The sky IS falling. . .

Abortion and birth control may have ripples far beyond the mere morality of what we think and do.  It appears that the birth rates once slightly bolstered post-Covid have now fallen even lower than expected.  Indeed, the sky IS falling.  The world is facing a significant demographic milestone as soon the global fertility rate will drop below the point needed to keep population constant. It has already happened in some countries and may soon have its impact felt everywhere.  Then the issue will not be what is good or right but who will fund retirements and pay for health care and staff the businesses and factories and provide essential services. 

Fertility is falling almost everywhere -- certainly for women in higher income brackets and with more education but now it is being felt also across all levels of income, education and labor-force participation.  Far from being a mere election issue or a morality issue, this will have huge implications for how people live, how economies grow and function, and even the stature of the world’s superpowers.  

What happened among high-income nations in the 1970s is now happening in developing countries, too. India has surpassed China as the most populous country (just last year) but its own fertility is now below replacement.  The sky IS falling according to academic experts -- “The demographic winter is coming,” said Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania.  

Why?  It is predictable and should have been but not in the traditional places such as state-level differences in parental abortion notification laws, unemployment rates, Medicaid availability, housing costs, religion, child-care costs and student debt.  This reflects a broader shift.  Certainly raising children is more expensive than before but parents’ preferences and perceived constraints have contributed even more to the change.  This is the triumph of the autonomous self where the quality of life is judged by career, leisure, relationships outside the home, and the cost of technology.  Though mothers and fathers, especially the more highly educated, spend more time with their children than in the past, that time is increasingly not spread over more children but focused on fewer -- even one. 

As the birthrates fall, nations and cities will experience depopulation, closed schools, stagnant or declining property values, and fewer people entering and staying in the workforce.  With that will come ith consequences ranging from closed schools to stagnant property values. Less selective colleges will increased costs of pensions and healthcare for growing ranks of the gray haired.  In the end, we may find ourselves rethinking the value of children not because we want them but because we need them.

I wish I could say that we Lutherans did not fall into the usual pattern but my fear is that we do -- we

reflect more the values and direction of the world around us than we do the Word of God.  That is the problem.  It is not only abortion which has become normal.  Birth control has become normal.  The idea that children are to be planned has become normal.  The size of the family capped at 2-3 children has become normal.  Not having any children (by choice) has become normal.  Odd that we complain that there are no children in church anymore but then adopt the ways and values of the world when it comes to having children, when to have them, and how many to have.  When Jesus says we are in the world but not of it, He is talking about just such things as this.

How sad it is that what the Word of God cannot convince us to, we will accept from the scientists who are insisting the sky is falling because the numbers of children are falling and population decline is inevitable (already felt in many places!).  But that is about where it is.  At some point we will decide that we must sacrifice a bit of our money, time, control, and quality of life to have enough children to make sure the factories still turn out goods, the retirement income still flows, and the world still looks kind of life it did when we were growing up.  It may be the right conclusion but it will be for all the wrong reasons.  "Be fruitful and multiply" was not an option or choice given to us but God's first great commission.  "Children are a blessing from the Lord" is not a theoretical statement but a practical judgment.