monograph · The End of Childhood?
Beneath the shadow of the demographic apocalypse
Teresa Giménez Barbat
Teresa Giménez Barbat has been an MEP, and is a columnist in various media and author of several books including “A thousand days in Brussels” and “Against feminism. Everything you hate about gender ideology and do not dare to say”.
Although activists, intellectuals anchored in the 70’s and the continuous drama journalism continue to hammer us with the “population explosion”, reality has been telling us another situation for decades. You only have to read serious documents and reports. Or even the daily neutral news.
No, we are not heading towards an overpopulated world where humanity will fight for a few drops of water or a few crumbs of bread. If something similar happens, it will not be because of overpopulation: it will be because of a dramatic deficit. Even if the heirs of the Club of Rome continue with their Malthusian debacles, the unwanted event of the 21st century will not be that we will not all fit, but the fall of global demography.
In Spain, politicians and political parties are picking up the discontent for what is already coined as “empty Spain”. Some platforms denounce the neglect and lack of socioeconomic vision that has deprived their land of opportunities for its inhabitants.
Surely there has been a lack of foresight, but in reality this is part of a much more complex problem because it is global. In the countryside and in the city, young people have no intention of having children before their thirties. In rural and urban Western societies, one or two children is the norm, if any. This tricky thing to correct is called the Low Fertility Trap and affects some two dozen states around the world. Japan, South Korea, Spain, Italy and much of Eastern Europe are leading the way. Creating a family no longer feels like a duty to one’s own, religion or homeland. Couples no longer see having children as a duty they must fulfill to satisfy their obligation to their families or their god. Rather they choose to raise a child as an act of personal fulfillment that is quickly fulfilled. In the 21st century, children are something to be treasured in small quantities. And while the importation of immigrants may partly compensate for a declining birth rate, immigrants, including Muslim immigrants, quickly adopt the fertility rate of the country of origin. Newcomers take only one generation to adapt to the new family pattern.
Some who fear the consequences of a declining population advocate government policies to increase the number of children couples have. But the evidence suggests that it is not bearing adequate fruit. The “low fertility trap” ensures that once having one or two children becomes the norm, it remains the norm. Although governments have sometimes been able to increase the number of children couples are willing to have through generous child care payments and other support, they have never succeeded in restoring fertility.
Will an aging population, falling birth rate and territorial imbalance demand radical new approaches? We will see ourselves at a peak of 9 billion people in the second part of our century and then descend in something like a “free fall”. That’s what Darrell Bricker, Guillaume Blanc and Anna Rotkirch told us at a major Euromind event in Madrid. We have the latter two in the monograph that we present together with intellectuals and researchers such as Manuel Arias Maldonado, Alejandro Macarrón and Pablo Losada. Undoubtedly, population collapse is the greatest challenge of the 21st century.