things, it is only an issue due to national boundary lines, many of which are completely artificial or historical artifacts.
Look at the US, for example. Much of the central plains states such as the Dakotas, Nebraska, and western Kansas are declining in population and have incredibly low birth rates. Whole areas of the northern plains are depopulating. By contrast, both the population and birth rate to the south in Texas is exploding.
Is the US in crisis because the Dakotas are losing population and losing youth? If you are a schoolteacher in Minot the answer might be yes. But it’s hardly a national crisis.
If European states can’t maintain their own populations they’ll have to make themselves attractive to immigrants or else shrink. Either way, the world won’t end.
July 1st, 2008 at 10:27 am
While kth is correct that there is no decline in the world population on the horizon, there has been a precipitous drop in birth rates. While worldwide fertility is still above replacement levels at 2.9 children per woman, this represents a massive drop in the past 40 years or so. The main reason that global population continues to grow is population momentum (in short, many people were born 15-40 years ago and these people are now having kids. Even if they have only 1-2 kids each on average, the population will continue to grow because there are so many people in the reproductive age range.)
Agree with all the posters who say that population decline is not a problem in and of itself (there will be obvious environmental benefits) but the issue is too rapid population decline. You don’t want an inverted population pyramid. Old people are expensive, at least in countries where they receive pensions, health benefits, etc. In developing countries where there is no welfare state they rely on their children and grandchildren.
Let’s imagine the case of a Chinese woman who was born in the second generation of the One Child policy. She is an only child and has two parents, each of whom are only children and each of whom has two parents. As her parents and grandparents age, she could end up being responsible not only for her two parents but for her four grandparents as well. She might get married and gain the support of a husband, but then she may also inherit responsibility for his parents, who are only children, and his grandparents. Yikes!!!!
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