There has been some talk and concern recently about the low birthrate in the world, and in particular, Western nations. This is not a new concern. Demographers have written about this looming issue for decades now, foreseeing the social and economic problems that arise as the Baby Boomers age, with comparatively smaller future generations having to bear an increased burden in supporting not only themselves, but the ever ageing Boomers. The birthrate in Australia is 12 births per 1,000 people per year . This is a significant decrease from 2024, and a fertility rate of 1.5 per woman, well below replacement. Countries like Italy have an even lower birthrate, but throughout the West, and throughout the world in general, birthrates are indeed dropping. Almost all of the West is below replacement, leading to concerns about us ‘disappearing’. Pat Buchanan in “The Death of the West” writes about a depopulated Russia, of lands devoid of people. This is hard to sympathise with in Australia, because despite the low birthrate and the apparent demographic collapse, the actual experience living in Melbourne is one shaped by rapid population growth, and a palpable sense of being crowded out, figuratively and literally.

I think the bigger concern is the replacement migration, which will be discussed elsewhere.

We will not disappear due to a lacking natalist instinct. We are the product of thousands of generations of living creatures who all successfully reproduced. Every single one of our ancestors is someone who was able to successfully give birth, or father a child. Almost all chose, despite whatever contrary reason they may have had, to have at least one child. All those who shunned having children, for whatever reason, have no bearing on our current genetic legacy. It is in our DNA to reproduce and thrive, in a very literal sense. That instinct courses through our blood, and shapes much of our behaviour. Our desire for resources, for a partner, for sex, to teach, to protect our own, exists in part for this purpose. The is natures prime directive, and Gods first command, to be fruitful and multiply.

It is for this reason that the concern about population collapse is misplaced, because this concern neglects to acknowledge the incredible impetus within us to propagate ourselves, to keep our lineage and likeness going. This current lack of desire, both to reproduce, and in a broader sense, see our own nation, our own ethnicity thrive, is an anomaly and not a new normal. We will revert to the mean, by some way or another and it is folly to think that we will be the first generation of the first species to simply decide not to exist. We must remember what we are still biological beings, and not get swayed by the modern idea of “tabula rasa”, that we have no innate in inbuilt nature. That instinct is within us, and almost by definition, cannot breed itself out. Culture and propaganda can suppress it, but only temporarily.

Panic is not required and would lead to an overreaction which would make things worse than they would have otherwise been. One could argue that misplaced panic already has done so, as Western government have increased immigration in part to address the “Ageing population”, a pointless and futile endeavour, as immigrants themselves also age and become aged faster, as they have decades worth of a head start to requiring old age care over the newly born. It is doubly futile in that these immigrants sometimes bring their parents, who will soon increase our burden and become one of the aged people we are supposed to bring in people to support. Triply futile in that this policy does not increase the number of us, but merely replaces us with another, and is passed off as a national increase by the administrative entity that purports to represent the nation claiming that the nation has increased because the number of people it administers and governs increased. There is a difference to having your family grow, and simply having more people live in the same house that you live in. Of course, there are other, less stated reasons to bring people in, for the economic benefit of the few, and the suppression of wages, which is probably the greater concern for those loudly calling for more people in our economy.

Allow those who choose not to have children not have them. They will breed themselves out, and the next generation will consist of those who did choose to have children. Selection will work in favour of those who will continue the nation. Those who think going childless is the right thing to do, they have no future. Those who think we can just replace ourselves with others from other nations, they too have no future. Their ideas will die out with them, as the cultures and subcultures which adopt this disappear, and are replaced by those who believed to the contrary. Nature selects for genetic self interest, always, and regardless of what values we think we should have, what morality we think we should adopt, what our current politically-correct culture say is right, nature wins out. The harsh law of natural selection removes deleterious ideas, and along with those ideas, the people who adopt them. Peoples who are ethnocentric, and put their own interest above others, and can do so successfully, will ascend and replace nations who have no core identity or any strong desire to see themselves survive.

Whatever will happen, there will be cohorts of people who will populate the future, and there will be those who successfully fill the vacating niches. The issue at hand isn’t whether the Earth will have people in the future, but whether we will among the the winners or lost as losers.

The problem is cultural, and culture can be changed. Resources can be allocated as well. It will sort itself out as long as we don’t actively try to prevent nature from doing her work.

With regards to the low birth rate, this problem will sort itself out, but bad government policy can prolong the dilemma. How exactly the problem will solve itself cannot be predicted, much in the same way that one cannot predict how hot it will be in Australia in January, but can be quite confident it will be warmer than July. The solutions will reveal themselves, and we should avoid trying to push through brute force population increases. Rather, lets relax, understand that our natural instinct will lead us to solve problems and do the one thing we should do, clear the way for solutions to emerge and not be close minded or prejudiced against them when they do come.

What we can do

Stop immigration.

This might seem drastic or extreme, but this is actually less drastic and extreme than our current immigration policy in Australia. Our current policy is definitely extremist. Immigration creates competition for jobs, homes and resources. The population growth gives the sense of overcrowding, which is seen and experienced anytime anyone drives anywhere, or goes to try to rent a house, or buy one. The population changes before your eyes, and must subconsciously affect people. It suppresses wages and inflates the cost of housing. There are downsides to halting immigration, but the current immigration policy will suppress and delay the natural correction to the low birthrate problem, thereby making the transition from the current natural decline to the future increase more painful.

We make our decisions both consciously and subconsciously, and being exposed to crowding, to the sense of a rapidly increasing population, it is reasonable to strongly suspect that people are experiencing a population pressure, and their inner nature is suppressing the instinct to reproduce somewhat due to a perception of lack of resources. In the past, there were new frontiers and lands to expand into, but this is not the perception now. Elon Musk may blovate about us being underpopulated, but the reality is, our experience is one of overpopulation. Skills shortages are not due to lack of people, but due to poor allocation of existing resources.

Increase wages.

This gives women an option to not work. Wages will increase of there is no influx of labour into the country. In times gone by, when we worked the land, worked in our homes, children were a source of labour, and therefore increased our wealth. Today, children are a resource sink, as they do not contribute labour or wealth, but require labour and wealth from us into late adolescence, or more commonly now, early adulthood. Children require not just resources, but our time and attention, and a situation where both parents have to work to survive, doesn’t leave much in the budget for children. If a single wage could support a family, this leaves another parent free to expend the time and attention to children. This is the stereotypical “1950s” family. Some denigrate this, saying it was not typical throughout human history, and this is true, but this opinion neglects to consider that the economic situation of that era also was not typical of all of prior human history either, and an atypical economic situation (a strong, large middle class) would obviously likely result in, and justify, an atypical household economic arrangement. It is not just a coincidence that the move towards pre-middle class economic arrangements, that is, both parents toiling, is occurring at a time when the middle class itself is shrinking and more and more people are falling out of the bottom of it. We have given up the idea that there can be a sole breadwinner in a household, moving to a pre-modern economic situation in the house, and are shocked that the middle class is shrinking.

This moves us to the worst of both worlds. A pre-modern economic arrangement, of all working, but without the pre-modern economic benefit from having children. One solution to this, is to make children more economically viable by putting them to work, but I’m sure most would recoil at such a notion.

Give women who have children greater status.

Our culture elevates the “girl boss” and CEO, not the mother. Women no longer have status, nor roles in our society as women. Women are only offered now the chance to engage in society through the corporate world, or in giving speeches to the corporate world as “thought leaders” and the like. The decay of our social fabric has taken away other role available to both men and women in society, whether it be in churches or social clubs or other social organisations. While men have for a longer period of time been able to seek status through employment, this decay of our social fabric has harmed women more. Attempts to increase the birthrate by giving money haven’t worked, not only because the amount given pales in comparison to the cost of raising a child, or simply covering the increased cost of housing, but because money is not the only motivator people have. Status and respect is another motivator, and as it is now, mothers gain no increased status or respect by virtue of being mothers.

As the middle class continues to shrink, so will the desire to have children, for some. For others, they will be largely unaffected, and the question is who will fail to adapt, and who will prosper? The solution is not a baby bonus, handout or simple tax deduction, but a more far reaching economic and social change, which at the moment, in this era of political and philosophical myopia, remains largely undiscovered. The problem will sort itself out, but it will come from those who can think outside our “modern” ideological and political straight jackets. The future will appear extreme and alien to modern sensitivities, and will only grow in places where the current hierarchy of values has been overturned. The instinct for self-preservation will not show itself simply in increased births, but by a rising alternative political view, which will seek to shape our culture and make it more amenable, more conducive to our inner instincts.

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