population decline

Forget everything you know about an exploding world population.

The sad truth is, our birthrate is plummeting globally to the point where there soon won't be enough young workers to take care of the aging population.

What happens then? Can you financially incentivise people to have kids? Should we be thinking harder about immigration?

And why does this subject - and its pronatalist rhetoric - so often become the domaine of the authoritarian right?

We'll hear from Elon, Jordan and Jacob - about why we should all be having more babies.

Plus Robert Colville and Stephen J Shaw.

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For a long time, the story about the world’s population was that it was growing too quickly. There were going to be too many humans, not enough resources, and that spelled disaster. But now the script has flipped. Fertility rates have declined dramatically, from about five children per woman 60 years ago to just over two today. About two-thirds of us now live in a country or area where fertility rates are below replacement level. And that has set off a new round of alarm, especially in certain quarters on the right and in Silicon Valley, that we’re headed toward demographic catastrophe.

But when I look at these numbers, I just find it strange. Why, as societies get richer, do their fertility rates plummet?

Money makes life easier. We can give our kids better lives than our ancestors could have imagined. We don’t expect to bear the grief of burying a child. For a long time, a big, boisterous family has been associated with a joyful, fulfilled life. So why are most of us now choosing to have small ones?

I invited Jennifer D. Sciubba on the show to help me puzzle this out. She’s a demographer, a political scientist and the author of “8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death and Migration Shape Our World.” She walks me through the population trends we’re seeing around the world, the different forces that seem to be driving them and why government policy, despite all kinds of efforts, seems incapable of getting people to have more kids.

Mentioned:

“Would You Have Four Kids if It Meant Never Paying Taxes Again?” by Jessica Grose

“Are Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline?” by Jessica Grose

“If We Want More Babies, Our ‘Profoundly Anti-Family’ System Needs an Overhaul” by Jessica Grose

Book Recommendations:

Extra Life by Steven Johnson

The Bet by Paul Sabin

Reproductive States edited by Rickie Solinger and Mie Nakachi

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Mixing by Isaac Jones. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Jessica Grose and Sonia Herrero. 

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Today on the Matt Walsh Show, Chuck Schumer says that American birth rates are too low and the only solution is to import workers from the third world to replace declining populations. That sounds an awful lot like a certain theory we aren't supposed to talk about. Also, 12 republican senators officially get on board with the federal government codifying same sex marriage. What use are Republicans if this is what they do for us? And a church in Canada comes up with a prayer to bless and encourage assisted suicide. And San Francisco now has a guaranteed income program for trans people. I looked at the application form for this program and it's even crazier than you think.

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Dr. Shanna Swan (@drshannaswan) is the Professor of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and the author of Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race.

What We Discuss with Dr. Shanna Swan:

• Why has sperm count among men in Western countries decreased by over 50 percent in the past four decades?
• What can increasing reproductive problems in the animal kingdom tell us about diminishing human fertility?
• The same chemicals that cause reproductive decline are responsible for the obesity epidemic.
• What are some of the best practices we can personally observe for recovering from some of the most common fertility issues we face?
• What steps can society take today to ensure we have enough of a population to constitute a society tomorrow?
• And much more...

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/658

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Under lockdown, couples were destined to find themselves closer than ever before, but despite what you’d think – this didn’t result in a higher birth rate. In fact in developed countries across the world the birth rate is falling, we spoke to Professor Marina Adshade about why this is and what this could mean for the future.

Today on the Matt Walsh Show, the US birth rate is collapsing. Our civilization is going extinct. Some may consider this a minor problem, others say it’s actually a good thing. We’ll discuss. Also, Joe Biden finally answers some questions about his Afghanistan evacuation plan and his answers were more unintelligible than usual. He is falling apart before our eyes. Meanwhile, the Left continues to argue that the Taliban in Afghanistan really aren’t any worse than conservatives here in America. This line of argument raises a few questions. And, a doctor in Alabama announces that he will not see any patients who haven’t been vaccinated, while another doctor elsewhere in the country takes a picture of himself crying on the job and posts it to Twitter, to raise awareness about the fact that he’s an attention starved drama queen. 

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The latest census revealed that the United States had seen the second-slowest decade of population growth since 1790, when the count began.

The country may be entering an era of substantially lower population growth, demographers said.

How could this redefine the nation’s future?

Guest: Sabrina Tavernise, a national correspondent covering demographics for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• The numbers, the product of the most embattled census process in decades, underlined the long-running trend of population gains in the South and West.
• Here is a roundup of what you need to know about the census results.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

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