According to CDC, America’s birthrate has declined to a record low. Don’t underestimate just how concerning this is because this is how nations die.
Our birthrate is so low, we are below replacement levels – meaning we are having so few babies, we can’t even replace the population that dies.
Unlike most of Europe, Japan and Canada, the United States was maintaining a healthy 2.1 live births per woman fertility rate. This is considered replacement level.
But now our birthrate has declined so much, we are below the 2.1 level.
Without the benefit of a steady birthrate, our population will grow older.
Just look at Japan. Japan has been far below the replacement rate for decades. As a result over the last nearly sixty years, the median age of population in Japan has grown older and older as their birthrate steadily declined.
In 1965, Japan’s median age of population was 27.18 years old. In 2020 it was 48.36 years old. This is how nations die.
Mark Steyn warned about this in his 2006 book America Alone. If you have haven’t read it, you really should.
America’s median age of population is also rising – not as dramatically as Japan’s to be sure. But that’s because, unlike Japan, we were maintaining a replacement birthrate.
But we’re not anymore. The median age is going to rise more rapidly because of it.
Nations die more often by suicide than from an outside foe.
And a declining birthrate – especially when it declines below replacement rates – is national suicide.
This is how nations die.
If we want to prevent national suicide, we need to start making babies.
Or, as Kurt Schlichter put it on Monday, “Conservatives Need To Get It On.”
As far as cultural battles go, nothing is more important than fighting for and promoting the family. Kurt comes up with some good suggestions on how to promote marriage and families. It’s definitely worth a read.
And it is definitely a hill worth fighting for.
Because (and at the risk of sounding like Jesse Jackson) a nation cannot be a nation without procreation.