The De-Population Bomb

Recorded on June 14 at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC.

In 1970, Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich published a famous book, The Population Bomb, in which he described a disasterous future for humanity: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” That prediction turned out to be very wrong, and in this interview American Enterprise Institute scholar Nicholas Eberstadt tells how we are in fact heading toward the opposite problem: not enough people. For decades now, many countries have been unable to sustain a #population replacement birth rate, including in Western Europe, South Korea, Japan, and, most ominously, China. The societal and social impacts of this phenomenon are vast. We discuss those with Eberstadt as well as some strategies to avoid them.

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[primalsmash]

I'm 30 and all i do is work and I'm broke. Every woman I talk to is busy working and being broke. This late stage capitalistic society is taking everything from us so much that we can't hardly sleep let alone settle down enough to have children.

[elizabethdavis]

Having children is an act of hope. America's hyperpartisan fear-mongering has denied our younger generations hope.

[johnchapot]

50 year carpenter I say no 3 bedroom 2 bath home I’ve built is worth more than 120, 000 the lenders are greedy

[topchic]

Women no longer have a choice, we have to work now because families can’t afford to live on a single income, not even for the basic necessities of life. This means that families are making the choice to have fewer children as the stress involved with 2 working parents bringing up a family is really hard both for the children and for the parents.

[trydowave]

something to think about, but captive animals dont tend to breed either.

[dougn]

"The comfort of the rich depends on an abundant supply of the poor"
Voltaire

[akfeast]

My kid in 20s struggling to pay rent and for college
Houses are unaffordable
Cars are unaffordable
Healthcare is unaffordable
Seriously guys…. Maybe they just have common sense not to have kids
I don’t have economics degree but I can see the problem
Seems odd these experts cannot🤦🏻‍♀️

[mcuch]

Add the 40% increase death rate to working age population- as reported by insurance companies in 2022

[vickilynn]

So many young people can't afford to have children. Cost of living is prohibitive, and our society is frankly crazy. Why would they have kids?

[zenosgrasshopper]

If there was any discussion of the mainstream media’s role in producing fear and nihilism in our society, I missed it. The media has played a starring role, and people too often overlook its culpability.

[lisathurn]

The problem is rooted primarily in economic policy but also current history. I am a baby boomer. I graduated from the Cal State system with no debt and bought my first home when I was 30 having one child by then. I have two grown children. The first thing to occur is 9/11 which equivalent to Pearl Harbor for my son's generation except the war last 20 years. He did two tours in Iraq and one tour in Afghanistan. He married but decided not to have children but does own his home. My daughter graduated from UC right after the financial crash of 2008. She could not find a job for a year or so. She still has approximately $40, 000 in student loan debt. She does not own a house. Her partner still needs to do a residency before his income is substantial. Quite simply, my daughter wants children but will not until she is out of debt and can afford a house.
The story is similar for my sister's children. My brother-in-law graduated from UC with an engineering degree without debt and was immediately employed by a large corporation. They had their first child and bought their first home by the time he was 25. They had four children. My sister works as a teacher and her entire salary went towards funding college for their daughter and sons. Their daughter started her life before the financial crash of 2008. She owns her own house and has three children. But the sons, like my daughter, graduated after the crash. One is married with one child and a home. The sons are well employed but not married.
TARP ultimately protected my cohorts but quantitative easing increased assets like housing to levels of unaffordability. The expectation placed on my children's generation was to use debt as an instrument to climb into the middle class. Even if your parents are relatively affluent as I would say my sister's family household was, the impact of economic policy has disadvantaged her sons in terms of household formation.
I agree. Stimulus packages to entice households to have children is not going to work. But speaking as one baby boomer to two other baby boomers, I would say that we lived in relative prosperity and that it is the inequity of wealth in this country that is the ultimate cause.

[kerripendragon]

The population is slowly dropping due to more women not wanting kids, the younger generation avoids having kids, more men avoid marriage or kids thanks to bias family courts, housing is super expensive, minimum wage is too low, people are unhappy and the government is not helping out with higher taxes and no housing reforms to help the middle class and the poor. Homelessness is on the rise, depression, ...etc. People even prefer death these days as suicide rises.

[Revbone]

He's just admitting that our entire economy is a pyramid scheme...

[tinaeden]

I wonder if either of these men would be willing to live the lives young, non-wealthy, people these days? Would either of them work a second job, so they could afford to have a family? Would they share in the laundry, the cooking and cleaning because their wives are also working full-time? Would they put their kids in daycare, which for those who are not fairly well-off, is often substandard? Would they have time to help their kids learn their multiplication tables and stay home with sick kids, perhaps risking their jobs? I think both of these men are somewhat out of touch with the reality of the lives of the lower half (or perhaps even the lower 2/3) of our country.

[sirbrick]

As a man that got married, for the first time, at 36, and just had a son at 39, children are a luxury good. One that is way to expensive. We will never have another child. No support from family, it’s ridiculous hard for the willing.

[FEMA_Region__Slave]

“What happened?” (regarding college attendance plunging) *Americans discovered that modern college is nothing more than big business for the same old players in the shadows*

[fromashestoflowers]

29 year old childless woman here, I am married to a man with two of his own sons. I have thought about having a child with him of my own, but the thought is absolutely crippling. We can not afford housing or anything due to child support already, how on earth do I afford to have a child of my own?
Everything is so expensive, we can't even begin to think about being able to survive with another mouth to feed..and I'm running out of time.

[Sharpy]

Kids are expensive. People can barely afford to take care of themselves, having kids put a lot of people into poverty or keeps them there. Many I have spoken to have said they don’t want to bring a child into this crazy world.

[jenniferlaurensmom]

I am 68 have never had a vacation and still working and broke

[dallaslewis]

I’m a 30 man married with 2 children I was raised in public school where every guiding voice told us that if you had kids before you finished college you we’re screwed and that children are a financial burden that will drain you and eliminate all chances of following dreams or aspirations. The specific community I grew up in viewed children as an unwanted responsibility everyone claimed they “loved their kids” but constantly complained about all the things they had to provide for them this was my entire childhood. I grew up believing I was a burden to my parents and all my friends were burdens to their parents. I believe this pessimistic view was instilled in us during our formative years in school. My wife homeschools my children and we will not repeat history. Thank you for this interview!