The problems caused by a shrinking population are not a matter of opinion. They can be observed in modern nations where the phenomenon is underway, such as in Japan.
As Business Insider reported last year, Japan’s situation is dire. The declining population there translates into an aging population, which requires more spending on health care and more money for social programs. But there are fewer young workers around to provide the tax dollars necessary to support those programs. Small towns and villages are dying.
If that situation hits the United States, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid all would face crises of existential proportions. The huge national debt, now at $23 trillion and growing at a rate of $1 trillion a year, would be impossible to retire. Companies would face declining revenues, which would translate into declining salaries and unemployment. The stock market would decline as equities and markets contract.
The normal transfer of wealth from one generation to the next, in the form of real property and inheritances, would be stymied. There wouldn’t be enough buyers around for all the houses on the market. Deflation would likely result. Universities would contract. Innovation would suffer. Urban decay would accelerate.
These are only some of the known results of a declining population, which would be much worse than the long-predicted, but never realized, results of overpopulation.
Sure, the population in the United States is still growing, but that’s deceptive. The seeds of decline are being planted today.
The nation’s birthrate has been below the replacement level, long thought to be an average of 2.1 children per woman in childbearing age. As the Deseret News reported Friday, Utah’s birth rate also has fallen below this level.
Nationally, the trend covers all ethnicities. Generally, birth rates decline during bad economic times and rebound during good times, but that has not happened during the current boom. As the Deseret News reported, the fertility rate seems to be stabilizing, but it is stabilizing at a rate lower than replacement.
Normally, the United States could make up for this through immigration. But two things are standing in the way of that. One is a general anti-immigration mood in Washington. The other is the fact that birth rates are declining in much of the world, including countries normally known for high fertility rates.
Bangladesh, for instance, had a birth rate of 6.82 in 1975, but that fell to 2.1 in 2016.
Demographers say a nation’s population will continue to climb until the last generation that reproduced at a replacement level has died. Then the decline will begin in earnest. Few people who study such things question that this trend is underway. Vienna-based demographer Wolfgang Lutz has predicted the decline will begin in about 2060 to 2070.
Understanding why this is happening is difficult. A Gallup poll in 2018 found that 41% of Americans believe a family of three or more children is ideal. Gallup also has found people in the 18-40 age group expressing a desire to have children. And yet people are not fulfilling their desires.
Some countries, such as Denmark and Singapore, have launched public service campaigns aimed at urging young people to procreate.
The United States could adopt policies that promote families through tax breaks or other incentives. It could launch public service campaigns. The earlier awareness becomes widespread, the greater the chances the trend can be reversed before it leads to economic catastrophe.