People are becoming aware of global depopulation. A birth rate of 2.1 is needed to maintain current population levels, but birth rates are dropping far below that level all over the globe. Most people still think the population of India, for example, is exploding. But the birth rate there has already fallen below the replacement rate of 2.1 and is predicted to fall to 1.29 by 2050.
“Why is our population declining?” asked an article in the Indian publication Onmanorama. Their answer was vague, citing, “cultural changes”. Well, yes, having fewer children is a cultural change. But what is the cause?
“Latin America’s Fertility Decline is Accelerating. No One’s Certain Why” is the title of a 2024 article in Americas Quarterly.
Really? No one?
Ever since the publication of Paul Erlich's The Population Explosion in 1991, leftists have used population, along with 'manmade global warming, and other issues as a rationale for their "no-growth" policy. The Population Explosion Emergency was another leftist excuse to increase government regulation and control. Governments around the world instituted programs for Population Control, from China’s 1-Child policy to U.S. government subsidized abortion, to UN programs of forced sterilization, and on and on.
Now, the leftist media wonders: What has caused women to have fewer children?
Maybe it was all those leftist government programs aimed at causing women to have fewer children? No. No mass media story blames the massive, worldwide government "Population Explosion" population control programs of the last three decades for causing fertility rates to fall.
So either -
Massive government programs to decrease the population do not really have any effect.
Or
The massive government anti-population programs worked and did cause the drop in fertility rates.
But wait, there's more.
Some governments have begun programs to try to raise the birthrate, such as subsidies for childcare and parental leave; however, it appears to be too little too late. But the few government pro-family initiatives just beg the question: What about all the anti-family policies of almost all western governments?
It isn't just the many individual anti-population government programs that have hurt birth rates. Perhaps even more destructive has been the leftists' broad anti-family agenda.
For just a few examples:
Media and entertainment have long been filled with the voices of feminists who vilify and make fun of stay-at-home 'trad' wives who choose children over careers.
Government created millions of single parent households by giving more welfare if the father leaves the home.
State governments removed parental rights. Removed father's rights, in particular. Government Child Protective" agencies got more and more power to take children from their parents.
Teachers intentionally hid course content from parents, asserting that teachers and schools had more rights than parents.
School boards and federal police began investigating parents for opposing school board policies.
The broad leftist anti-family agenda, put forth in books like Hillary Clinton's 2006 book "It Takes a Village", preaching the idea that government not parents should raise children. Leftists have sought to demean and destroy the family and replace it with government ever since Marx. Now the leftists can't figure out who is to blame when their anti-family, anti-'Population-Explosion' efforts succeed in causing worldwide depopulation.
If leftists want to see the cause of falling birth rates, all they have to do is look in a mirror. But leftism doesn't seem to own a mirror.
Overpopulation: Leftist Untruth #14
Who Is Really to Blame?