Lately I read with keen interest and a bit of bemusement about China’s first reported population decline from a high of over 1.4 billion people. I feel keen interest because of my strong opinions on the environment and bemusement because of the hand-wringing among worried opinion-havers that followed the news. Demographers, columnists and policy people are full of ideas and speculation about what the sharp and ongoing drop in births means for China, for the world, and for humanity.

China’s population decline

My view is that a country with extreme overcrowding and hypercompetition in education and work is now taking its foot off the accelerator toward resource depletion and military conflict. This is generally a good thing. And the worst-case scenario is that China will become like Japan: older, yes, but also long-lived, healthy, rich and deeply influential in the world.

Young people in China now have a chance to say no to one more burden in a context of hypercompetition in education and work, which some view as “a pointless hamster wheel, even a tool of control and repression. Last year the term “tangping,” or “lying flat,” went viral on Chinese social media. It was China’s version of the Great Resignation that began in the United States around the same time. Young people were quitting the rat race with all of its pain and stress. The government began censoring the term.”

South Korea women saying no to dating, marriage and motherhood

In a related, more extreme case of declining parenthood, women in South Korea are saying no to dating, sex, marriage and motherhood. Men are portrayed in the article solely as perpetrators of gender-based crimes who have no voice or impact on reproductive trends. But they also are saying no to breeding, as it takes two to tango. South Korea has a fertility rate that seems to be steadily approaching zero.

“Civilizational collapse” opinion

A NYT columnist who sees decadence in other people’s choices and moral failings in not reproducing blames “workism,” which elevates work and achievement above all other things in life. I agree that workism is a plague but it’s not the whole story in declining births. This is getting closer but still not there.

Also, this writer’s mind is polluted with Catholicism and he sees every societal trend and TV show he watches as a sign of the biblical end times and the wickedness and corruption of our souls. Instead of the rest of us having 3 children apiece, I’d suggest he have 12 more of his own and see if that stops his complaining. It is refreshing however to see a conservative writer begin to question capitalism, since capitalism seems to accompany fertility declines.

The writer opines against workism as being anti-fertility. Yet I have to point out that having kids yokes you permanently to the workism cycle. When you don’t have kids, you don’t have to grind yourself down in the relentless competition and feel you have no option but to train your kids to do the same.

Instead of fearing civilizational doom, I look forward to a bright future where fetuses are raised on an as-needed basis in vats of nutrient goo. Or perhaps incubated in computers. Perhaps Catholics can perform a blessing over the goo so that the humanoid life form that crawls out is still considered holy.

A prime reason: opportunity costs

Finally, I found an article that hit on an explanation that’s juicy and real:

The opportunity costs of having a child are too high.

Life is too good to sacrifice large chunks of it to a (current) nonbeing. The author is demographer Lyman Stone and he examines several explanations analysts have offered for why the birth rate declines everywhere, under seemingly all circumstances, and does not rebound.

He starts with a rare acknowledgment of uncertainty:

“And while their paper isn’t an exhaustive treatment of other presumed barriers to parenthood, they do suggest the conventional wisdom is lacking.”

Then he hits on something important:

“The opportunity cost of parenting—income, education, experiences, or career opportunities—forgone by having a child seem to be rising in an era of increasing affluence.

This insight cannot be underscored heavily enough. American incomes are at record highs, and standards of living are better than they were in decades past. Assuming would-be parents are opting out of having kids exclusively because of financial pressures misunderstands the dynamic at play.

The authors note that while women under 30 tend to see fertility falling the sharpest, “the decline is generally widespread across demographic subgroups, which gives reason to suspect that the dominant explanation for the aggregate decline is likely to be multifaceted or society-wide.” Building off the work of the late Sara McLanahan, Tomas Sobotka, and Suzanne Bianchi, they speculate that young adults in the U.S. are now much closer to what was already observed in Europe—preferences around childbearing, career, and opportunity costs have indelibly changed compared to prior generations. It’s worth noting that a 2018 poll of individuals who have chosen not to have children found the most frequently-cited reason for their decision was a desire for more leisure time. ”

THIS is why people turn away from having children: they take a balanced view of their future, realize that life is wonderful and having kids would take away 99 out of 100 of their current favorite things and future hopes. They recognize that all costs are opportunity costs, and parts of life are too good to give up for the sake of children.

Yes, financial pressures are real. Yes, people will always want more societal help and support when raising kids. And of course, they will accept free money from the government and several months of guaranteed parental leave. But people had huge numbers of children back when they were poorer and traditional gender roles were ironclad. Now, as life gets better and more equal, people still turn away from breeding. The trend is inexorable and, in my view, it’s a good thing.

Get fixed while you can

Half of pregnancies are unplanned, aka “oops babies.” So if people were more informed and aware, the birth rate would be plummeting even faster.

This is why, each night, in a gratitude ritual, I give my testicles an affectionate little pat and mentally thank the gentle nurse practitioner who severed the flow of the vas deferens with a titanium clip and prevented the little spermatozoa from ever, ever finding their way to an egg.

The childfree life is the way, the truth and the light and people all around the world are discovering this, for both negative reasons and positive ones, and making a future of their own choosing without the burden of babies.

About the photo

A smokestack in the SODO neighborhood of Seattle being reclaimed by nature.