Question: What factors contribute to demographic decline?
Answer:
A number of social trends of the post-war era have converged to create a perfect storm for Demographic Winter.
Men and women are delaying marriage, making it less likely they’ll have more than one or two children. Today in the West, almost one in two marriages ends in divorce. The children of divorce are less likely to marry and form families themselves.
More married women are putting off having children for careers. After 35, it becomes progressively harder for women to conceive.
The news and entertainment media tell young adults that satisfaction comes from careers, romance, travel and “personal growth” – not from having children. It’s rare that Hollywood even portrays large families (today, more than 2 children). The culture’s message is live-for-moment and live primarily for yourself, with no sense of obligation to generations past or concern for posterity.
The growth of cohabitation also has an impact. (In Scandinavia, almost as many couples are living together as married.) Cohabitation is not conducive to childbearing or childrearing.
For the past 20 to 30 years, children have been taught that over-population (the so-called population bomb) will wreck havoc on the environment and economic development. Not surprisingly, children thus indoctrinated frequently choose to have fewer children when they reach maturity.
Religious observance has been shown to correlate with higher birthrates. The increasing secularization of Western societies has been accompanied by lower birthrates.
Thus, every aspect of modernity works against family life and in favor of singleness and small families or voluntary childlessness.
http://www.demographicwinter.com/
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