The Coming Demographic Winter,

Chuck Colson @ http://www.breakpoint.org has a facinating article on demographics in the Developing World and their implication for North America.

From some of what he notes: "Mexico is in the midst of an unprecedented decline in birth rates: In 1965, the average Mexican woman gave birth to seven children. Today, it is 2.1—the same as their American counterparts. It is estimated that, within the next several decades, Mexico’s population will be older than ours.

This is part of a worldwide trend. We usually associate low birth rates with the industrialized nations. But according to Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, up to half of the world’s population lives in countries with below-replacement level fertility.

Thus, it is not only Japan; it is Korea, China, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka . . . And China’s low birthrate—government-ordered, by the way—and its rapidly aging population threaten to undo its newly achieved prosperity.

In other parts of the world, the threat may be graver. In 1980, Iran’s birth rate was 6.5 births per woman. Today, it is 1.7 births per woman—well below replacement level. As a result, Iran has one of the world’s most rapidly aging populations. The Asia Times columnist “Spengler” has speculated that the Iranian “demographic catastrophe in the making” may tempt Iran to act aggressively “while it still has the manpower to do so.”

The decline of birth rates in the developing world has consequences for the West, as well. The West has compensated for its low birth rates through immigration, most of it from the developing world. But, as Demographic Winter points out, lower birth rates in these countries raise the prospect of fewer immigrants and, thus, a lower standard of living.

Ultimately, the documentary makes the reality of demographic winter, and its consequences, brutally clear. It also makes it clear that the demographic decline it documents is not the result of some plague or other biological agent—it is the predictable product of our worldviews and values. Any society that devalues marriage, that encourages people to place career above family, that embraces abortion, will see its fertility rates plummet. But, as Spengler and others have pointed out, the root of the problem is “the decline of religious faith.” Loss of faith in the world to come leaves us grasping for everything we can get in this one, even at the expense of future generations.

Not surprisingly, the exception to these demographic changes is among religious believers, who take seriously the command to be fruitful and multiply—who believe in the family and see children as a gift from God. Their belief in the world to come makes them fruitful in this one. And it makes it urgent to know and articulate our worldview to others while we can".

For Further Reading and Information

Learn how you can get a copy of Demographic Winter.

BreakPoint Commentary No. 080609, “Demographic Winter: Where Have All the Children Gone?”

BreakPoint Commentary No. 080610, “Demographics and Prosperity: Demographic Winter and the Economy.”

BreakPoint Commentary No. 070809, “Living on Borrowed Time: Iran’s Demographic Crisis.”

BreakPoint Commentary No. 060418, “Be Fruitful and Multiply: Christians and the Birth Dearth.”

“Mexican Birthrate Plummets,” Quad-City Times, 5 April 2006.

Sam Dillon, “Smaller Families to Bring Big Change in Mexico,” New York Times, 8 June 1999.

John Flynn, “The Birth Dearth,” Zenit, 30 September 2007.

Michael Meyer, “Birth Dearth,” Newsweek International, 27 September 2004.

Spengler, “Why Iran is Dying for a Fight,” Asia Times, 13 November 2007.

Spengler, “Jihadis and Whores,” Asia Times, 21 November 2006.

Suvendrini Kakuchi, “JAPAN: Wooing Women as Birth Rate Drops,” IPS, 10 January 2006.

Robert Longley, “U.S. Birth Rate Hits All-Time Low,” About.com.

Barbara Crossette, “Demographers Puzzled by Declining Birthrates,” International Herald Tribune, 28 August 2002.