The Death of Birth — Our Dismal Fertility Rates

“Nature abhors a vacuum”. — Aristotle, c. 350 BC.

“… a trillion here, a trillion there, and suddenly you’re talking real money.” — Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Scott Burns, “The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America’s Economic Future.” (Stated with a tip o’ the hat to Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen.)

Not long ago, my wife and I were enjoying dinner with another couple. They were planning a trip to several of France’s great wine districts and invited us to join them. After sharing a brief glance, my wife and I told them that we didn’t have the cash at the moment to pay for such a trip. “Borrow it,” they said. “That’s what we’re doing. It’s the American way!”

Their statement was all too true. The US teeters on the brink of recession, or worse, and we have only ourselves to blame. We haven’t burrowed our way into this deep, dark hole; we’ve borrowed our way into it. And now, as our bills come due, rather than mending our ways, we choose to aggravate the situation.

Bread and Circuses

Earlier this week, television viewers the world over were treated to the annual spectacle of the US president’s State of the Union Address. The show presented the expected level of pageantry — men in dark suits and colorful ties, lots of red on the women. As for content, despite calls for bipartisan efforts, the event quickly turned into a comical three-ring-circus, with the Supreme Court impassive, Republicans popping up like Jacks in the Box, and Democrats generally stone cold and sullen. (Good grief, Hillary, you’re running for the highest office in the land. At least cultivate a poker face; pouting is unbecoming for a presidential candidate.)

As for bread, President Bush asked congress to quickly approve an economic stimulus package — a “tax rebate” to energize the gimping economy. Congress has yet to finalize the details, so for now I’ll refer to the “rebate” total as $150 billion, the amount currently bandied the most. This was one of the president’s few proposals that received applause from both Republicans and Democrats.

Only the government could dream of getting away with such recklessness. The US is in dire financial straits because of a debt crisis — our debts and entitlement commitments (Social Security and Medicare, for example) already run far beyond what we can hope to service without great hardship. This morass is not a temporary shock from a Hurricane Katrina; the problem — out of control deficits — is fundamental to our economy.

So what’s the government’s solution?

Borrow more money!

There’s one thing that the politicians aren’t proclaiming, but that should be made clear to all: They are not dangling a rebate before American citizens, no matter what they choose to call it. The government isn’t returning a portion of taxes paid; they have spent all of the collected taxes and then some by a long shot. And this isn’t manna from heaven. This is money to be borrowed by the government and to be paid back later, with interest. And who will refund the loan plus interest? If you pay taxes in the future, dear reader, you will.

My wife has commented, with respect to the proposed “rebate,” that this would be financed by a loan even if we were running a fiscal deficit of just $0.10. True, but an even more telling statement is also true. It would be based on a loan, even if we had a balanced budget. In fact, it would be based on a loan, if we were running a surplus any less than $150 billion. But we aren’t running a surplus less than $150 billion, or a balanced budget, or a $0.10 deficit. We are already in the hole more than $9 trillion dollars, and that’s just borrowed money. It says nothing about the government’s implicit debt, about entitlement obligations that are committed under law, amount to tens of trillions of dollars, and are coming due in massive quantities as the Baby Boomers retire.

From whom will the government borrow this money? For years the Chinese have bankrolled a significant share of our deficit spending spree. So now the government will borrow more from the Chinese and hand the dough over to the American public, who will spend much of it on… unnecessary stuff made in China.

Brilliant!

For an example of what I’m saying, take a look at this video.

Knuckle heads? Bone heads? Air heads?

“Vacuum heads” might be a much better description. The decision, to cure a debt crisis by increasing debt, shows that there isn’t much between the elected-ones’ ears. Either the politicians are foolish enough to think that this will deliver a net benefit to the economy, or they have a different agenda.

Why, one might wonder, would both Democrats and Republicans do such a thing, when it will at most give a short lived, little boost to the economy while deepening our overall fiscal crisis? It gives neither party an advantage over the other in an election year. One would have pondered a good question, to which there is a good answer.

Here’s a hint: Incumbency.

While the two major parties go at each other, those members of congress who are running for reelection have one thing in common that goes beyond party loyalty — the desire to be reelected. A little boost to the economy, timed to arrive on election-eve, will add strength to incumbency.

In the words of David Rosenberg, analyst at Merrill Lynch, “Since the rebate checks to individuals likely won’t be mailed out until May or June, the lift to consumer spending is probably going to be a short-lived third-quarter event.”

Just in time for the election. Gee, our representative/senator sure helped us — toys for the grandkids, couple of fine dinners out…

Those Darn, Stampeding Elephants

This blog has mentioned the penchant, not just in the US, for ignoring elephants charging around the room. When it comes to careening into financial chaos, such disregard seems to have become a favorite pastime.

The CNN article linked above states, “Getting people to spend more is only one way to fix the economy’s woes. To really get the economy back on track, what’s needed is an overhaul of the mortgage lending process in order to protect borrowers from overzealous banks pushing exotic loans that the borrowers really cannot afford.”

There’s one thing on which politicians and the mainstream media can agree: Blame the government and big business for this mess, but don’t hold the public responsible. (Wouldn’t want to offend voters or readers/viewers.) The fact is, however, that John and Jane Q. Public’s borrowing habits are a major cause of our current financial crisis. Slick salespeople may well be in part responsible, but I’ve read of no cases in which they’ve held guns to people’s heads to force them to take on subprime mortgages or to run up enormous credit card debts.

Some borrowers may have been over-encouraged or even intentionally mislead, but the borrowers are the ones who made the decision to incur their debts. The addiction to borrowing and committing beyond our ability to pay runs through American society as a whole.

At least one can credit politicians with a well-honed sense of irony. Unless we raise taxes and cut entitlements soon, the retirement of the Baby Boomers will gravely undermine and possibly ravage the US economy. Yet this current “fix” is proposed during the very month that the Boomers have started to retire.

My wife and I will be saving our “rebate,” not spending it on toys or dining out. In so doing, we will make the funds available to businesses so they can increase capital investment and employment. This will also offer us the prospect of earning a return, so we can afford to pay back this loan along with the interest that it incurs.

For now, borrowing is indeed the American Way. Sadly, many of us may soon be saying, “We’re going bankrupt. It’s the New American Way!”

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In reference to Russia’s anemic fertility rates and shrinking population, Russian president Vladimir Putin has stated, “We are on the verge of a crisis… Our main priority today is to decrease the death rate and increase the birth rate, as well as to improve our migration policy.” Demographic forecasts predict that Russia will lose nearly one million people a year over the next decade. According to this report, it seems that, unfortunately, Mr. Putin’s authoritarian regime may be using the grave dangers of collapsed fertility rates as an opportunity to expand its power.

As shown in the article, an organization named “Nashi” is a “youth movement run by Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life.” At its annual camp, Nashi hosts 10,000 uniformed youths who engage in physical fitness routines, attend lectures, marry, and “move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland.” Attendees at the camp must wear electronic badges, which enable tracking of their participation. Anyone who misses three events is expelled.

More than one foreign official has been harassed by Nashi, part of a 100,000 strong youth movement, after engaging in acts viewed as insulting to Russia in general or to the Kremlin in particular. Details of these practices suggest official complicity.

Other youth organizations now engage in even more radical activities. The Daily Mail states that these “pro-Kremlin youth groups are hounding gays and foreigners off the streets of Moscow. Mestnye [The Locals] recently distributed leaflets urging Muscovites to boycott non-Russian cab drivers.” This movement in Russia has not reached the fanatical levels that are possible, but it’s worth considering the historical precedent of such extremism.

In “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany” author William L. Shirer states that the Hitler Youth in 1932, the year before the Nazis came to power, numbered 107,956. That number would soon increase dramatically.

Shirer devotes several pages to the Nazi youth movement and makes numerous chilling observations. “From the age of six to eighteen, when conscription for the Labor Service and the Army began, girls as well as boys were organized in the various cadres of the Hitler Youth. Parents found guilty of trying to keep their children from joining the organization were subject to heavy prison sentences even though, as in some cases, they merely objected to having their daughters enter some of the services where cases of pregnancy had reached scandalous proportions.”

The author goes on to state “Similar moral problems (out of wedlock, youth pregnancies) also arose during the Household Year for Girls, in which some half a million Hitler Youth maidens spent a year at domestic service in a city household. Actually, the more sincere Nazis did not consider them moral problems at all. On more than one occasion I listened to women leaders … lecture their young charges on the moral and patriotic duty of bearing children for Hitler’s Reich – within wedlock if possible, but without it if necessary.”

Before the dawn of 1939, “the Hitler Youth numbered 7,728,259.”

Due to this Nazi history, contemporary Germany has been loathe to officially encourage procreation. The situation there, however, has become so dire (fertility rates hovering around the ultra-critical level of 1.3 for more than a generation) that childless chancellor Angela Merkel has made fertility a major focus of her administration.

It will behoove us to keep a keen eye on the semi-official Russian youth movement. Many countries can no longer ignore the consequences of their collapsed fertility rates. As a sense of desperation deepens, many a nation may well use the problem as an opportunity to promote totalitarianism.

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As of today, this blog will be updated more frequently. Except for rare circumstances, such as times without Internet connectivity, there will be at least one new blog every week, generally posted on Saturday or Sunday.

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“We can’t destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage.” — Robin Morgan, former Ms Magazine editor.

“If women are to effect a significant amelioration in their condition, it seems obvious that they must refuse to marry.” — Germain Greer, renowned feminist.

Anyone who was around during the 1960s and -70s knows that feminism had a decided anti-marriage bent. The movement depicted the traditional family as a system in which men oppressed women and children; never mind the demanding and sometimes life destroying sacrifices that husbands and fathers made to provide for those whom they allegedly oppressed.

Since that time, co-habitation, out of wedlock childbearing, and skyrocketed divorce rates have become hallmarks of our culture. At the same time, fertility rates have fallen drastically from the highs achieved during the formation of the baby boom generation – those born from 1946 through 1964.

It might seem obvious that married couples, on average, have more children than unmarried couples or single women. Assumptions, however, can be far from accurate, so it’s worth seeing the extent to which research supports the contention. The following graphs are based on data from the US Census Bureau 2004 “Fertility of American Women: Current Population Survey – June 2004.”

All races, ages 15 to 44: Percent by number of children. “Married” indicates women who have ever been married. “Unmarried” indicates women who have never married.

One set of values alone emphasizes the extreme difference in fertility rates between ever married and never married women. Nearly 80% of women who have never married have no children. Of those women who have ever married, less than 20% have never had a child. The category of no children is the only group in which never married women dominate.

In the categories of one, two, three, or more children, married women dominate. The following graphs show that this is true across racial demographic groups.

Non-Hispanic Whites, ages 15 to 44: Percent by number of children. “Married” indicates women who have ever been married. “Unmarried” indicates women who have never married.

Blacks, ages 15 to 44: Percent by number of children. “Married” indicates women who have ever been married. “Unmarried” indicates women who have never married.

Asians, ages 15 to 44: Percent by number of children. “Married” indicates women who have ever been married. “Unmarried” indicates women who have never married.

Hispanics, ages 15 to 44: Percent by number of children. “Married” indicates women who have ever married. “Unmarried” indicates women who have never married.

In their 2002 report, “Why Men Won’t Commit,” Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and David Popenoe of the State University of New Jersey, Rutgers, reported ten major reasons that men are turning away from marriage in what has come to be known as the “Marriage Strike.” These reasons include:
1.“They can get sex without marriage more easily than in times past.”
2.“They can enjoy the benefits of having a wife by cohabiting rather than marrying.”
3.“They want to avoid divorce and its financial risks.”

Based on my personal experience discussing this matter with young men, it should be added that many men avoid marriage and fatherhood due to a fear of losing contact with their children after divorce. Recent reports by the Census Bureau show that households composed of married couples have fallen into the minority (49.7%).

With men now responding to, among other things, high divorce rates and what they perceive as extreme, anti-male bias in family courts, some people, at least, are starting to get full measure of what they have sought for years – the destruction of traditional marriage.

At the same time, society has experienced a dangerous collapse of fertility rates.

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Folks in Scotland got a dose of reality recently when a study concluded that population aging and collapse portend serious socio-economic difficulties.

Media accounts, of the report, titled “Baby blues” and “Warning over ‘falling population’” may increase concerns over the future welfare of the country, but it’s difficult to know exactly what the government or populace can do to stave off a crisis.

Scotland’s Demography Research Programme, a two year study carried out by academics at five Scotland universities, states that within the next ten years the nation’s population may fall to its lowest level since the 1940s. It also warns that current trends pose “challenges” for the future. On average, the most desired family contains 2.48 children. In practice, however, the average family has only half this many kids.

Considering the gravity of the situation, it is curious that researchers and the press continue to minimize, if not utterly disregard, the role that men play in determining the number of children. The article “Baby blues” makes this bias apparent. Though fathers are mentioned in passing, the slant is made clear with statements such as “Less mysterious is what can be done to make having larger families a more attractive proposition to women.” A person would have to be comatose to be unaware of the growing outrage on the part of fathers who have been largely cut out of their children’s lives after divorce. The organization “Fathers for Justice,” formed in the United Kingdom, has done a great deal to raise awareness of this problem. As a result, an increasing number of men are steering clear of fatherhood and even marriage. A financial boost of a few hundred pounds, or even a few thousand, may not lead many women to have more children, if men are not interested.

The “Baby blues” article quotes SNP MSP Kenny Gibson as stating that stability rather than prosperity is key to increasing birth rates. “When the Scottish economy was driven by heavy industries, its birthrate was higher than the rest of the UK. People worked for the same company all their lives — they might not have been wealthy, but they felt secure. Today, the job market is completely different. People don’t tend to stay in the same job…” Once again, the elephant in the room is being ignored. In speaking of stability, one should consider the lack of stability in marriage today. When a man faces a roughly 50% chance of divorce, often followed by separation from his children, he may be far less likely to take on the job of fatherhood. This is obvious, and it is foolish for academic, media, and government pundits to ignore the fact.

It should also be noted that the UK provides a baby bond of £250 (about $500 US) to new mothers. Compare this to the stated cost of raising a child to the age of 21 — £186,000 (about $372,000 US). In other words, the baby bonus amounts to little more than one-tenth of one percent of the cost of raising a child. It is an unfortunate fact that children born to wealthy and well educated parents on average grow to be greater earners and tax payers. (Remember, one of the great threats of population aging is dire economic malaise. Far higher taxes will be needed to support the elderly.) A wealthy adult may be relatively unmoved by the offer of £250 to have a child. A poor woman, quite possibly single, who is wondering how she’s going to feed herself, may be more likely to take the bait. Perhaps it would make more sense to deny the bonus to the wealthy and to, instead, provide services such as further education and job training to poor adults, especially when they have kids.

Along this same line, one should note that greater female education directly correlates with reduced numbers of children. Again, this situation does not bode well, since children of less educated women will, on average, contribute less economically to the nation and, in many cases, will receive extensive subsidies during childhood and even as adults. In addition, poor children are more likely to be born to single women, adding to the plethora of social ills that accompany fatherlessness. This is not to say that the poor shouldn’t have children. It is to say, however, that we do ourselves no favors by exacerbating the already significant divide between low fertility rates of the well-educated wealthy and the relatively high fertility rates of the undereducated poor.

There can no longer be any question that advanced societies the world over are facing grave problems because of collapsed fertility rates. In trying to mitigate the growing crises, they need to reconsider payments to women to have children, especially the wealthy and the unmarried. They also need to accept the fact that men play a crucial role in determining the number of children.

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