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Page added on May 30, 2013
World will feel crunch of fewer marriages and children
Demographics » Speaker at Utah trade event says shift threatens global economy.
A dangerous mixture of increasing urbanization, longer work hours and the waning influence of religion has set off a demographic time bomb that is leading to a slow-motion population collapse in most of the world’s industrialized nations.
Joel Kotkin, a prominent authority on economic and social trends, made that assertion Wednesday as he painted a picture of a “post-familial” future marked by a shortage of children to support aging populations or to spark innovations that energize the global economy in the 21st century.
Speaking to 800 people at Zions Bank’s trade and business conference in Salt Lake City, Kotkin said declining fertility rates are triggering a host of problems, including rapid aging, smaller youth and working-age populations as people forgo marriage and start families — and even a loss of shared purpose that glues societies together.
“It’s very hard to quantify, but I think it’s pretty evident that when people are raising a family, working for a family, they have very different motivations than when they are doing it as an individual,” said Kotkin, professor of urban development at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and author of The next Hundred Million: America in 2050.
Zions has staged the conference for 12 years. This year, the keynote speaker at a luncheon that was closed to the media was former President George W. Bush (see story, Page B1).
At the public session at Marriott City Creek, Kotkin said that although fertility rates are declining in the United States and Europe, the drop off is most evident in Asia — particularly in Japan, Taiwan and Singapore — where millions of women are forgoing marriage and children. Around 2000, Japan’s elderly population exceeded the number of children ages 15 and under. By 2050, more people will be over 80 than under 15, and the country’s population will be far smaller than today, he said.
“This is incredible,” Kotkin said. “We’ve never seen populations disappear without a war or a plague, but that is exactly what ‘post-familialism’ is — a kind of sociological plague.
“We don’t know where it’s going to lead us, but certainly there are some things to be concerned about.”
The tendency to have fewer children, even the inclination to put off or deliberately avoid marriage, has its roots in several economic and social trends, Kotkin said. Numerous studies, including his own, show direct links between factors such as high housing prices and rising urban densities, and the falling numbers of births. Secularism is undermining family formation, too. Even the rise of education levels among career-oriented women is cutting the rate of population growth.
“Part of the problem is we haven’t yet figured out how to balance [the career and educational aspirations of women] with marriage and families,” Kotkin said.
Kotkin’s message isn’t that the U.S. and other industrialized nations turn back the clock. Instead, he proposes immigration reforms to offset declining workforce numbers in countries whose populations are shrinking. Urban planners should think about how cities of the future could be constructed in order to make them more family-friendly. In the U.S., a shortage of 6 million homes has made single-family housing unaffordable for many young couples who have given up having children.
“If we figure out how to nurture families, we can retain the very essence of our culture. If we don’t, we are in for a very rough time,” he said.
“You don’t have to be a prophet to know that down the road, if we don’t recover the primacy of the family in the 21st century, not only are we in trouble, but the whole world is in trouble.”
17 Comments on "World will feel crunch of fewer marriages and children"
rollin on Thu, 30th May 2013 3:39 am
It’s working, now we need to introduce cable and internet to third world countries.
A shortage of 6 million homes? More than likely they just can’t afford them on the new half pay system. Weren’t banks having new homes leveled to keep them off the books?
Wheeldog on Thu, 30th May 2013 4:27 am
Curious, even as some industrialized nations are experiencing a slowing of their population growth rates isn’t the world population as a whole increasing? Ultimately, that is the bottom line insofar as population is concerned. The current population of the planet exceeds its long-term ability to meet the demands of ever more humans. Unless we (the world collectively) can bring our total population under some semblance of control the future will be an enormous disappointment for everyone.
Sharpie on Thu, 30th May 2013 4:52 am
You could never tell, from where I live, that population growth is petering out. Everywhere I look someone’s pushing a baby carriage…sometimes two. And they’re trying to tell me that families are having fewer children?
DC on Thu, 30th May 2013 5:55 am
ROFL! Waning influence of religion! Last time I checked every single stat I read it telling me that the world is adding 80 million extra eaters every year. Hardly sounds like the ‘disaster’ this creo-fundy is so worried about. The US adds 1 million eaters every year. In fact, the US is the top 10 world for population growth.
Fact: 1990-2008 the population of N.A. (Can+US) grew by a stunning 24%. 1.2% per annum dont sound like much, but its only 58 year doubling time.
See for yourselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth
The numbers in such a short time are staggering. And this creep thinks we have a ‘problem’?! Owell, never let the facts get in the way….
Norm on Thu, 30th May 2013 5:58 am
gimme a break DC. Its not just ‘people’. There are smart decent responsible people, and then there are scumbags. The scumbags are breeding, while the smart decent people get overworked by a rigged system. If you like the sound of 80 Million new scumbags every year, then thats whats happening.
kervennic on Thu, 30th May 2013 6:40 am
Religious bullshit.
kervennic on Thu, 30th May 2013 7:01 am
@Norm
Europeans have been the scumbags of the world for a millenium, breeding like bugs and feeling all the continents while killing all people living in sustainable numbers to take their place.
They have propagated imbalance through their “civilisation” and their religious thinking. And now people like you expect others not to follow the same track ?
The only way to stop this is to propagate another way, more anti civ way.
Most of the population growth would stall if the industry would collapse and that is what needs to be achieved.
Individually, as people who have little chance to reproduce in the developed nations, we can rather devote our life to being noxious to industry and companies. To be perfect parasites and propagate this way of being, just like christians propagated work.
dsula on Thu, 30th May 2013 11:00 am
Good thing there’s a sheer limitless supply of latinos for NA and muslim for Europe to be imported, No shortage.
Arthur on Thu, 30th May 2013 11:11 am
“The tendency to have fewer children, even the inclination to put off or deliberately avoid marriage, has its roots in several economic and social trends, Kotkin said.”
Totally correct assessment. Keeping an advanced economy running is pretty tiresome and every extra child is an extra entitlement timebomb for the (white) parents to maintain. A western child costs hundreds of thousands to raise according to western standards. No wonder (white) birth rates in the US and Europe collapse. And in Japan. And then there are idiotic western governments asking these white folk to support imported hordes with no restrictions on births whatsoever and a recipe for desaster is there. The post-WW2 Washington-run West is something that cannot implode fast enough in order to reconstruct European society in Europe and the US completely from the ground up:
– feminism out, (small) family in, with old-fashioned patriarchal gender relationships. Marriage (with children) is for life
– scaling back on economy (kick the car, air travel, economic growth)
– halting all immigration from foreign lands
– segregation is going to be the new norm everywhere on the planet
Arthur on Thu, 30th May 2013 11:38 am
“Europeans have been the scumbags of the world for a millenium… To be perfect parasites and propagate this way of being, just like christians propagated work”
Let me guess… ‘french’ muslim by any chance?
“The only way to stop this is to propagate another way, more anti civ way.”
You can do that in your own homeland, the one the US is preparing for you as we speak. Oh, and you can have Israel for free as a nice-to-have in your Caliphate.
“Most of the population growth would stall if the industry would collapse and that is what needs to be achieved.”
The number of non-whites on this planet is a function of the number of whites. Eliminate north-American agriculture and eliminate half of the Egyption population as well. Do not expect Allah to move in any time soon to fill the void. So if I were you I would not yearn too much for the collapse of the West, because you will collapse with it, with a multiplier.
Ricardo on Thu, 30th May 2013 12:26 pm
@Arthur
That´s another example of anti-white racism, he says europeans are scumbags and says he hates civilization but still he uses the computer and writes in european tongue. Mongols and huns killed thousands of whites and I dont see these hypocrites complaining about that.
LONG LIVE CIVILIZATION AND LONG LIFE TO THE WHITE MAN.
Juan Pueblo on Thu, 30th May 2013 2:31 pm
“…future marked by a shortage of children to support aging populations”
I am so tired of hearing this. My wife and I had a Vasectomy and no children. The world is overpopulated, we don’t need more children. Save the world, get a Vasectomy!
Kenz300 on Thu, 30th May 2013 3:04 pm
The world adds 75 million more mouths to feed, provide water for, provide energy for and eventually provide jobs for every year.
Around the world you can find a food crisis, a water crisis, a Climate Change crisis, a declining fish stocks crisis, a JOBS crisis and and OVER POPULATION CRISIS.
Every problem is harder to solve with the world ever growing population.
If you can not provide for yourself you can not provide for a child.
Access to family planning services needs to be available to all that want it.
Every country needs to develop a plan to balance its population with its resources; food, water, energy and jobs. Those that do not will be exporting their populations and their problems.
J-Gav on Thu, 30th May 2013 3:15 pm
As demographics go, the situation is quite different depending on the country.
Overall though, either way we’re screwed. Rising population? That’ll send us faster and deeper into overshoot as far as the world’s resources are concerned. Falling population? Not enough working age people to provide for their ‘retiring’ elders or buy all the houses and junk products industry needs to sell to keep GDP up …
PrestonSturges on Thu, 30th May 2013 4:41 pm
A wingnut conference in Salt Lake City to warn about the perils of birth control?
Color me absolutely shocked.
I guess in 100 years there will be a civil war between the Mormons and the Christian Dominionists who will outnumber everyone else.
J-Gav on Thu, 30th May 2013 10:01 pm
Preston – Wingnuts need their fun too, don’t they? Not sure though that in 100 years there’ll still be enough ‘nation-state’ people around to engage in ‘civil’ war.
Mark on Thu, 30th May 2013 10:09 pm
Once the cure for aging is found, along with advanced AI robotics, this demographics problem of too many old people and not enough young people will all be a moot point.