Demographic Winter and What it Means

Fr. Rob Jack speaks with Ruth Institute Coalitions Coordinator, Don Feder, about Demographic Winter, that is, the worldwide decrease in fertility rates, and what that means for our future. Check out the Ruth Institute’s Demographic Winter Resource Center: http://ruthinstitute.org/resource-center/demographic-winter/

Transcript:

Please note that transcripts are auto-generated and may contain errors.

Fr. Jack: Well, with us now today is Don Feder, and he is the communications director for the Ruth Institute, where he spearheads the Demographic Winter project. Don, thank you for being with us today.

Feder: Well, Father, it’s always a pleasure to be with you.

Fr. Jack: You know, one of the things that was interesting, I was watching politicians and there’s a candidate for president now that’s encouraging Americans to have babies. Apparently, there is this now, you know, Malthusian notion of overpopulation. No one’s buying it anymore, thanks be to God, or at least that the people with common sense aren’t buying it. The crazy people are.

And unfortunately they’re the ones that keep wanting to say, you know, don’t have children, don’t get married. The world is far too overpopulated, but it’s just not the case.

Feder: No, it’s not, Father. In fact, nothing could be further from the case. By the way, when you say the crazy people, you’re talking about the current administration in Washington.

Fr. Jack: Among others. I mean, they’re not the only ones. I mean, a lot of the European nations, although some of them are pretty hostile. I mean, I know there are certain countries like I think it’s Hungary or the Czech Republic that are actually paying couples to have children.

Feder: Yes, that’s right. But by the way, Father, I’m not sure that works. I think that couples should be well, first, I think couples should be encouraged to marry. I think part of the problem with low fertility and in the United States, our fertility rate is low, historically low. You know, it’s not just Japan and China and the Asian dragons and some European countries.

It’s right here in the United States. People have to be encouraged to marry. I think that’s the first step. And then after that, of course, have children. But by the way, there are a number of countries in Europe, in Western Europe, that see the problem. They’re not quite sure of how to get out of it, but they do see it.

Fr. Jack: Well, it’s going to be a challenge because, again, they have to now change their song. They’ve been singing the song for a long time, that all we’re overpopulated, we can’t afford, we can’t sustain this. We don’t have the materials, the natural materials and the atmosphere and the climate. There’s too many people. I mean, which when you just think about the size of the nature and the immensity of the world in which we live and the technology that we have and that the world can really be fed from very few certain areas because of the amount of food we can produce. The problem isn’t the production. Often the problem is the politics of keeping it from people.

Feder: Yeah, that’s correct, Father. I read somewhere, I don’t know if this is true, that everyone on earth could fit into the state of Texas. Now, there may not be much elbow room, but that gives you an I, I mean, you fly across the country, look at how much of this continent is unpopulated.

Fr. Jack: That’s right.

Feder: You know, the population basically is limited to the two coasts. And what the elitist call flyover country has very few people. You know, the one thing that simply is well able to overcome every problem we’ve had since the Industrial Revolution and before that, is the human mind, the unfettered human mind. The problem is that so many of the people who run our government and run our educational institutions and our public schools don’t want that mind to be unfettered. They want it to be controlled.

Fr. Jack: That’s true. And the other part of it is, is in controlling it, they’re telling us that we can’t have too many people. And of course, it’s interesting, one of the worst propagators of that in terms of legal was China. And now China is severely hurting because they have so few women because the Chinese culture would prefer men. But that definitely, men can’t give birth to men.

You need women. And that becomes the issue there in China and all throughout the world. I don’t understand, I guess, like you said, the immensity of our world in the end. And that’s just the, the impact of the cities. But we see people fleeing the cities not because there’s too many people, because there’s no safety. And they’re beginning to recognize the rural society and rural living are suburban, you know, living and they’re moving out.

But it is somehow the culture, well, even our government, you know, there is the marriage tax that you have to pay. And then they started to add tax deductions for children. There’s at least and I understand what you’re saying.

They shouldn’t have to be paid for it. But if people sometimes need a motivation with the economy the way it is, if they’re able to do that or get tax breaks on educating their children or those kind of things, those kind of things might go a distance just to be a secondary help.

Feder: That’s right, Father. You know, when I said you can’t pay people to have children, I should have added, you can, however, make it easier for people to have children. There are people today or couples who want to have children. And, you know, because of the cost of living, it’s very difficult. 

Fr. Jack: Well, that and often if they’re only a one income family, it’s even worse. And if the families are such that they want to have a family and they want one of the parents to stay home with the children, that’s going to be an even bigger challenge. But I would say it’s a necessary thing because I know when I was growing up until all of us in our family reached high school, my mom stayed home and my dad worked seven days a week.

And I know when I was growing up a lot of people did that, and I don’t think the kids didn’t regret having mom around or in some cases dad around because mom worked. But this notion of having to, you know, it takes the village and we have to increase daycare and all these other things so that both couples can go away again, it’s another attempt to destroy the family.

Feder: That’s right, Father. And if you look at a lot of countries in Western Europe, they have more disposable income, they have more vacation homes, they have more cars. The only thing they don’t have is more children.

Fr. Jack: And that’s oftentimes, unfortunately to be said, because the United States is subsidizing many of their economies. 

Feder: That’s true, Father. That is quite true. No, there has to be a different mindset. We have to get back to one that views children in as the ultimate resource, as something precious. If we don’t, you know, in this century, Father, we’re going to be in so much trouble. Most people can’t even imagine it.

Fr. Jack: You’re right. And I know one of the things and I’ve told this to people sometimes, you know, we talk about the often times United States economy and people joke, you know, I’m 58 years old. And in fact, if it’s 62, you could possibly do an early retirement. I mean, they’ll carry me out. I won’t retire. But there’s the Social Security kind of safety net.

In order for it to work, you need workers. And if the parents aren’t having, if men and women who are married, aren’t having children to produce a new workforce, when the old workforce gets too old to work, there’s going to be no one to pay into the system to help keep the elderly and basically give them the basic things they have because the government is giving very, very little in this.

But sometimes you’re right, when the government controls the birth rate and in many ways they do that through taxation, they do that through legislation, they do that through the psychology of the media, that they have to change the how they’re viewing things.

Feder: Yeah, they do, Father. And, you know, Social Security has always been based on people having children, a lot of children. That’s the way it was in the 1930s under FDR when Social Security started. Of course, today it’s going in the opposite direction. I have friends, Father, who said, well, my wife and I decided not to have children.

And my response is, well, who’s going to pay for your Social Security? They don’t think about that. And I have four children and I always say, you know what? My children, my four children will pay for your Social Security.

Fr. Jack: Well, I know I keep telling people oftentimes, a lot of the young families I know who are large families, many of them homeschool their kids and they live a bit more of what you might well call traditional life. And I say these are going to be the only people left in about 50 years who will be able to hopefully rebuild this world because everyone else, they will either have aborted their children or simply not had them.

Feder: That’s right. I read somewhere that the highest fertility rate in America is among the Amish.

Fr. Jack: Yes.

Feder: So, you know, in a few decades, we’ll all be Amish, I guess.

Fr. Jack: Well, we’re talking with Don Feder about the demographic winter being faced around the world. Don, can you stay with us over the break and we can come back?

Feder: Absolutely, Father, be delighted to.

Fr. Jack: Don Feder is the communications director of the Ruth Institute, where he spearheads the demographic winter project. And we’re talking about the population collapse really around the world. And one of the areas actually I found it rather fascinating was the crisis being faced in Japan. Don, thanks for being with us today.

Feder: Oh, it’s always a pleasure, Father.

Fr. Jack: One of the things when I was thinking about this, you mentioned, you know, the Japanese situation, they have a great respect for their ancestors and have very strong family ties. And when I was seeing that they’re not having children, I know your partner in crime, Dr. Morse, was saying that during the Second World War, abortion was really introduced into the Japanese culture.

And it really took a serious hold. But now I was reading this article from The Washington Times from March 4th that you wrote that said, you know, a Japanese professor at Yale was talking about euthanasia for his country’s growing population of elderly because we figured out how to make people live longer. But we seem to not be able to want to make people at the beginning.

Feder: That’s right, Father. Just you know, you mentioned World War Two. Most people today have a very weak grasp of history. In the 1930s, 1920s and thirties, Japan’s military expansion was due to a desire to control resources in Asia. Japan is resource poor, but also because of Japan’s burgeoning population, like the Germans, they wanted more living space. And of course, today they have the living space. What they don’t have are the people to put in it.

Fr. Jack: That’s right.

Feder: I know, Father, one third, one third of the Japanese are over 65.

Fr. Jack: Wow.

Feder: One in five lives alone. More than 30,000 die alone every year.

Fr. Jack: That’s tragic, because, again, part of their whole culture in terms of their religion of Shintoism is ancestral worship. And they’re not making any new ancestors.

Feder: No, they’re not, Father. And, you know, part of this, I think in Japan, in Europe, in the United States, is a loss of faith. If you look at the people in America who are having children, traditional Catholics, some evangelical Christians, Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, Mormons, and of course, the Amish. They’re all people who believe that, you know, the first commandment that was given to mankind and in Genesis still applies.

Fr. Jack: Be fruitful and multiply.

Feder: Exactly, Father. That’s right. And they’re the, you know, the future. The future belongs to the people who are having children.

Fr. Jack: And, of course, one of the most common excuses I’ve heard is, we can’t afford them. And I said, you don’t have children when you can afford them because you can never afford children. It’s not about that.

Feder: No, Father. It’s a matter of priorities. I mean, my grandfather Vino Ve Sholem. He came here about the turn of the last century. He had six children. And I can just imagine him. He, by the way, his family lived in an apartment above his tailor shop. He was a tailor. I can imagine my grandfather sitting down with my grandmother and saying, Ana, how many children do you think we should have? It’s absurd.

Fr. Jack: That’s right.

Feder: You know, you have as many children as God gave you.

Fr. Jack: That’s right. And I know I spent some time in the northern part of the archdiocese where farm families and there to this day, not as many, but I know several families up there were 13, 14, 16 children in the family. And they, basically some of them could have their own baseball and football teams for so many of them.

But they’re working the farm. They’re very, you know, industrious. They were brought up in a family where family is important.

Feder: That’s right. Well, of course, the you know, the Amish eschew mechanized farm equipment, electricity. So, you know, they need people to work their farms. But I think it goes beyond that. I think they also believe in the value of life. And so many of us have lost a respect for that.

Fr. Jack: Well, we’ve bought the lie that we can we control our destiny. And that’s just it’s a lie. I mean, in some ways, we control our destiny. Yes, we have free will, but there’s God’s will in the midst of all of that. And if it’s God’s will or my will that’s going to win out in the end, it’s going to be God’s will. We can try to stop it. We can try to change it, but God’s going to win because he’s God and we’re not.

Feder: That’s right. That is, you know, I think you put your finger on it, Father. You know, either we submit to the divine will or we don’t. We don’t have to. We, as you pointed out, we have free will. But if we don’t submit to the divine will, then we’re in for a world of trouble.

Fr. Jack: Well, and as many people pointed out, with the sexual revolution, everyone decided to have sex without babies. And now we’re coming into the world of IVF and all those different things. Now we’re trying to have babies without sex. And we’re finding now we’re at babies without real parents because there’s surrogates and everything else. We just we don’t get the message, Don.

And, you know, if people want to find out more about the research you’re doing, where can we send them?

Feder: The Ruth Institute. Our website, Father is www dot Ruth Institute one word. Like Ruth of the Bible Ruth Institute dot org.

Fr. Jack: Thank you so much for being with us today, Don Feder. I appreciate your time and keep up your good work.

Feder: You too, Father.

About the Ruth Institute

The Ruth Institute is a global non-profit organization, leading an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love.

Jennifer Roback Morse has a Ph.D. in economics and has taught at Yale and George Mason University. She is the author of The Sexual State and Love and Economics – It Takes a Family to Raise a Village.

To schedule an interview with Dr. Morse, contact media@ruthinstitute.org.

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