Birthrates Followup: All About the Social Insurance?
One popular response to yesterday’s question of why should we worry about low birthrates comes from James Robertson and James Gary namely that high birthrates are necessary to sustain generous public sector benefits for retirees.
This seems a bit strange to me, however, since the people urging us to panic about low birthrates are almost always conservatives who oppose the existence of such programs. Certainly, the two commenters I was citing seemed to feel this way. What’s more, it’s not entirely clear to me how true this really is. After all, children are a significant—and legitimate—claim on the public purse. And high birthrates seem likely to lead to low workforce participation on the part of women, which makes sustaining your retirement benefits more difficult. Conceivably you could get around that by making public spending on child care and preschool and after school programs even more generous, but that just gets you back around to where we started. It actually strikes me as more plausible to argue that generous public sector retirement programs encourage low birthrates than that low birthrates discourage generous public sector retirement programs.
But without denying that the effect is real, this strikes even a lover of Social Security such as myself as a pretty unpersuasive reason to explicitly target higher birthrates as a policy objective. If it’s true—as I’m inclined to think it is—that slower population growth rates are likely to increase average living standards then people could still be made better off even with smaller transfer payments. Alternatively, a developed country that did find itself in desperate need of additional workers can always let more immigrants in.
I think part of what drives these anxieties is the intuition that if birth rates fall and fall eventually the human race will dwindle to nothing. But in practice, if you take a country with low birthrates that chooses not to compensate with immigrants—Japan, in other words—I think the situation will stabilize. Right now housing in Japan is incredibly expensive. But if the Japanese population were to fall, density would fall and space would get cheaper. And the availability of cheap, relatively spacious housing is an important determinant of people’s decision-making about having children and family size.
97 Responses to “Birthrates Followup: All About the Social Insurance?”
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March 31st, 2009 at 8:55 am
I think part of what drives these anxieties is the intuition that if birth rates fall and fall eventually the human race will dwindle to nothing.
This is only half right. What drives these anxieties is the intuition that if our birthrates fall, eventually our part of the human race will dwindle to the point where we’ll be overrun by .
It’s just the old, old, old, old strategy of “have as many kids as humanly possible in order to increase your tribe’s political/military power.”
March 31st, 2009 at 8:55 am
Brackets stripped out the end of my first sentence. Well, you can probably all guess how it was supposed to end.
March 31st, 2009 at 8:56 am
While I solidly agree with MY on this, I also suspect that it’s one of those issues where our instinctive feelings are so out of whack with a utilitarian hedonic calculus that it’s almost useless to try discussing it.
That’s my long-winded way of saying that it’s going to take about five seconds for this to turn into a discussion of “race suicide.”
March 31st, 2009 at 8:58 am
Yeah, I think there’s a good deal of racism in the argument that we need to increase the birthrate (especially as african american and hispanic birthrates are plenty high).
The point is thus – without an increasing population in order to achieve economic growth we need immigration. If you don’t like immigration, your solution is a higher birthrate.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:01 am
I’m not really sure how the tidbit of boppy snark in my comment yesterday can be construed to advocate that “high birthrates are necessary to sustain generous public sector benefits for retirees.” But I always like attention! Yay me!
March 31st, 2009 at 9:04 am
Need I point out that a person’s tax paying “productive” years far outpace their “dependent” years?
Most workers will far more than repay any costs of their raising and retirement in taxes and contributions to family and society.
Especially under Matt’s tax and grab schemes.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:04 am
Re Matthew’s comment “I think part of what drives these anxieties is the intuition that if birth rates fall and fall eventually the human race will dwindle to nothing. ”
————–
Or the Catholics take over.
Torquemada’s coming back. And this time — No More Mr Nice Guy!
March 31st, 2009 at 9:06 am
Just to flesh out the problem with instinctive feelings. All of the comments so far have done a good job of flushing out one side of the problem — which is racial/tribal.
But the even more basic problem is that people love babies. That simple fact makes it almost impossible to have an intelligent discussion of population. I know Matt isn’t proposing any sort of restriction on family size; he’s barely even peddling condoms; he’s just saying, “jeez, do we really need to *encourage* pop. growth?”
Doesn’t matter. In the eyes of many people, this reveals heartless indifference to the most precious part of the human race — the part that drools and can’t wipe the snot away from below its own nose. It’s not the sort of policy angle that will ever get fair treatment on Good Morning America.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:09 am
In fact, staring at the incredibly cute illustration to this post, I abjure all previous thoughts about population policy. Time to go buy a crib.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:11 am
Gallop ..Gallop ..Gallop ..SWISH..
Nobody EXPECTS the Spanish Inquisition!
Gallop..Gallop..
March 31st, 2009 at 9:27 am
Yeah, I think there’s a good deal of racism in the argument that we need to increase the birthrate
No there doesn’t have to be. If rich, educated (and albeit white) people outsource birthing responsibilities to the poor and marginalize, how productive is this? Regardless of race, it makes some economic sense to want the better off to have more children. And don’t tell me progressives are unaware of how much better a child born in a rich, educated family will perform.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:38 am
Maybe this was covered in the previous thread but the obvious answer to me is economic growth and subsequent social mobility. If the country’s size is stagnant (and the economy is not compensating through outsized exports) there will be less of a need for corporate expansion. Perhaps you think that’s a good thing environmentally. But if my company is not getting bigger then I don’t get the promotion to open up the new office. I have to wait for my boss to retire before I (and 15 other employees) can fight for the promotion.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:39 am
An economy is composed of working adults. If overtime, people exiting the productive workforce (determined by retirement, disability, or death) exceed new entrants into the workforce (determined by birthrate and for some countries like US, immigration), it is quite easy to see how you can have a problem. It is not about social security … but about having a productive workforce. Both children and older people are supported by working adults (whether directly or indirectly … via social programs funded by taxes). Talking about “high” or “low” birthrates as if they are absolutes is erroneous. It is a relative comparison.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:39 am
James Gary, it was Yglesian copyediting — he meant to refer to JT’s comment above yours in the original thread.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:51 am
There is also the argument for population growth put forth by Steven Landsburg in More Sex is Safer Sex, which essentially boils down to more children = more smart people = more technology = greater standard of living for everyone. It breaks down pretty easily when you violate its assumptions like if you can’t provide for or educate those children, but I’ve heard that sentiment echoed by conservatives in the past.
March 31st, 2009 at 10:09 am
This birthrate stuff often has a nativist, racist undercurrent. It comes on particularly strong when conservatives starts talking about the “demographic winter” in Europe, and then get really excited about kulturkampf, or when they hyperventilate about how hispanic immigrants in America are incapable of appreciating and contributing to American democratic culture. But once you accept that one human being is basically as good as another, for the purposes of cooperative society, it’s difficult to worry about how many white babies are being made.
March 31st, 2009 at 10:14 am
@15: One really basic weakness in a lot of futurism is the assumption that “technology” is an infinitely expandable variable.
A lot of our social thinking is based on that assumption, and it’s been a reliable assumption for the last millennium or three.
But it’s not inconceivable that we reach a point of diminishing returns. Improvement still takes place around the margins, but e.g. facebook doesn’t increase productivity the way that, say, the electric motor did. Instead of a world where everyone flies their own helicopter, you get a world with marginally more efficient versions of the personal automobile, etc. And you start running into basic low-tech limits: acres of farmland, loss of topsoil, availability of water.
As I say, you can’t test these assumptions. I don’t think anyone really knows.
March 31st, 2009 at 10:17 am
The goal for a nation should be to raise the living standard for all citizens –even if there may be some income inequity.
Since there are limited resources –and those are being depleted at a rapid rate, then there needs to be a cap on population. The end result to overpopulation is war –in our case, nuclear war , famine etc –leading to a massive dieoff in human population and several steps back for civilization and technology. If we fall back far enough we may not recover, given how we have wasted much of the resources which supported the growth of earlier civilizations.
A massive dieoff in human population doesn’t hurt my head that much –so long as I and mine are not among the casualties — but innocent wildlife and domesticated animals would die as collateral. I would consider that tragic.
March 31st, 2009 at 10:19 am
Should have looked at previous comments before posting, I see the racist angle has been covered.
Gordon Gekko–Sure, there might be differences in “performance” between your average rich kid and your average poor kid. But I hardly think we should base social policy on solidifying class stratification across generations. Any argument that takes intergenerational social hierarchy as a premise for policymaking is putting the cart before the horse. The goal should be to reduce the effects of birth by increasing the quality of education and other social spending. Again, its not clear how more rich, white babies accomplishes that.
March 31st, 2009 at 10:32 am
More babies means more expenditures for schools, daycare, medical bills, etc. and drags us down.
Unless we make the little bastards work for a change. Damn welfare queens sucking up my taxes and getting a free education and then crying because they don’t have recess. I don’t have recess either, Junior, but you don’t hear me crying, because I’M A HARD-WORKING AMERICAN.
March 31st, 2009 at 10:38 am
I think part of what drives these anxieties is the intuition that if birth rates fall and fall eventually the white race will dwindle to nothing.
Fixed that for you.
March 31st, 2009 at 10:46 am
The problem isn’t low birthrates per se, it’s low birthrates combined with longer life expectancies. Aging populations consume more expensive healthcare per capita, and produce less GDP. In modern economies with formal pension and elder care systems, this is a structural cost problem, but it would be bad even if it were just private sector productivity we were talking about. Problems also arise when there are not enough skilled younger workers in the pipeline to replace retirees. We’re going to face that in the US over the next 10-15 years before it gets better. In Europe and Japan, it will keep getting worse because their fertility rates are in a death-spiral. Output and innovation are related to birthrates, just as surely as consumption is.
Philip Longman wrote a terrific book on this a few years ago called “The Empty Cradle.” It’s a great analysis with some concrete policy prescriptions at the end.
March 31st, 2009 at 11:00 am
“But in practice, if you take a country with low birthrates that chooses not to compensate with immigrants—Japan, in other words—I think the situation will stabilize.”
Uh, Japan’s population has only been in decline since 2004 after about 20 years of stagnant growth. I think we might want to wait and see where this downward trend goes before calling it “stability”.
Mike
March 31st, 2009 at 11:04 am
“The goal should be to reduce the effects of birth by increasing the quality of education and other social spending.”
“effects of birth”? So, producing children has a negative impact on individuals that must be compensated for? I’m sure there could never be any problems resulting from such a self-centered and individualistic approach to life.
Mike
March 31st, 2009 at 11:05 am
Matt, did you notice what happened to the Japanese economy when their population rate stalled to zero in 1990? About the same thing that happened to the U.S. economy when the Baby Boomers started to retire in 2008…
Babies bring productive services to cater to them, promise of future workers, and potential brains to the service of humanity. If I have time today I will run a quick correlation between median age and GDP growth… where is that Nationmaster URL…
March 31st, 2009 at 11:09 am
Blake,
Okay ignoring the benefits to society of the rich and educated having more children such behaviour will reduce the socioeconomic effects of birth.
If a doctor has three children instead of one that means each individual child will receive less education, inheritance, attention, etc. Not to mention the doctor will probably work more. And assuming there is some inherent advantage in being born to a doctor it means a larger supply of future talented workers. More talented doctors, lawyers means less income inequality (just as the opposite is true).
I am not saying social engineering is right. It can be quite ugly. But to say that someone wants richer and more educated parents (i.e. Americans, Asians and Europeans) to have more babies because they are worried about their “race” is a naive oversimplification.
March 31st, 2009 at 11:10 am
MBunge–I meant to say “reduce the problems associated with being born into poverty.” It was an awkward phrase. I don’t mean to say childbirth is a problem for which people should be compensated.
March 31st, 2009 at 11:14 am
Regardless of race, it makes some economic sense to want the better off to have more children.
But the better off never have more children than the worse off.
March 31st, 2009 at 11:20 am
Predictions of mass death due to overpopulation, racist eugenics-inspired theories about who should procreate….
All this thread needs is an angry Hector screed about hipster-on-horse sex. Reading the comments here is like a stroll through crazytown.
Seriously… why do crazy people seem to love this blog so much? I honestly don’t get it. Matt is a big dork. He’s smart, but he’s more like a wonky mid-level Treasury Department bureaucrat than a left-wing Glenn Beck.
March 31st, 2009 at 11:21 am
Gordon gekko–I’m not against rich people having babies, I just think that the discourse about birth rates is mostly targeted at getting the white (lower) middle class to have more babies because of certain assumptions about who the real Americans are. Would it be better for more rich people to have more children? Maybe. Or maybe that would create a glut of entitled and unmotivated aristocrats.
March 31st, 2009 at 11:36 am
As far as I can tell, there are two sides to this debate. One side is very concerned with the effect of changing ratios of old to young on the economy, and the changes in the whole economy that a declining population would bring. These people seem to think it is of no concern just how many people there are, as long as the ratios are good. One million people in the UK, one billion, whatever. The other side is worried about a die off and collapse of civilization, and isn’t so concerned with the finer points of pension schemes or economic disruption from fewer births. The two sides don’t even really talk to each other.
March 31st, 2009 at 11:46 am
“As far as I can tell, there are two sides to this debate.”
I think there’s also a dispute over a culture that seems to encourage or incentivize people not to reproduce, even in the midst of peace and prosperity. What some see as liberation from the tyranny of biology, others see as a form of narcissism.
Mike
March 31st, 2009 at 11:54 am
Re Beige at 31: “These people seem to think it is of no concern just how many people there are, as long as the ratios are good. One million people in the UK, one billion, whatever. The other side is worried about a die off and collapse of civilization, and isn’t so concerned with the finer points of pension schemes or economic disruption from fewer births. The two sides don’t even really talk to each other.”
————-
Well, yes. Those of us who worry about the major issues do tend to leave the trival details for the minor functionaries to squabble over.
March 31st, 2009 at 12:02 pm
It’s not a social security issue, it’s a Medicare issue. We currently have about 4 workers for every Medicare enrollee – by the time I retire (30+ years), it will be 2 workers for every enrollee. Keep in mind that $5 is spent for every $1 contributed each year. Lower birthrates mean lower future output/productivity – making inflation and deficits more dangerous.
March 31st, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Re Botswana at 29: “Predictions of mass death due to overpopulation,…Reading the comments here is like a stroll through crazytown. Seriously… why do crazy people seem to love this blog so much? ”
———–
Er.. because we’ve been banned from posting anywhere else? heh heh
Re genocides triggered by overpopulation, see Jared Diamond’s “Collapse”, especially Chapter 10.
Google “Lebensraum” to see how Adolf Hitler reved the German people up for exterminating roughly 8? million people in Eastern Europe.
And what was Stalin’s justification for killing off several million people in the Ukraine?
I find such protests amusing coming from a taxpayer whose government created ten of thousands of weapons designed for the sole purpose of turning Eurasia into a pile of ashes.
March 31st, 2009 at 12:21 pm
“It’s not a social security issue, it’s a Medicare issue. We currently have about 4 workers for every Medicare enrollee – by the time I retire (30+ years), it will be 2 workers for every enrollee. Keep in mind that $5 is spent for every $1 contributed each year. Lower birthrates mean lower future output/productivity – making inflation and deficits more dangerous.”
You are obviously a conservative, so we can safely ignore this argument. Plus you are probably racist.
After all, look at Japan- Matt predicts japan will do fine in the future, and that should be more than enough evidence for you!
March 31st, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I think this post is way off-base, for two reasons.
Reason 1: Social insurance or no social insurance, the key fact is that old people consume and do not work. That puts a strain on the economy. Whether you use a social insurance system or family support, the young must therefore take care of the old.
Reason 2: Those arguing for higher birthrates in rich countries may simply want to bring it up to replacement level, not cause a population explosion. A country with a fertility rate of 5 is going to want to reduce it. Does this mean a country with a fertility rate of 1.3 is going to want to reduce theirs as well?
March 31st, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Another point: In the long run, one of three things happens on the average: 1) the human race explodes to fill the entire Universe, 2) the human race dwindles to nothing, or 3) the human race stabilizes at some long-run average. (1) and (2) seem pretty unlikely, so the question here is whether we think the human race should oscillate around the steady state – with birthrates rising and then falling and then rising again – or whether we think it would be best to converge smoothly to the steady state. I vote for smooth convergence, since that will lead to more social and economic stability. And if we’re going to have smooth convergence, that means that countries with higher than replacement fertility will have to bring their fertility down, and countries with low fertility will have to bring theirs up, until everybody is right around 2.1.
March 31st, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I really don’t understand why Matt is having such a hard time understanding the problem. Low birthrates sustained over a substantial period of time, plus increasing average life expectancy means an aging population. The ratio of productive young workers to unproductive elderly retirees will fall. That is a problem. Europe and Japan already recognize the problem, which is why they are taking steps to address it. Yes, Japan is very densely populated and might benefit from a lower overall population, but that is a separate issue from the age distribution of the population. Yes, nations with low birthrates “could” let in more immigrants, but that doesn’t mean they will, or that they could attract enough immigrants with the necessary skills and education to compensate for the effects of a low native birthrate, or that a large-scale increase in immigration wouldn’t create big problems of its own.
March 31st, 2009 at 1:13 pm
In addition to racism, don’t forget sexism. More children equals, as matt notes, less women in the work force. It also tends to stick women in bad marriages.
Natalism allows conservatives to tacitly endorse racism and sexism with plausible deniability.
March 31st, 2009 at 1:36 pm
More children equals, as matt notes, less women in the work force.
That is just plain WRONG. Among rich nations, there is a clear correlation between higher fertility and equality in the workplace.
Look at the rich countries with higher fertility rates: France, Sweden, the Scandinavian countries, and the U.S. These are the countries with the lowest gender gaps in both employment and wages.
March 31st, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Noah–America’s fertility rate is close to replacement level. Our population rises because of immigration, and the fact that it takes a generation for immigrant fertility levels to fall to the norm.
As for old people, right now I think we need more consumers in the domestic economy, not fewer. There’s no shortage of things to consume. Social insurance supplements their income, it doesn’t replace it. We’re a long way from having the over 65s be a burden on society.
March 31st, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Matt, a correction:
Housing in Tokyo is expensive. Many parts of rural Japan have been suffering from depopulation for decades. Japan’s population fall isn’t an IF, it is reality. The birth rate in Japan has been so low that population growth was negative years and years ago. Density in Tokyo won’t fall because culturally, Japanese people are attracted to living in a fast-paced big city.
March 31st, 2009 at 2:05 pm
dilan esper,
In addition to racism, don’t forget sexism. More children equals, as matt notes, less women in the work force.
The liberal penchant for ignorant self-righteous moralism rears its ugly head once more. Why bother actually learning something about the issue when you can just through around accusations of racism and sexism instead?
Over the past decade, many European nations, concerned about the long-term effects of their low fertility rates, have adopted policies to encourage their women to have more children. Darn those racist, sexist Europeans!
March 31st, 2009 at 2:06 pm
But once you accept that one human being is basically as good as another, for the purposes of cooperative society,
Why should you accept that? Most people don’t, and it doesn’t seem to be true. Most people prefer an Italy populated by Italians, or a France populated by French people. Morocco, Turkey and Algeria are nice countries but they already exist and don’t need to expand any more. Personally I think diversity means actually having countries with different cultures and populations, not inviting the rest of the world to blend your population down to an undifferentiated beige with no real traditions, native culture or language.
March 31st, 2009 at 2:16 pm
“Another point: In the long run, one of three things happens on the average: 1) the human race explodes to fill the entire Universe, 2) the human race dwindles to nothing, or 3) the human race stabilizes at some long-run average. (1) and (2) seem pretty unlikely, so the question here is whether we think the human race should oscillate around the steady state – with birthrates rising and then falling and then rising again – or whether we think it would be best to converge smoothly to the steady state.”
I’m not sure whey (1) or (2) should seem that unlikely, especially when compared to the immense complexity of achieving (3) in an environment when Man’s only natural predator is Man.
Mike
March 31st, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Having 20 of the population elderly is considered a disaster for a country. I don’t know why this should be so, or what is the optimum number of elderly people if the birthrate is to be stable (or to fall, which I think in the long term would be desirable).
Having the human population fall and go back toward what for millennia was the average seems to me a good thing, and it can be accomplished bloodlessly, if and only if we are willing to tolerate more old people as a percentage of the population. Old people can and will work longer than in the past, if that is the question
March 31st, 2009 at 2:54 pm
20 percent, I mean.
March 31st, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I don’t like this way of looking at old people
Not all forms of productive benefit to society are immediately quantifiable in dollars on the monthly statement.
Old people are culture carriers and make a contribution as grandparents and teachers.
“They also serve, who only stand and wait.” –Milton
March 31st, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Noah–America’s fertility rate is close to replacement level. Our population rises because of immigration, and the fact that it takes a generation for immigrant fertility levels to fall to the norm.
Isn’t that the idea situation? We’re not adding to or subtracting from world population.
March 31st, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Re: I think there’s also a dispute over a culture that seems to encourage or incentivize people not to reproduce, even in the midst of peace and prosperity. What some see as liberation from the tyranny of biology, others see as a form of narcissism.
MBunge,
PRECISELY. You put it so much better than me. The reason that I urge Russians, and Italians, and Georgians, and many of my more liberal-minded friends to have more children, is not primarily to keep Social Security afloat (that would be a truly dumb reason) or to win the demographic war against Islam (that would be only slightly less dumb). It’s because I think it would be good for their spiritual welfare.
For most of us, the family is one of the primary schools of virtue. Through having children our love for another person becomes fruitful. Through raising children we learn how to empty ourselves and live for another. Through creating new life we participate, for a moment, in the drama of creation which echoes how the Word is eternally begotten of the Father before all the ages. Having and raising children leads us to value ourselves less and another more, to sacrifice ourselves and to negate our pride and self-sufficiency. Our race lost paradise through pride, through trying to live for ourselves and be our own masters. And we can gain it back only through living lives of obedience, self-sacrifice and self-giving.
The family isn’t the only place this can be done. Many childless people- monks, for example- have found other ways to live lives of self-sacrifice and selfless love. But for many of us, having children is an important way- not the only way, but an important one- in which we learn how to diminish ourselves and how to love. Most of our lives would be poorer if we did not have children.
And that’s why procreation is properly viewed not as a choice, not as an option we select for ourselves, but an obligation and as the ultimate goal to which a healthy sexual relationship should tend. Maybe not now, maybe not this year or next year, but all of us, in our relationships and our lives, should ultimately be envisioning a future, down the road, of marriage and children. To deny this is to rebel against what some call ‘the tyranny of biology’, and what the more thoughtful and sensitive among us call natural law.
March 31st, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Vanya,
Again, precisely. I want an Armenia full of Armenians, a Bolivia full of Bolivians, and a Gambia full of Gambians. I hate the idea of a world in which all of us are seen as interchangeable, where we have no identity deeper or more meaningful than that we arbitrarily choose for ourselves. The world is a richer place precisely because it is a world of small communities, each of them fiercely holding to their own lineage, their own language, their own sense of the sacred, and their own history. What a miserable world we would be if we were all melted down into a shapeless, cosmopolitan soup.
March 31st, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Old people are culture carriers and make a contribution as grandparents and teachers.
That’s nice, but it won’t pay their Social Security checks or Medicare bills, not to mention all the other things we fund by taxing productive workers.
March 31st, 2009 at 4:35 pm
I agree that it would be a great loss to the richness of the cultural patrimony of the world if languages and cultures were to disappear. But I’m not sure that having more children is the way to preserve them. We had even more cultures and languages when we had half the people (about 40 years ago, was it?). I agree with Hector about families being carriers of education and culture, by the way. The danger now is a cultural gray out and resource depletion though overpopulation. It seems that overpopulation also threatens cultural diversity because of the centralization and economies of scale necessary to provide for it.
March 31st, 2009 at 4:36 pm
But in practice, if you take a country with low birthrates that chooses not to compensate with immigrants—Japan, in other words—I think the situation will stabilize.
==========================================================
Actually, that would be Russia
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/03/AR2008100301976.html
Recent decades, most notably since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, have seen an appalling deterioration in the health of the Russian population, anchoring Russia not in the forefront of developed countries but among the most backward of nations.
This is a tragedy of huge proportions — but not a particularly surprising one, at least to me. I followed population, health and environmental issues in the Soviet Union for decades, and more recently, I have reported on diseases such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic ravaging the Russian population. I’ve visited Russia more than 50 times over the years, so I can say from firsthand experience that this national calamity isn’t happening suddenly. It’s happening inexorably.
According to U.N. figures, the average life expectancy for a Russian man is 59 years — putting the country at about 166th place in the world longevity sweepstakes, one notch above Gambia. For women, the picture is somewhat rosier: They can expect to live, on average, 73 years, barely beating out the Moldovans. But there are still some 126 countries where they could expect to live longer. And the gap between expected longevity for men and for women — 14 years — is the largest in the developed world.
So what’s killing the Russians? All the usual suspects — HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, alcoholism, cancer, cardiovascular and circulatory diseases, suicides, smoking, traffic accidents — but they occur in alarmingly large numbers, and Moscow has neither the resources nor the will to stem the tide. Consider this:
Three times as many Russians die from heart-related illnesses as do Americans or Europeans, per each 100,000 people.
Tuberculosis deaths in Russia are about triple the World Health Organization’s definition of an epidemic, which is based on a new-case rate of 50 cases per 100,000 people.
Average alcohol consumption per capita is double the rate the WHO considers dangerous to one’s health.
About 1 million people in Russia have been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, according to WHO estimates.
Using mid-year figures, it’s estimated that 25 percent more new HIV/AIDS cases will be recorded this year than were logged in 2007.
And none of this is likely to get better any time soon. Peter Piot, the head of UNAIDS, the U.N. agency created in response to the epidemic, told a press conference this summer that he is “very pessimistic about what is going on in Russia and Eastern Europe . . . where there is the least progress.” This should be all the more worrisome because young people are most at risk in Russia. In the United States and Western Europe, 70 percent of those with HIV/AIDS are men over age 30; in Russia, 80 percent of this group are aged 15 to 29. And although injected-drug users represent about 65 percent of Russia’s cases, the country has officially rejected methadone as a treatment, even though it would likely reduce the potential for HIV infections that lead to AIDS.
And then there’s tuberculosis — remember tuberculosis? In the United States, with a population of 303 million, 650 people died of the disease in 2007. In Russia, which has a total of 142 million people, an astonishing 24,000 of them died of tuberculosis in 2007. Can it possibly be coincidental that, according to Gennady Onishchenko, the country’s chief public health physician, only 9 percent of Russian TB hospitals meet current hygienic standards, 21 percent lack either hot or cold running water, 11 percent lack a sewer system, and 20 percent have a shortage of TB drugs? Hardly.
On the other end of the lifeline, the news isn’t much better. Russia’s birth rate has been declining for more than a decade, and even a recent increase in births will be limited by the fact that the number of women age 20 to 29 (those responsible for two-thirds of all babies) will drop markedly in the next four or five years to mirror the 50 percent drop in the birth rate in the late 1980s and the 1990s. And, sadly, the health of Russia’s newborns is quite poor, with about 70 percent of them experiencing complications at birth.
Last summer, Piot of UNAIDS said that bringing Russia’s HIV/AIDS epidemic under control was “a matter of political leadership and of changing the policy.” He might just as well have been talking about the much larger public health crisis that threatens this vast country. But the policies seem unlikely to change as the bear lumbers along, driven by disastrously misplaced priorities and the blindingly unrealistic expectations of a resentment-driven political leadership. Moscow remains bent on ignoring the devastating truth: The nation is not just sick but dying.
March 31st, 2009 at 4:49 pm
to those who cited northern european fertility rates:
yes it is poaaible to pursue natalism without being sexist.
that doesn’t, however, have anything to do with american natalists, who are mostly anti-feminists who would never favor the sort of family friendly workplace mandates that they have in northern europe.
March 31st, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Shorter Dilan Esper: If Europe encourages its women to have more children, it’s rational public policy. If America encourages its women to have more children, it’s racism and sexism.
March 31st, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Thomas Malthus anyone?
March 31st, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Excuse me. Russia had a high rate of social pathology and physical disease well before the fall of the Soviet Union. Not that shock capitalism helped the situation. But might it not be true that the populations of both Russia and Japan were traumatized by the horrific experiences of Wartime, starvation, and violent dictatorship before the war, as well?
March 31st, 2009 at 6:25 pm
The assumption seems to be that anyone over 65 is automatically a drain on society. I have colleagues who are over seventy and they are still holding their own and contributing to society — paying taxes and so on. So I question whether that it true. Besides, their medical ailments, if they have any, are paying the bills of doctors and their staffs.
Besides which, as I said, there is a lot that goes into making a society vigorous and healthy that doesn’t translate easily into monetary terms but which would be sorely missed if it weren’t there. Retired people can contribute in many ways, even if they are over eighty or ninety and not drawing a paycheck. It seems unnecessary to point this out, but humans are social creatures, and sociability is as necessary to them as air.
March 31st, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Sorry DTM, but that is false. The key determinant is education. It is, more or less, inversely proportional. Lower education = higher birth rates. This is especially true of education of women. Women who are educated tend to have fewer children than women who are uneducated; regardless of economic class.
March 31st, 2009 at 6:39 pm
You sound like a miserable, ignorant clod.
March 31st, 2009 at 6:43 pm
The assumption seems to be that anyone over 65 is automatically a drain on society.
I have no idea why you think anyone has made that assumption. It is obviously not necessary for everyone over 65 to be a drain on society for over-65s in general, or old people in general, to be a drain on society.
But the issue isn’t simply a matter of whether old people are a drain. They can be a drain as long as there aren’t too many of them relative to the size of the younger, productive share of the population.
March 31st, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Thanks for being the first blogger to note that it’s disingenuous for wingnuts to panic about pensions, would they would have 1/3-40% of the workforce give up their jobs to raise children.
March 31st, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Re: that doesn’t, however, have anything to do with american natalists, who are mostly anti-feminists who would never favor the sort of family friendly workplace mandates that they have in northern europe.
Dilan,
The subject of the initial thread was natalism in Georgia, specifically Patriarch Ilia’s proposal to personally baptize each third child. There’s no particular reason for us to be talking specifically about the US here.
I would certainly support a family-friendly economy, and I think that the Patriarch would as well. Indeed, the socialist governments in South America these days are quite explicitly natalist as well.
March 31st, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Shorter Dilan Esper: If Europe encourages its women to have more children, it’s rational public policy. If America encourages its women to have more children, it’s racism and sexism.
I don’t think it is good public policy to try and make people have children when they don’t want to have them, or more children than they want to have. If we need more people, loosen up immigration.
But I do think it is good public policy to make it easier for working mothers (and fathers) to integrate childcare responsibilities with their jobs and therefore be able to keep their careers if they wish to. And I think that is good public policy whether or not it increases the birth rate.
In other words, your snarky caricature is way off.
March 31st, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Shorter Dilan Esper: Having a kid would cramp my style. Can’t exactly pick up honeys at the club with a kid in tow. Also, I might have to get rid of my VHS porn collection if I got married and have a kid. Nah, why bother. Let people in other countries have the kids, then we can import them over here. We outsource everything else, why not procreation?
Georgia doesn’t need more people, she needs more Georgians. A people unwilling to carry on their lineage is a people unwilling to carry on their religion and culture.
March 31st, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Dilan Esper,
I don’t think it is good public policy to try and make people have children when they don’t want to have them, or more children than they want to have.
I don’t either. But I haven’t seen anyone suggest we should try and “make” people have children they don’t want to have.
If we need more people, loosen up immigration.
As I said in an earlier post, nations with low birthrates “could” let in more immigrants, but that doesn’t mean they will, or that they could attract enough immigrants with the necessary skills and education to compensate for the effects of a low native birthrate, or that a large-scale increase in immigration wouldn’t create big problems of its own.
But I do think it is good public policy to make it easier for working mothers (and fathers) to integrate childcare responsibilities with their jobs and therefore be able to keep their careers if they wish to.
Depends on the policy.
In other words, your snarky caricature is way off.
Er, you’re the one who claimed the motives for encouraging women in low-birthrate countries to have more children are racism and sexism. Without a shred of evidence to support your accusation, of course.
March 31st, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Hector,
So anyone who doesn’t have kids is a porn addict?
How classy of you.
March 31st, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Shorter Dilan Esper: Having a kid would cramp my style. Can’t exactly pick up honeys at the club with a kid in tow. Also, I might have to get rid of my VHS porn collection if I got married and have a kid. Nah, why bother. Let people in other countries have the kids, then we can import them over here. We outsource everything else, why not procreation? Georgia doesn’t need more people, she needs more Georgians.
Hector, where did I say anything about my personal choices?
I think it borders on the totalitarian (e.g., Communist Romania) for the government to tell people that they need to have children.
And I favor policies that would, incidentally, make it easier for those who CHOOSE to have children to do so.
So I don’t see what the basis for the personal attack is.
Also, I don’t understand this “Georgia needs more Georgians” argument. The children of immigrants born in this country, and the immigrants who apply for citizenship, are as American as I am. American citizenship is not tied to ethnic identity. And only racists think it should be.
March 31st, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Also, this general notion of each country belonging only to its natives gives me a queasy feeling, mainly in that it evokes a horrid statement from the 1960s:
“Almighty God created the races … he placed them on separate continents… the fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
I know that folks like Charles will have a conniption if I make any inferences about people’s personal beliefs, so I’ll just contribute this quotation and leave it at that.
March 31st, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Er, you’re the one who claimed the motives for encouraging women in low-birthrate countries to have more children are racism and sexism. Without a shred of evidence to support your accusation, of course.
Charles, you can deny that most of the “pro-natalist” writing in this country comes from right wingers who oppose feminism and laws that impinge on American businesses to make life easier for women in the workplace.
But if you did deny that, you would either be lying or clueless.
March 31st, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Shorter Hector: Georgia, and therefore all nations, can only keep their national identity secure through eugenics.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Dilan Esper,
Charles, you can deny that most of the “pro-natalist” writing in this country comes from right wingers who oppose feminism and laws that impinge on American businesses to make life easier for women in the workplace. But if you did deny that, you would either be lying or clueless.
You can keep pretending that the subject of this thread is “pro-natalist writing” (whatever that is) by unnamed “right wingers” (whoever they’re supposed to be), rather than the long-term effects of low birthrates, but doing so would just further prove what an ignorant, lying, sanctimonious fool you are.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Re: Also, I don’t understand this “Georgia needs more Georgians” argument. The children of immigrants born in this country, and the immigrants who apply for citizenship, are as American as I am. American citizenship is not tied to ethnic identity. And only racists think it should be.
Good for you, Dilan. Unfortunately for your hipster postmodern vision of the world, we’re not talking about America, we’re talking about Georgia. The national religion of Georgia is the Orthodox Church, as per the Concordat of 2002, and the state has a duty to try and preserve it. They had enough of secularism under Stalin.
And no one is forcing anyone. I am urging people to have at least one child, and telling them that as I see it, morality requires them to do so, except for very grave reasons. I think that the state and church should encourage Georgian women to have more children, and of course that in any civilized society abortion should be illegal except for severe health threats. (If Georgia did that, I bet the birth rate would rise again to a healthy level.) But I certainly don’t want to make birth control illegal, although I might _morally_ condemn certain kinds of birth control under certain circumstances.
Besides the obvious psychological damage divorce inflicts on children, with all the social consequences attendant on that, in an existential way divorce is a repudiation of and spiritual assault on the children’s very existence. Voluntarily childless marriage is spiritually almost as good as divorce in some respects, as the couple’s conscious desire not to have children is a sort of repudiation of one another. It is a rejection at some level of the spiritual and moral unity to which they have been called in their marriage, an admission that their love is a sort of airy sentiment and not something that should be made concrete and enfleshed in another person, and it is an expression of a desire to use the other person simply as a means of satisfaction of the self. It is little wonder that the second woman quoted above would think of having children in terms of investment and return–this must be how she thinks of all relationships, as means of satisfying her desires. That is tragic, and it is also a mark of the demonic
March 31st, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Sorry, that last paragraph was accidentally included, it’s a quotation from a Larison essay. Here, I’ll go ahead and quote more of it. I don’t agree with all of it, but it’s certainly thought-provoking and compelling.
“It is not only that childless marriages are unnatural and contrary to the will of God in very obvious ways…. but that the very idea of marrying while not begetting children is a perverse, self-indulgent one that feeds all of the passions and thwarts the possibility of experiencing and expressing truly kenotic love. Marriage and parenthood are part of God’s design for very clear and definite reasons: they instruct us in how to give fully of oneself to other people in self-emptying love that follows the Word’s kenosis in becoming man for our salvation, they teach us that no person can be complete or perfected except in loving relationships with others, and thus they teach us in very simple ways the profound reality of communion.
“Marriage is a mystery of the Church in part because it instructs us in the mystery of what the Church is and how She is bound to Christ in love. In this way, marriage leads us further on the path of salvation and teaches us how to be servants of Christ. The relationship of the Church and Christ is a type and example of perfect communion and unity, and it is that example we are meant to follow in our marriages. As proof of the love that makes such unity possible, children are the gifts given to the parents to seal their unity, and in this they are like the gifts Christ has bestowed upon His Church or they are like the faithful who are nurtured in the bosom of the Church. The birth of children in wedlock is a type of the fulfillment of the Lord’s prayer that we might be one even as He and His Father are One.
“Besides the obvious psychological damage divorce inflicts on children, with all the social consequences attendant on that, in an existential way divorce is a repudiation of and spiritual assault on the children’s very existence. Voluntarily childless marriage is spiritually almost as good as divorce in some respects, as the couple’s conscious desire not to have children is a sort of repudiation of one another. It is a rejection at some level of the spiritual and moral unity to which they have been called in their marriage, an admission that their love is a sort of airy sentiment and not something that should be made concrete and enfleshed in another person, and it is an expression of a desire to use the other person simply as a means of satisfaction of the self. It is little wonder that the second woman quoted above would think of having children in terms of investment and return–this must be how she thinks of all relationships, as means of satisfying her desires. That is tragic, and it is also a mark of the demonic.”
March 31st, 2009 at 9:34 pm
What’s with this constant reference to hipsters, Hector? Did someone spill beer on you at the last Panic at the Disco! concert?
March 31st, 2009 at 9:51 pm
DTM,
You claimed that “the key determinant in low birth rates is urbanization.” Show us your evidence for this assertion.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Does this mean I should dump my girlfriend for someone younger and fertile, in the interests of morality?
March 31st, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Yeah, I think there’s a good deal of racism in the argument that we need to increase the birthrate (especially as african american and hispanic birthrates are plenty high).
But once you accept that one human being is basically as good as another, for the purposes of cooperative society, it’s difficult to worry about how many white babies are being made.
I think part of what drives these anxieties is the intuition that if birth rates fall and fall eventually the white race will dwindle to nothing.
Translation: White people should be perfectly willing to die out. If they are not, they are evil Nazi racists.
vanya and Hector:
What you don’t understand is that most of the people in this blog are not against people having an ethnic identity, or having pride in their ethnic identity, or celebrating their ethnic identity. They are just against white people doing so.
Alternatively, a developed country that did find itself in desperate need of additional workers can always let more immigrants in.
As others have pointed out, the issue with immigrants is getting the right ones in. If you mainly import poor unskilled labor, they are not going to be able to add enough to the economy to support those who have passed their working years.
This seems a bit strange to me, however, since the people urging us to panic about low birthrates are almost always conservatives who oppose the existence of such programs.
They are claiming that our commitment to high levels of social insurance and our low birthrates are incompatible. This point is true or false on its own terms, quite independent of whether or not high levels of social insurance are desirable. Moreover, I doubt that Robertson and Gary are assuming that, if they are right and social security becomes unsustainable, that the government will simply eliminate or cut back the program. Rather, they think that the government will simply destroy the economy to keep the programs going as long as possible. So there is no hypocrisy here.
March 31st, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Whiteness of skin is not an ethnic identity. An ethnic identity is, say, Irish from Cork, of Scots Irish from Appalachia, or Italian Waldensian Protestant from North Carolina, or Northern-French Huguenot from New Palz, NY, or a Congregationalist from Gloucester, Mass. Or a Hessian German, or a Norwegian sea captain. Or Moravian Jew, or Italian from Sicily, or Reggio-Emilia, or Abruzzo, or Italo-American from Hoboken or Greenport, Long Island. Or Spanish from Andalusia and Cuba. Or German from 1848 in the Texas Hill Country. An ethnic identity is customs, language, songs, food, dance movement. Or Sante-Domingan Creole from Louisiana — or a mixture of any and all of the above and many more
Anyone who thinks “White” is an identity is suffering from an impoverished imagination — maybe they should go back and study their roots.
March 31st, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Knowledge, not having babies, will preserve people’s heritage. People had just as much or more “heritage” when there were a quarter as many people as there are now.
The more people know about their own and other people’s cultures the more they will survive and flourish. Cultures don’t exist in museum-like isolation but in creative interaction and exchange with other cultures. Nor is there a “Darwinian” struggle between them.
http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=34325&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
April 1st, 2009 at 1:16 am
From BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7974995.stm
”
Earth population ‘exceeds limits’
By Steven Duke
Editor, One Planet, BBC World Service
There are already too many people living on Planet Earth, according to one of most influential science advisors in the US government.
Nina Fedoroff told the BBC One Planet programme that humans had exceeded the Earth’s “limits of sustainability”.
Dr Fedoroff has been the science and technology advisor to the US secretary of state since 2007, initially working with Condoleezza Rice.
Under the new Obama administration, she now advises Hillary Clinton.
“We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can’t support many more people,” Dr Fedoroff said, stressing the need for humans to become much better at managing “wild lands”, and in particular water supplies.
Pressed on whether she thought the world population was simply too high, Dr Fedoroff replied: “There are probably already too many people on the planet.”
Sidebar:
LIVING ON A CROWDED EARTH
Crowded commuter trains (AP)
Current world population – 6.8bn
Net growth per day – 218,030
Forecast made for 2040 – 9bn
Source: US Census Bureau
April 1st, 2009 at 1:30 am
What dooms the human race is that so much of it is made up of herds of morons –driven by various forms of organized insanity.
The large family Catholics, for example. There is not the slightest piece of evidence that the Pope is divinely inspired — that he is anything other than your everyday politican/horse’s ass. Yet MILLIONS toss their god-given intellects away and lap up whatever stupidity the Pope puts out.
As a result, we have MILLIONS dead from AIDS in Africa because the Church campaigns against condoms, we have MILLIONS of orphans from the AIDS deaths and we have widespread starvation and poverty due to overpopulation in many areas where the Church holds sway.
And the fucking fundamental evangelists are no different. They are People who DELIGHT in their stupidity and massive ignorance. How can we rationally dead with the oncoming crises when 60 percent of the voters are just looking for some con man to serve as a surrogate Daddy?
Yet organized religion has massive advantages in Politics:
tax free income for it’s leaders, tax free accumulation of capital, a totally opaque collection mechanism to raising money in support of its political campaigns,etc.
Plus a social taboo against pointing how the massive harm to humanity that these childish dumbfucks have caused over the centuries.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:55 am
But Don, your link. Genetically modified food. No.
Otherwise I agree that the world is overpopulated. It was better when I was young and there were dairy farms right outside the city — even in the city, on Staten Island.
If everyone had one, or at most two children — the population could be halved in a generation, and then halved again in another generation. Having 20% of people over sixty would be a small price to pay — for the survival of our species (and millions of others in the long run, not to mention all our attendant languages and cultures! It appears that female education could get this done without coercion or violence, just more grannies.
Hector, I’m sorry. You are really wrong on this one. And how in heaven’s name would you know about childless versus marriage with children? I get the impression you are not married.
One has children. They grow up in the twinkling of an eye. And that’s it. It’s over. But the marriage remains, children or not. Unless it doesn’t.
Anyway, didn’t the Catholic Church only make marriage a Sacrament after the council of Trent? Perhaps I am wrong about this. My sense is that they and the Founders of the religion weren’t particularly keen on marriage for the first millennium and a half. In antiquity only property owners could marry, no?
April 1st, 2009 at 3:38 am
Whiteness of skin is not an ethnic identity.
I’m sorry. I thought that everyone on this blog was smart enough to realize that “white” is shorthand for “of European ancestry.”
While there are many identities within “European,” the fact of the matter is that there is lot of cultural connectedness between just about all European-derived peoples.
April 1st, 2009 at 5:05 am
Lower fertility leads to higher human capital investments which leads to higher economic growth.
No, higher rates are not needed for the public sector. Productivity is rising and people are working to higher ages!
April 1st, 2009 at 9:32 am
Ben,
I use the term ‘hipster’ in order to be deliberately abusive. I don’t feel particularly inclined to be polite or respectful to those who spout what I consider pernicious noncense.
Beige,
The line you quoted said “Voluntarily childless marraige”, it said nothing about people infertile by no choice of their own.
April 1st, 2009 at 10:34 am
The human race is not very old, compared to other species, and there is a lot of connectedness between people of all the continents. Genetically, the everyone in the whole human race has the same relation as cousins, even peoples who are
geographically distant. One of the biggest “European” areas of connectedness is from Portugal, through the Mediterranean — including North Africa, the Atlas mountains and Egypt and across the silk road all the through India, China and Japan.
Many “Europeans” — if not most — arrived in Europe from Asia in historical times (the Hungarians, for example). And of course, in pre-historical times they came from Africa.
But people’s intangible culture flourishes best at the local level.
I am really surprised at Hector — someone so attuned to the spiritual should be less concerned about people’s unwillingness to mate and breed as a way of carrying on their “lineage”. Though I agree that a society should be oriented to nurturing and protecting its children as a way of perpetuating their heritage, we have more than enough children at present to do that. We need to think more about perpetuating our intangible cultures. If we do this then the children will carry it on.
As far as Georgia. Stalin still is a big hero there, as we speak. As far as his being secular — his security guards have recently revealed that he spent an hour a day praying in a Russian orthodox chapel. So, as history demonstrates over and over, being a scoundrel and being religious are perfectly compatible. Another example is Newt Gingrich, who recently was received into the Catholic Church along with Tony Blair, Robert Bork, and other horrors.
April 1st, 2009 at 10:38 am
Hector:
I don’t feel particularly inclined to be polite or respectful to anyone who doesn’t agree with me
Fixed that for you.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:37 am
Population decline=cause for celebration not fear
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=stagnation_celebration
April 1st, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Pardon the rant but =- this is for Hector:
It’s not an either/ or “voluntary childless marriage” versus a lot of children.
It’s a voluntary choice to to have one child, or perhaps two, or at most three, and for it to be very very unusual to have more than that.
And, of course, it is not for everyone to have children for reasons which are many and various. Not having children of one’s own does not rule out commitment to the next generation. On the contrary. The best gift we pass on to future generations right now is to try to solve our population explosion so our descendants will not be doomed, and indeed will be able to enjoy some of the benefits of a less populated world that some of us are still able to remember — country houses, flocks of singing birds, low rents, milk, meat, eggs and fruit that had flavor, and starry skies at night, to name a few.
April 8th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
This topic is quite hot on the Internet right now. What do you pay the most attention to while choosing what to write about?
April 8th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Stone would call this ‘Jaklof’ lol and I would have to agree
April 8th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Stone would call this ‘Jaklof’ lol and I would have to agree
April 15th, 2009 at 4:51 am
The style of writing is very familiar . Have you written guest posts for other bloggers?
April 16th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Good evening. There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
I am from Central and also am speaking English, tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “Rss feed the rss feed for airline tickets is at the following address.”
With best wishes
, Sumner.