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2026/02/05
For a decade now, the previously academic debate about the looming decline of human population worldwide started becoming more and more mainstream. There isn't a week or month without a headline predicting a collapse of societies and nations if nothing is done, pointing fingers and assigning guilt at each other's political opponents. All the meanwhile the "solutions" that are presented are simple, albeit politically unpalatable for the columnists' and the authors' opponents, hence requiring power to be given to the "right people". The key idea is that everyone knows what causes it, but nobody can do anything because they're not in power.
Right.
Japan was the first country to ring the alarm bell as early as 2000s in the aftermath of the country's worst post-war economic malaise. Their government tries to find a solution to this proble mto this day but keeps failing. It is quickly followed by Korea and the People's Republic of China, as well as the Republic of China (aka Taiwan). This problem slowly sneaked into Europe, first affecting the former Eastern Bloc states (mainly due outward migration), then the Mediterranean, and it is now affecting "core" countries such as Germany, the UK and France.
In the 2020s we see unlikely candidates for a fertility collapse and a growing proportion of elderly dependents: Thailand, Iran, Cuba. Even in Indonesia, a nation that is only catching up economically with its leading ASEAN peers such as the tiny but affluent Singapore (also at the lows of its fertility rate) and the leading "Asian tiger" Malaysia, the average woman has only 2 children. Only two regions stand out, Central Asia (including yours truly's native Kazakhstan), parts of Middle East and the continent of Africa. And even there, the dynamics point to a decline in the fertility rate.
Women simply have either fewer children or no children at all. Not sure what men do, as very few articles tend to focus on men and whether men desire children or not. But one of the key observations is that the planned, stated or desired number of children does not materialize. Though this is my personal observation, it does appear that most women, even at young age, want to become mothers - and yet - they either delay it or blame it on the lack of a fitting partner. Very few young women are convinced child-free persons on the grounds of personal beliefs, it seems. The mismatch between a desired product and the available market is met with paralysis and inaction, while the fertility expiration clock is ticking. Though the latter is a less of a problem for men, they too face a decline in fertility and genetic quality, as older fathers face higher risks not only in terms of dying or becoming a dependant for adolescent kids earlier, but also higher risks of producing offspring with geentic disorders or diseases that may prove costly later in life.
Proposed solutions vary in the degree of how inane they are but so far I can firmly assert that I have not heard a single proposal that wouldn't be either obviously laughable or simply doubling down on intensifying the dynamic and getting the results opposite to the desired one.
First example is from the right-wing crowd, which seriously offer religion or stoking a sense of patriotism as possible solutions. As of religion there is little to say but I can share my own view: religion is a matter of deep and personal contemplation, study and belief. Religion has no place for kids in it. Indeed, religion is a practice that takes up the entirety of a man's life if he really believes. If he does not believe, however, then that solution will not work. After all, how can something that requires complete dedication - devotion even - leave enough space not just for a child but for a family life in the first place? If one is a Christian, then let me quote from John 18:36:
My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.
And if one is Muslim - and Muslims do have high fertility rate on average - then recall what Allah says in the Qur'an:
Wealth and children are the adornment of the life of this world, but enduring good deeds are better with your Lord (18:46)
I would even go as far as quoting the Old Testament but even there, to anyone quoting the Lord's blessing for man to multiply, or the Lord's promise to Abraham, it should be reminded that
If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he. (Ecclesiastes 6:3)
Many other religions exist, but neither they are too keen on mindless procreation, and some are openly against it.
In essence, appeal to religious duty is moot - one's religious beliefs are one's own. Telling other people what to believe and how - I find it insulting. Using that belief to achive your own ends, like politicians shaking off the looming pension crisis by "reminding" youngsters of their non-existent religious duty - that's just heresy.
So maybe not religion, but what about patriotism? Surely, we love our country and our people and we want it to multiply, don't we?
I thought that too until I started working in a place I call (now) my country and meeting the people I am supposed to call my own. They all turned out to be unlikeable characters. At best we dislike each other, but at worst they evoke hatred - especially when you realize that you work and pay up to 30% of your salary for these "people" to get by. Even if I never become like them and never leech off my kids like they do - why would I want my children to pay taxes to these creatures? What is the benefit for me or my children?
And speaking of benefit. What am I getting for the taxes I pay, that would make me patriotic? Our army won't stand a week in case of a real war. Our politicians steal, lie and cheat. They all have offshore homes and accounts, lovers and yachts all over the world. And yet they teach us about our duties? And speaking of their duties - how do their kids end up? Scandals, betrayals, corruption, licentiousness and fraud. These are the words I'd describe them with; and I'm sure anyone can relate to that, whichever country they consider their own.
So, in summary, we do not have a duty before anyone to procreate. And if someone's religion says that they should - go ahead and do it - but obviously those people are in extreme minority, because the population keeps going down. As for our supposed duty before our nation - show me the law that says where we should do it. And even if there is such a law - how can I fulfill it? Through parthenogenesis? What are men who cannot find women to mate with or marry to should do? What should women do if they can't find a mate? Go to jail? Surely that will boost the birth rates! *sarcasm*
But let's get back to serious topics.
Some say it's the immigration that's causing it. Men and women are alienated from their culture and their roots and cannot find each other; or something more chauvinistic - perhaps women don't want men of their own stock and prefer foreigners. Perhaps, some of it is a justified argument but in general - no. More and more couples emerged in the last decades among men and women of different nationalities and citizenships. It was pretty standard for men and women within different populations to meet and marry each other, have kids and eventually even divorce. And even if this was true - why is the birth rate so low among relatively homogenous ethnicities, such as Japanese, Mandarin-speaking Han Chinese and Koreans? Surely these countries aren't flooded by immigrants even remotely to the same level as English-speaking countries, and surprisingly the same countries have a visibly higher fertility rate than homogenous states.
But perhaps they are flooded by themselves?
Indeed, some more rational arguments is that the reason for a population growth decline has to do with the overpopulation and its symptom - lack of housing. This is indeed true in some countries with large populations and high population density. Property prices have skyrocketed in the last half a century in Japan and Korea. More so in Europe, but so did incomes. High demand is fuelling construction projects as mortgages remain available despite the high rates of the past 3-4 years, and prices refuse to drop. But even in Europe, most of which enjoys freedom of movement, property prices remain unequal. In Spain, the countryside has been hollowed out, with entire villages being sold at a discount. In Italy, the rural towns are depopulating. Islands in Greece are closing down schools, with no kids in sight. Depopulation causes deflation in the form of discounts and lowering prices, attracting deal seekers. The spread of public transportation as well as general access makes relocation from expensive large cities like Milan, Athens or Madrid less cumbersome, and new industries not bound by physical location is making people more mobile. And yet, they do not come over and buy all these old houses to have a family with.
So housing is there. But either it's in the wrong spot, there's not enough people willing to buy it or ... (and I lean towards this explanation) there are no family units that require these houses. After all, what's the point of buying a 5 room country home when you're going to spend all your day there staring at a screen, with the only other leisure being observing landscape, talking to the elderly locals (whom you probably don't know), taking a walk or getting drunk. And how is one supposed to find a wife to have kids there? This is anecdotal, but it's something to consider when housing is discussed.
Location. Location. Location ...
So if housing is not in the right spot, perhaps we should build more of it? Sure! All you need for it is to ease the zoning rules, maybe even building standards, get rid of building permit red tape and get zero percent loans to the housing developers!
Ah but that's unacceptable, you see... We can't get rid of the zoning restrictions because it would mean chaos, and the sleepy suburbs will be turned into noisy slums. We can't get rid of building standards for sure, because who would want to live in the infamous "coffin homes" like the ones in Hong Kong, or wake up one day to find that the roof has collapsed. Anyway, who would want to marry a loser living in such a place? We definitely cannot have zero percentage mortgages or building loans. That would fuel inflation on one hand - making prices even higher, and on the other it would enrich greedy homebuilders!
And even if these last objections are dropped - there is absolutely no guarantee that building an apartment building a year will make it any easier. In China they had entire apartment ghost towns, filled with vacant new apartment blocs and nobody to occupy them. There is a plenty of housing there - but the birth numbers keep dropping. So in the end, you will get an oversaturated housing market with diminishing returns for property owners, building managers and homebuilders. If your economy - and especially your pension system - depends on the well-being of the financial markets, crashing the real estate prices is the last thing you'd want to do. And when did a financial crisis encourage anyone to start a family?
Finally, we are coming to something real...
A good response I read once was that people have kids because they have a sense of purpose. That is a strikingly correct answer but I would still object to it by warning you not to think that just because one does not have kids they lack a sense of purpose.
Maybe not everyone's sense of purpose has a place for kids in it. It's that simple.
But that was not always the case. Surely, there were plenty of people who didn't center their life around having children or even had a place for children in their plans, but who still had children. That was in the past - when social pressure was stronger, and contraceptives weren't as common. In a more recent past, people would be more likely to have kids by accident - and all the unpleasant consequences of that - although they would still support the population numbers regardless.
In short, today people are more self-aware and freer to do what they deem important, and not what others expect from them. That is a commendable achievement. But do not expect babies to result from it.
But surely, we can somehow encourage people, right!?
The people on the left are as inane as the people on the right in offering nonsensical solutions.
Firstly, there is a proposal to offer free daycare - aka kindergartens. So, the government would pay for a part of daycare or take a full control of it, so that parents can leave their kids with complete strangers as they go to work... Wow, yeah, that will surely solve the problem. Firstly, I fail to imagine a case where a woman would refuse to have her first child because she's concerned about the space in the kindergarten - perhaps a third or a fourth, but not for the first two, surely. However, the very notion that you have to take your only shot at a genetic continuity and leave it with people you don't know for "free" is an astonishing offer. That's the first objection to this "solution". The second one is economic - as all parents now start dumping their kids in daycare (because it's "free") the staff has to be paid by the taxpayers, and paid more, as the workload increases, so the willingness to be overloaded with work decreases. That all strains not just the city and state budgets, but individuals' budgets too. More money on daycare means less spending domestically on other things. And if the government tries to promote spending by giving out money, the inflation eats it anyway. Therefore, not providing free daycare is actually a better option as it makes people more likely to become parents in your jurisdiction than go somewhere else where they don't feel as much tax or inflationary burden.
How does that even make sense, you may wonder? Easy. As young parents who just had kids will have to pay less for the daycare, those who are older and struggling with conception, will have to save more for IVF, and those who could have become parents at a later date will have to postpone it due to a new financial stress. But surely someone other than parents, the young or the struggling couples can pay for it? Who? Corporations? Ha!
Do not underestimate corporations. They are just like people, except they can travel miles in a day, relocate their addresses in an instance and simply go bankrupt at a whim - only to be re-discovered on the other side of the world, with a completely different name. And you can't tax the directors and the managers - because they are already taxed, and if you tax them more - well - let's just say they have the means to go away and never return, and do it far sooner than the anyone else.
People on the left and on the right equally like to porpose tax credits on children or even handouts. You will get the same results as described above. Hungary is a warning sign of that - a country that can barely afford a military is paying women (and why not men?) money to have children, going as far as to promise them a lifetime of income tax exemptions. So who pays for that? Who pays for the endless cohorts of the elderly "builders of Communism"? Corporations? How? The government can't even tax those corporations' employees more, because all of them can be easily relocated to another European country - so you not only lose corporate tax, but also income tax and even the value-added tax revenue, because your citizen leave Budapest for Vienna or Prague.
Oh for crying out loud! What should we do if nothing you say works!? We should do something, no!? Well, if you insist...
I am an antinatalist. I believe that giving birth is an immoral act. There is nothing you can do to dissuade me and there is nothing you can say to tell me that I should have children.
And still, as an antinatalist I can offer my thoughts on how you can make people have kids, reflecting on the reasons that made me an antinatalist.
Before we start, think about this - why would anyone have kids?
This is a non-question for people with families but think about it. Hypothetically, if you are talking to someone who never had a child - how can you persuade them to spend the next 18 years of their life taking care of a child?
And as you start thinking about this question you may want to reflect on your own childhood experiences. Would you want someone to experience it the same way? Differently? Are you capable of making it so that they will not learn to hate you? What if they decide to kill you? What if their hatred grows so large that it turns them homicidal? These are the questions no loving parent ever asked - that's what makes them loving parents.
But regardless of your answer to this question, here are my proposals.
First proposal is: stop telling people what to do. A lot of people are weak when it comes to peer pressure, but the government isn't peers. There is a lot of disdain globally towards government intervention into personal lives. Most people are ready for a compromise where they lead a public life subject to scrutiny by both the state and their society. But that breaks down when their privacy is threatened. It is not the government's business in planning anyone's family, making it easier or harder in creating and maintaining it, especially when that government cannot afford feeding its own soldiers.
Second proposal is: do not punish people for having children. Sounds surprising, right? But being a parent is a lot like being a hostage. You cannot shake this responsibility off, and if you try you will face retaliation by the state. Worse, children become the unwilling participants in family courts, and bystanders in the middle of a trainwreck, all at the mercy of a corrupt judicial system, and clueless unhappy parents. And for what end?
Third proposal is: do not punish children for being children. Mandatory schooling. Zero tolerance. Conscription. Just the three of banes of a child's existence. School is the largest injustice - it is a place you are supposed to love but if you don't, you are treated as abnormality. You know, the Communists who sent people to GULAGs, at least never forced the inmates to love their shackles. And what does happen in those schools? You can't fight back, you can't talk back. If you ask for help - you get in trouble. It's a cycle of abuse and injustice nobody has to be subjected to. And what follows that? If you're lucky to be born in a civilized country, nothing much. But if you're born to in a hellhole with mandatory conscription, you are given a monumental task of running between doctors, clinics and hospitals looking for ways to dodge the draft. Meanwhile, you beg your parents to get you into a university, so you get a waiver for a year until you reach a non-draft age. And once you do ... better pray it's not raised...
Sounds tough? I have a friend who lives in a country with mandatory draft until the age of 35 (!) so all his best years he has to spend dodging draft. He had no time for girlfriends. No time for family or kids. All he did was making sure he doesn't leave his mom's apartment too frequently lest he gets caught by an odd cop who decides to check his documents...
Last proposal: do not punish the childless. Want to encourage people to have kids somewhere else? Force them out by imposing punishments for being childless. They might as well find out that the grass is greener elsewhere. You might argue that taxing childless means having less childless. That much is true - but you're still taxing people, and even if you will end up having fewer childless people, you will end up with less people, period. You won't get more kids - especially today, when paying a levy is cheaper than having a child.