Should We Fear the Fertility Collapse?

Or...Finally, sex really is the solution!

A fertile woman about to collapse.

I seem to have become the Chicken Little of Substack. My last article considered the possibility that human society would be destroyed by artificial intelligence. Now I consider whether human society will be destroyed by a lack of human beings. The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

But if you know anything about Chicken Little, you know his predictions left something to be desired, and if you know anything about me, you know I never bring you mere doom and gloom. I always bring you hope as well, because hope always exists, and not enough people are reminding you of that fact. So, this is not an attempt to earn clicks through fear, but rather to consider how Christians in particular should think about the “fertility collapse,” “demographic decline,” or whatever title you prefer.

Of the many proposed destroyers of humanity, fertility collapse is among the more straightforward. The argument goes as follows: you need people to make more people to keep people going.

Humans in nearly every part of the world are having fewer children than they did one hundred years ago. Even with increased life expectancy, this means population rates are declining. Many highly industrialized nations will, by the end of this century, see a major drop in their populations with a smaller number of young people attempting to support a larger number of old people. This will create massive economic challenges and complicate everything up to and including national defense. We will have empty cities, empty schools, et cetera. It will be a depressing time to live.

I could throw any number of statistics at you to support that last paragraph, but I suspect you have already seen them in numerous news articles. You have already heard politically minded people warning about the dangers of demographic decline. And because they are politically minded people, chances are they will be pairing these warnings with talk of cultural degradation, or societal inequality, or something else that suits their ideological bent.

I will put my cards on the table. I am a married person with only one child: below the replacement rate. I did not go into marriage intending to have only one child. God has given me a good deal of peace about how things have turned out, but there are certainly emotions involved with not ending up with as many children as you thought you might have. And while God has given me peace about this situation, the news cycle has not. Every time I hear someone talk about how people ought to be having more children, I get a pang in my gut. It is one thing to feel that your expectations have been disappointed or that you may have let the grandparents down, but another thing entirely to feel you are partly responsible for a global crisis of epic proportions.

For this reason, I typically avoid discussion of the fertility crisis like the plague. Study after study has indicated it is a multi-faceted problem with no quick fix, and certainly no fix that I as a single person out of eight billion can provide, even if I take Elon Musk up on his alleged offer of free sperm. It would take a joint effort by the world’s political and economic leaders to create anything like the solution needed, and human history has demonstrated that such cooperation is virtually impossible to achieve. When something is that much ought of my control, I see little reason to personally obsess about it. What will come will come.

However, I just finished reading the transcript of a podcast episode in which New York Times columnist Ross Douthat interviewed Dr. Alice Evans. (I am gifting that article to you all at this link.) Unlike many people I hear discussing this issue, Douthat and Evans do a good job of avoiding the simple explanation or quick fix. I also think Evans is on to something when she says that the inability of men and women to socialize effectively in an era dominated by digital distractions may be among the stronger factors at play in our present predicament. If you are interested in this issue, I highly recommend you read or listen to that interview.

What I take from it is that, yes, from a purely human perspective, we have reason to fear fertility collapse. The changing demographics of our world will most certainly affect the global economy, geopolitics, and the way human society operates. Since change is often for the worse, that is a source of legitimate anxiety.

But here comes the turn: I do not think we should be afraid of this, especially if we are Christians. Why would I say such a thing when the crisis is certainly real, can likely not be reversed, and will definitely have negative effects? Because I am deep in history, friends. Being deep in history produces different reactions in different people. It made John Henry Newman believe in Roman Catholicism. It makes me believe in the power of contingency.

A hundred years ago, you would have been hard pressed to find anyone who could have predicted the rise and dominance of the smartphone, but more particularly, the impact that invention would have on human behavior. It is the kind of event that the great hero of Isaac Asimov’s book Foundation, mathematical prognosticator Hari Seldon, would not have been able to predict. Such an event happens in Dr. Seldon’s fictional world, and such things have happened in human history, most notably in the emergence of religious figures like Jesus of Nazareth or the Prophet Muhammad.

Even in the 21^st century, when we have quantified nearly every aspect of earthly existence, unpredictable things still happen. Precisely because of their unpredictability, they tend to be world changing. These are the contingencies of history. They are proof that man will never be the master of his fate, and perhaps for that reason, they are often seen as proof of God’s existence.

Sometime before the end of this century, a massive contingency will disrupt human affairs. We have already seen one: the Covid pandemic. There will be others. Perhaps it will be some extraordinary technological advancement like nuclear fusion power, or perhaps it will be that most mysterious of occurrences—a religious revival. I do not know what will happen, but I know something will happen, and it will impact the ebbs and flows of human population.

But apart from that purely earthly consideration, I also see reason to hope in the Christian faith. A God who enabled a virgin to give birth is surely not cowed by some fertility crisis! It may be that shifting demographics will herald the rise and fall of nations. If so, it would simply validate biblical prophecies. The fall of empires is a disaster for the non-believer, but for the one who believes in the God of Abraham, it is proof that he is still on the ultimate throne. Christians confess that the end of human history will come at a time of God’s choosing, and it will usher in the glorious reign of Jesus Christ.

Fifty years ago, populations were growing rapidly all over the globe, and there were serious fears about overpopulation. Now, populations are shrinking all over the globe, and we fear a labor shortage on the order of the Black Death. The fact that one predicament has been followed by another in short order is not proof that they are both false predicaments, but it does indicate that things can change rapidly, and predicting the future is still a dangerous business.

As always, I urge hope in the face of depressing news, because I believe in the resurrection of the dead. There is salvation beyond the bounds of human ability. We think ourselves the masters of fate with all our modern technologies, but we look pretty impotent when it comes to the most basic thing any species must do: reproduce itself and ensure its survival. Maybe this is a sign from God—an opportunity for serious spiritual reflection. We have no ability in ourselves. Every good thing is a gift from above, and that is where we must look for salvation, not only in this, but in everything.

It is good for people to marry and have children, but that does not mean every person is called to the vocation of marriage. Neither does it mean that a marriage is a failure if it does not produce children or does not produce enough children. I do not believe any person should pursue marriage and children due to societal expectations or in an effort to avert demographic collapse. Rather, I think we should pursue these things because they are good in an of themselves.

Human life is good, and therefore its perpetuation is good. Existence is a gift that we should embrace. It is also good to be duty bound to others in love. This is something we have forgotten in our hyper individualistic society. We need not be duty bound to everyone in every way, but it is good to be bound to certain people in certain ways, with love as the basis rather than fear. We must realize how dependent we are on others, and how much others depend on us.

I once saw a young woman post on social media, looking for any good reason why she should bear a child when it sounded so horrible. Reader, I did not tell her that raising a child would be easier than she thinks, for it is exactly as difficult as she thinks. I did not attempt to persuade her with complicated philosophical or political arguments. Rather, I simply told her the most basic reason why I felt compelled to raise a child: because someone else did it for me. Two someones, in fact, sacrificed immensely for me to be where I am today. That means something to me.

Maybe that is just another form of guilt: another version of the Law that condemns. But I think it may also be something else. It might just be love.

My newest book, Face to Face: A Novel of the Reformation, the sequel to Broken Bonds, is now available for pre-order for delivery on November 11.

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PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE:

• “The Men are Still Angry” at Mockingbird