We have talked a lot over the years about the decline in the birthrate and the rapidly increasing number of young adults who are refusing to get married and have children. As much as we’ve discussed the subject, we still have not discussed it enough. It is one of the great crises facing our civilization at the present moment. When a society gives up on having children, it has given up on its future, given up on itself.
Of course, plenty of people are still having children. We haven’t entered full on “Children of Men” territory quite yet. Our population is still growing, just as the population of the world is still growing. But that growth is slowing. And we have long since crossed the crucial threshold where our fertility rate is now below replacement level. We are no longer having enough babies to replace older people as they die off. As a consequence, our population itself…
