People

In 1968, Richard and I had two little children with number three on the way. This third pregnancy happened to coincide with the release of Paul Ehrlich’s best-selling book The Population Bomb. The book’s thesis warned that Earth could only support a given number of people, and that earth’s natural resources would be depleted in twenty years.

Forty years later, in 2008, I watched a documentary called “Demographic Winter,” which was followed by a movie version, Demographic Winter: The Decline of the Human Family, released in 2009. The prediction this time was that Earth’s most essential resource, humankind, was being depleted because there were not too many babies but too few. It has been called the underpopulation bomb, “a baby crisis, a population crisis, a fertility crisis, a demographic crisis, an aging crisis, an economic crisis”.

In developed countries the replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman. In 2024, the world rate hovered at 2.3, with many countries in a demographic downturn. Countries with the lowest birth rates (under 1.4) are Taiwan, South Korea, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Macau, Moldova, Puerto Rico, Italy, Spain, Poland, Montserrat, Mauritius, Bosnia and Herzegovina, British Virgin Islands, Japan, Greece, Costa Rica, Bahamas, and Belarus.

In many underdeveloped countries, the replacement birth rate is 2.3 because of higher death rates of children, ages 0-15, that die before they can have children themselves. The map below shows the countries below and above the replacement level.

A few specifics: “At the end of 2024, the number of newborns in Taiwan fell to… the lowest figure since records began… marking the ninth consecutive annual decline…. The number of marriages also declined, with… 2,131 fewer than the previous year…. Taiwan is now on the brink of becoming a super-aged society — a society in which seniors aged 65 and above account for 20 percent of the total population”.

In 2024, “the United States fertility rate was just 1.62 births per woman, marking a historic low”. Marriages also declined. Married-couple households made up 47% of all U.S. households in 2022, down from 71% in 1970. The U.S. marriage rate has declined 54% from 1900 to today”.

Why the declining birthrate is a critical problem:

1. When fertility rates fall below replacement levels, fewer people in the workforce means labor shortages and economic instability.
2. This economic instability is due to a shortage of younger persons of working-age able to replace those who have or will retire. An aging population puts pressure on healthcare and retirement systems. It is simple math.
3. This imbalance causes a decline in tax revenue and slows economic growth. Governments will have to increase taxes to make up the shortfall or reduce the number of services available and infrastructure in general.
4. The social implications overload families. In countries with population decline, it will become the norm for a child to have no siblings or cousins. This puts pressure on younger family members who must care for elderly parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

Why the birth rate is declining:

1. Contraception. “In the United States, the majority of women of childbearing age use contraception. According to the 2024 KFF Women’s Health Survey, 82% of women aged 18–49 reported using contraception in the past year”.
2. Infertility. In the U.S., 9% of men and 11% of women in their child-bearing years experience fertility problems. The Centers for Disease Control “calculates birth rate by dividing the number of live births over the course a year by the total population. In 2022, for example, there were 11 births for every 1,000 people. In 1995, that number was 14.8 per 1,000 people:.
3. Abortion. If abortion did not exist in the United States, it is estimated there would be an additional 440,000 births per year.
4. Attitudes about family size, financial concerns including the need/want for two incomes without the cost of childcare, legalizing gay marriage, delaying childbearing for career aspirations, and couples choosing to remain childless.

The highest and lowest birth rates of various countries and states:

• Countries with the highest birthrate in order are: Niger, Central African Republic, Chad, Somalia, DR Congo, Mali, Angola, Nigeria, Benin, Tanzania.
• “Every state except for North Dakota experienced losses when the most recently published 2020 rates are compared to averages over the decade ending in 2010.
• “The severity of the declines over the past decade varies greatly, with Western states generally experiencing the most severe fertility rate drops. Arizona’s and Utah’s declines were more than double that of the 50-state average”.

The birth rate among religious groups in America as of 2020:

• Muslim: 2.76
• Orthodox Jew: 2.13
• Protestant: 2.11
• Catholic: 2.1
• Atheist/Agnostic: 1.88
• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 2.8. (Interestingly, Latter-day Saint women begin having children about five years earlier than most other religions.
• Ultra-Orthodox Jew: 6.6
• Amish: 7.

Efforts to reverse the trend in low-birth rate countries:

“South Korea has started allowing families to hire foreign nannies to encourage higher birthrates.

“Japan has allocated as much as 3.6 trillion yen (US $22.3 billion) annually in an effort to reverse the trend”.

China changed from a one-child policy to a three-child policy in 2021. “Beijing has been running national campaigns to foster a ‘pro-birth culture’ as China’s population shrinks and grays at an alarming rate. Posters and slogans once warning of the perils of having more than one child have been replaced with ones encouraging more births. Local governments have rolled out a flurry of policy incentives, from cash handouts and real estate subsidies to the extension of maternity leave”.

“Singapore is raising the retirement age, training in middle life, and encouraging companies… to hire older workers. Currently the retirement age in Singapore is 63, but this is due to rise to… 65 by 2030. By that year the age to which people in re-employment can stay in work is expected to have risen to 70”.

Greece and Italy are offering cash bonuses to parents.

Hungary’s population is falling by 32,000 a year. Women there have fewer children than the EU average. “As part of the measures, young couples will be offered interest-free loans of 10m forint (£27,400; $36,000), to be cancelled once they have three children”.

In the United States, President Donald Trump has proposed funding for IVF, in vitro fertilization. In his first public address as vice-president, J.D. Vance said: that because of a “culture of radical individualism… our society has failed to recognize the obligation that one generation has to another as a core part of living in a society…. So let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America.” He is advocating for a Child Tax Credit increase from $2,000 to $5,000 per child.

Are incentives working?

Are incentives making a difference? The answer is no. It may be too little too late. In the United States for example, “US births have fallen steadily since 2007 and the total fertility rate is now well below replacement level fertility…. Our analysis suggests that this trend is unlikely to reverse in the coming years…. We are unable to identify any period-specific social, economic, or policy changes that can statistically explain much of the decline. We conjecture instead that the sustained decline in the US fertility rate more likely reflects shifted priorities across recent cohorts of young adults”.

For any incentive to work is time sensitive. Women must want babies in their child-bearing years. (Of course, this doesn’t apply to couples struggling with infertility or single women who want nothing more than to be married and have children.) What will motivate a couple to have children when they planned on none or to have one or two more babies when they thought they were finished?

The reason to want babies

• Elder Neil L. Anderson said: “It is a crowning privilege of a husband and wife who are able to bear children to provide mortal bodies for these spirit children of God. We believe in families, and we believe in children”.
• The psalmist wrote: “Children are an heritage of the Lord” (Psalm 127:3).
• God commanded Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Moses 2:26-28). We are not
• The Family: A Proclamation to the World declares: “God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force.”
• Elder Bednar said it is a duty of “faithful married men and women who honor their covenant responsibility to multiply and replenishthe earth”.
• Elder Anderson said: “Children are loved by God…. When to have a child and how many children to have is a private decision to be made between a husband and wife and the Lord. With faith and prayer, these sacred decisions can be beautiful, revelatory experiences”.

Question: Who would want fewer children?

Answer 1: Those who choose dogs over children:

“A 2023 survey conducted by USA oday and OnePoll [showed that] 67% of respondents aged 18 to 26 chose to get a dog instead of having a child. Family structures are rapidly changing and pets are often considered equivalent to, and, in some cases, better than having children. Consequently, people are choosing to become “pet parents,” taking on a parental role and factoring their pets into major decisions about their career, housing choices and romantic relationships”.

Answer 2: Enemies of the plan of salvation.

Since Heavenly Father’s great and eternal plan of salvation was designed for marriage and children, Satan’s complete obsession is to thwart the everlasting purpose of God and the Lamb, (1 Nephi 14:13). There is no plan of salvation for Satan and his devils. Satan will never have the title of husband or father. His purpose is “that all men might be miserable like unto himself,” childless with no possibility of posterity (2 Nephi 2:27). Too many are listening to his beguiling, subverting voice.

To me, there is nothing more awe-inspiring or life-changing than to participate in God’s work and glory by giving birth. The miraculous moment of a baby’s first breath exceeds all expectations in closeness to God. The joy of watching the baby, holding the baby, rocking the baby, feeding the baby, singing to the baby, and marveling as a helpless infant begins to look around, smile, turn over, sit, crawl, and walk has no parallel. By the baby’s second birthday, the wonderment continues as the baby becomes verbal, climbs, runs, plays, and gives sloppy kisses. My father had a special love for little people. He often said with a hint of loss in his voice “I wish I could always have a two-year-old.”

The deck is stacked against babies: more individuals choosing to stay single, more couples choosing puppies over babies, more abortions, more miscarriages, less understanding of the needs of civilization to maintain itself, and fewer citizens of planet Earth understanding the purpose of life. As Elder Anderson said: “It is a crowning privilege of a husband and wife who are able to bear children to provide mortal bodies for these spirit children of God”

‘And [Jesus] took a child … in his arms [and] said … Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever [receiveth] me, receiveth … him that sent me’”.

What the world needs now is babies.