In his 2004 book, “The Empty Cradle,” Phillip Longman exploded one of the planet’s most enduring modern myths. He demonstrated that population growth is not the threat that it has been made out to be and that population decline is the real challenge ahead of us, says the Wall Street Journal.
By the time of the book’s publication, many developed nations were already struggling to address the obvious result of falling fertility: What to do when so few babies are being born that eventually there won’t be enough workers to sustain your country’s economy, let alone support the elderly?
Falling birth rates are a concern for more than just the most prosperous countries, too, says the Journal:
Falling birth rates are associated with increased economic opportunity. When people don’t need to use children as worker bees in a desperate struggle to survive, and more important when they can imagine a secure future for their offspring, they tend to plan families with fewer children in the hope of showering each with more advantages, says the Journal.
Source: Editorial, Making Babies, Wall Street Journal, June 2, 2006.
For text (subscription required): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114921183813769427.html
For more on Social: http://www.ncpa.org/pd/social/social.html
FMF Policy Bulletin/ 06 June 2006 – 08 December 2009 – 20 July 2010
