What’s to be done about the West’s plummeting birth rate?
by Will Jones, The Conservative Woman:
It is now largely common knowledge – and not before time – that birth rates in Western and other developed nations are well below the rate of replacement, leading to ageing and declining populations, and storing up serious social and economic problems for the future.
In Britain, as in a number of other Western nations, the situation is even worse than the national figures suggest, since these include the higher birth rate amongst more recent immigrant arrivals. The idea that Europe should look to large-scale immigration to make up for its dire birth rates has been proffered by various public figures in recent years, but such a ‘solution’ can only store up ethnic and cultural tensions for the future, and at worst, risks the final erosion of traditional Western culture and values.
So what is the alternative? To answer this, first we need to ask what lies behind Europe’s declining birth rate.
It’s not ignorance about the best chances for fertility. According to the Fertility Education Initiative, women here are fully aware that they are best off having children in their 20s, and surveys in the US suggest most women want to have children. So what’s stopping them?
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