Malthusian Contraction?

It is a most interesting reality. Birthrates in countries with an exceptionally high cost of living, particularly where educational levels are high, are increasingly falling below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 live births per couple. The more the birthrate falls below that replacement rate, the grayer the population, which in turn places pressures on the reduced numbers of those still young enough to be in the workforce. The earnings of those still working have to fund retirement plans/eldercare for this non-working segment, often with plans that have been underfunded in the first place. Further, a grayer population also puts pressure on medical costs, traditionally much higher for the elderly.

With an expectation that by 2050, Japan will have a population 30% lower than its last decade average, that island nation has drawn the attention of academic demographers from all over the world. Japan’s live births in 2019 have hit an all-time low since statistics have been recorded. Traditionally xenophobic, Japan is still avoiding a cultural bias that would encourage immigration. Their focus is instead on solutions like encouraging geriatric robotics [pictured above] in elderly managed care facilities or reliance – not particularly realistic in high-cost Japan – on family members to care for their retired parents and grandparents. It’s become a worldwide problem.

“Japan isn’t alone in facing falling fertility rates. Germany is also a ‘super-aged nation. And by 2030, the US, UK, Singapore and France are expected to have earned that status.

“Neighboring South Korea, too, has struggled for years with an aging population, shrinking workforce, and low birth rates. In 2018, the country’s total fertility rate fell to its lowest since records began.

“The total fertility rate measures the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime. In South Korea in 2018, this dropped to 0.98 — or less than one baby per woman, and a drop from the previous year’s rate of 1.05.

“This means 8.7% fewer babies were born in South Korea in 2018 compared to 2017.

This record low puts South Korea near the bottom of lowest fertility rates in the world — even lower than Japan, which had a rate of 1.42 in 2018.

“To put that into perspective, the 2018 fertility rate was 1.72 in the United States. In some African countries, which see the highest fertility numbers in the world, the rate can go up 5 or 6.” KTLA.com, December 29^th. That fertility rates for less educated and less economically powerful countries remain quite high is a distortion that may, someday, generate violent conflicts over resources. But richer nations are, increasingly attempting to limit immigration from these lower income nations for reasons that often border on naked racism. As droughts and civil wars escalate, many rather directly caused by climate change, the need for many to leave their homelands is becoming explosive.

In other words, these trends pit racially, ethnically and culturally biased policies – where the “traditional” incumbents fight to preserve what they perceive to be their inherent superiority – against both massive recent immigration pressures and their own declining population. Indeed, if productivity and economic growth can be equated with growing populations, which may soon become an outmoded system, then fewer people buyer fewer goods, renting or buying fewer homes, demanding fewer educational slots and creating fewer greater economic values, changes traditional growth metrics as we have never seen before.

Robotics aren’t for everyone, so if avoiding the above contractions becomes a necessity, the major go-to approaches are either opening the door to more immigrants – which nationalism and populism are designed to prevent (thank you, Donald) – or generate more live births, a strategy that seldom works. So, to look at the latter path, there is no better example of a governmental policy to encourage fertility than Hungary, a nation where rising undemocratic nationalism/populism has risen to a level such the European Union is threatening sanctions if not outright expulsion. It’s bad enough that almost no one speaks Hungarian, a language that is completely different from any other spoken tongue on earth (with a tiny similarity to Finnish) and one that many find close to impossible to learn. Thus, encouraging organic population growth seems to be the path of choice for that country.

“The latest example of a remarkable pro-procreation government policy came [in the second week of February 2019] as the Hungarian government unveiled measures to bolster the country’s fertility rate. The fertility rate sits at 1.45 children per woman, well below the roughly 2.1 needed to maintain a population. The plan offers considerable economic incentives to have babies: For example, any woman who has four children or more would not have to pay income tax.

“Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a conservative firebrand, said the policy stood in contrast to that of other nations that used immigration to combat decline in their populations. Under his plan, Hungarian women would have more babies. ‘Instead of just numbers, we want Hungarian children,’ Orban said at an event Sunday [2/10/19]. ‘Migration for us is surrender.’

“Some experts disagree. Tomas Sobotka of the Vienna Institute of Demography said he doubts the policies outlined by Orban will add anything more than a short-term bump to Hungary’s fertility rate. ‘Some of them are likely to be outright ineffective,’ Sobotka said.

“Even when countries manage to turn around their fertility rates, demographic problems aren’t necessarily solved. The country of Georgia managed to increase its fertility rate after years of post-Soviet decline, but its population is still shrinking.” Washington Post, February 11^th. With rich countries having fewer people, and poor nations having more – as climate change redefines agricultural productivity and war renders many regions too risky – the prospective for conflict is obvious… and the solutions obvious even if unacceptable to many.

           

            I’m Peter Dekom, and political systems everywhere are in for a shaky period of adjustment with the monumental changes we are seeing around the world.