Western culture: Is it death by fertility rate?

Toronto Sun ^ | December 10, 2006 | PETER WORTHINGTON

[NYer]

In Maclean’s magazine last month, Mark Steyn wrote a plaintive piece about how his new book, America Alone, was unavailable in Canadian bookstores — an apparent victim of a fear of militant Muslim reprisals.

The Chapters-Indigo chain subsequently insisted it wasn’t giving Steyn’s book the Mein Kampf treatment (banned from being sold in the chain by the boss, Heather Reisman), but that they hadn’t anticipated the popularity of America Alone (a best-seller) and hadn’t ordered enough copies.

Last I heard, the book was in its fourth printing and, happy to say, a phone check with Chapters indicates they’ve now got plenty of the books. Good news, because in my view, America Alone is not a polemic against Muslims in the way that the late Oriana Fallaci’s The Force of Reason or Melanie Phillips’ Londonistan are.

Rather, Steyn seems to be saying the rise of militant or extremist Islam is partly our fault – the non-Muslim world’s passivity or acquiescence to outrageous acts or intemperate demands.

True, he sees Europe being overwhelmed by Muslims — not because of violence, but because of Europe’s declining birthrate and the high fertility rate of Muslims. That’s a far cry from legions of jihadists sweeping over the continent, intimidating all in its path.

For a stable population — that is, no growth — a country has to have a fertility rate of at least 2.1 live births per woman. Of all developed countries, only the U.S. meets that standard. Canada’s fertility rate is 1.48 while Europe as a whole is even lower at 1.38. Japan’s is 1.32, Russia’s 1.14, and so on throughout Europe. Steyn calls it “the self-extinction of civilization.” In other words, there is no “population bomb” that many saw threatening the world and its resources.

But Muslim countries have a live birth rate ranging from five to seven per woman that already has had a dramatic effect on Europe.

For example, 10% of France’s population is Muslim.

Yet of citizens under the age of 20, 30% are Muslim.

In the cities that ratio rises to 45%. So when the “youth” of Paris and other centres erupt in violence and burn cars, rampage the streets, rape and vandalize, statistically it’s mostly young Muslims.

Huge problem

In Britain and Europe, around 15% of the population is under 15 years old, while in countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, 40% to 50% of the population is under 15. It’s going to be a huge problem for all countries when the grandparents outnumber the grandkids.

Demographically, Steyn feels groups with soaring birthrates will eventually dominate today’s developed world. Without a shot being fired.

With the U.S. about the only country with a viable birthrate that will keep its population from stagnating, the developed world has virtually surrendered to Muslim militancy.

As a people, we may fret that moderate Muslims are reluctant to speak out against Muslim terrorism and intimidation when they occur, for fear of reprisals.

But non-Muslims are even more loath to risk controversy. So how can moderate Muslims be blamed for their silence?

Steyn is more hawkish than many, especially in the media. Generally, most of the media don’t want trouble, or to appear insensitive or intolerant. After 9/11, most media tried to keep things in perspective, and not incite vengeance or reprisals on Muslims.

Fair enough. World leaders made pilgrimages to mosques to set an example.

Cartoon fiasco

While that discouraged anti-Muslim hysteria, it didn’t alleviate anti-West passions. Rather, it increased intimidation — witness scurrying for cover over the Danish cartoons fiasco, which was never about religion, but about politics and ideology. Today, not much has changed.

We still try to show sensitivity and understanding.

Often, cowardice is camouflaged as principle. It’s also a rule of nature, that if you can be intimidated, you will be intimidated.

That doesn’t affect the demographic reality that the world’s population will peak before 2050 and then start to decline. Read Steyn’s book for his answer to the world’s most aggravating problem.

[Rutles4Ever]

Manipulating that cycle with synthetic drugs/contraceptives is not.

[Prokopton]

Twist yourself anyway you want, but what you just posted is contradictory to this:

"each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life".

"Natural Planning" not being birth control makes as much sense as John Kerry, after many years of marriage and two children, getting an annulment, also approved by the Catholic Church.

[Puddleglum]

I think it's death by feminism, with feminism being just another a useful dupe of the consumer culture. There are other useful dupes, and they'd be shocked to see that they actually keep close company with one another.

[Mrs Ivan]

For example, 10% of France’s population is Muslim. Yet of citizens under the age of 20, 30% are Muslim. In the cities that ratio rises to 45%. So when the “youth” of Paris and other centres erupt in violence and burn cars, rampage the streets, rape and vandalize, statistically it’s mostly young Muslims. Huge problem In Britain and Europe, around 15% of the population is under 15 years old, while in countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, 40% to 50% of the population is under 15. It’s going to be a huge problem for all countries when the grandparents outnumber the grandkids.

This sudden cut is misleading. The Muslim population of the UK is around 1.6 million, as has often been pointed out by my better half. Likewise, the immigrant population from Eastern Europe is increasing - an immigrant population that to the best of my knowledge has not caught the no.babies disease that typifies the Western world and particularly the US.

Think, before you write off the UK and many of the Scandinavian countries who have as little to do with the EU as possible and who are in no way about to be shariafied.

With the U.S. about the only country with a viable birthrate that will keep its population from stagnating,

And that would be due to Spanish speaking illegal immigrants. If we follow the logic of this article you will all be speaking Spanish in ten years time.

That is not true of the US and nor is it true that the UK will be islamic in ten years.

We are on the same side, people! Listen to divisive rubbish, spread divisive rubbish, believe divisive rubbish, and all you are doing is helping the islamist.

[NYer]

Wouldn't it just be much easier and follow God's way: "Be Fruitful and Multiply", as expounded on in Humane Vitae?

It's a trend that is beginning to draw attention ... and interest.

Meet the Duggars - 16 with another due any day now.

The Chernenko clan - #17 was born last year

and here is a christian web site that encourages families to "be fuitful and multiply"

Quiverful

[ProCivitas]

"The worst are full of passionate intensity, while the best lack all conviction." Is it Yeats ? Might not be an exact quote, but seems applicable anyway.

[I Like Lincoln]

Maybe this worked when most people lived on farms and raised chickens.

Expecting people to listen to these pronouncements while making $15/hour and living in a 2 bedroom apartment is completely ridiculous and a major reason people are leaving Catholicism.

[FYREDEUS]

The larger threat to Western culture as a result of demographics is NOT the high Muslim fertility rate that white America seems so worried about in the wake of 9-11, nor even our own declining fertility rates but the ALREADY enormous population of CHINA. Heck they already have a potential military pool demographic larger the ENTIRE population of North America. Fortunately they don't have the air/sea lift capability to apply it transoceanically. But they may not need it - just because they can't ship SOLDIERS here in a massed invasion doesnt mean that we arent vulnerable to the vast Chinese numerical superiority; the rope upon which we may hang ourselves could be our own airlines transporting not PLA soldiers but PRC civilian EMIGRES. Consider; if Chinese emigration were allowed by other [Western] countries to 'export' a 'mere' 5,000,000 Chinese people into each of the Western democratically governed countries 100 largest cities it would only reduce China's population from a billion and half to a 'mere' billion people [the same as when I was teenager] - little damage to Chinas industrial productivity and economic growth would result but China could then take over the entire planet at the ballet box without ever firing a shot in only a single generation or two. I see this happening already in Toronto where bank machines now have menus in Mandarin as well as our official English and French [in some areas of the city Mandarin is listed ABOVE our OFFICIAL languages on ATM displays] and there are large areas of the city including entire malls that have predominantly or in some cases exclusively Chinese signage [I'm not talking about a normal urban 'Chinatown' but large parts of our suburbia]...and thanks to our 'multicultural' immigration policies influenced by the political and economic power the increasing Chinese-Canadian population already wields here we are expecting a MILLION more Chinese emigres into Canada's major city of <4 million today... In a couple decades you should expect Toronto will be nothing less than 'Beijing North' - consider the national security implications of THAT my American friends; unlike Russia placing nuclear missiles off your shores in '62 the PRC is now happily placing millions of its people on your northern border. And the Chinese can do that EVERYWHERE foreign governments [ours] allow them to without even noticing the people that leave...but we will notice the flood of them that arrives. Stop worrying about America exporting jobs to China and start worrying about the Chinese exporting PEOPLE before you are inundated; wasn't it Sun Tzu who said: "Those who use fire to assist their attacks are intelligent. Those who use inundations to assist their attacks are powerful" The Chinese NEVER forget Sun-Tzu...and they have the true power of a vast HUMAN inundation to sweep away the West in a true Clash of Civilizations which is not with the Islamic World but with the Eastern Civilization that has been the true enemy of Western Civilization for >4000 years. That is far from the only threat to the West that China can muster...but as a non-military one it is especially difficult to oppose without the liberal media villifying even mentioning it as "anti-multiculturalism" or even 'racist'. And it's one the West can't defeat by increasing our own fertility rates either...unless EVERY family in America and the other Western nations were forced by law almost the reverse of Chinas to have a dozen kids each ["Eight is enough" NOT] it would take a LOOOOOOOOONG time for example for America to QUINTUPLE it's population to 1.5 BILLION and the Western economy as presently constituted at single-digit GDP growth rates couldnt support the effort [IF large scale space industrialization/L5 colonization efforts had been started by America/the West in '77 as we COULD have then we COULD afford to...but we didnt; choosing VCRs and SUVs and IPods instead of moonbases and He3 fusion, microgravity manufacturing and O'Neill colonies with exponential economic growth]. Dont get sidetracked by Americas PRESENT conflict with the radicals in the Islamic World and miss the BIGGER threat that is coming next...or we'll all regret it forever when Humanity is under the bootheel of 'New Celestial Kingdom' Chinese overlords.

[FYREDEUS]

grrr something messed up the paragraphs...apologies I do know how and did make them...:-(

[Ben Ficklin]

From the CIA Factbook:

US
Birth rate- 14.14 per 1000 of population
Fertility rate- 2.09
Immigration rate- 3.18 per 1000
Population growth rate- 0.91%

Canada
Birth rate- 10.78 per 1000
Fertility Rate- 1.61
Immigration Rate- 5.85 per 1000
population growth rate- 0.88%

Mexico
Birth Rate- 20.69 per 1000
Fertlity Rate- 2.42
Immigration rate- -4.32 per 1000
population groth rate- 1.16%

[paulat]

Do you know how to make paragraphs?

[FYREDEUS]

The larger threat to Western culture as a result of demographics is NOT the high Muslim fertility rate that white America seems so worried about in the wake of 9-11, nor even our own declining fertility rates but the ALREADY enormous population of CHINA. Heck they already have a potential military pool demographic larger the ENTIRE population of North America. Fortunately they don't have the air/sea lift capability to apply it transoceanically. But they may not need it - just because they can't ship SOLDIERS here in a massed invasion doesnt mean that we arent vulnerable to the vast Chinese numerical superiority; the rope upon which we may hang ourselves could be our own airlines transporting not PLA soldiers but PRC civilian EMIGRES. Consider; if Chinese emigration were allowed by other [Western] countries to 'export' a 'mere' 5,000,000 Chinese people into each of the Western democratically governed countries 100 largest cities it would only reduce China's population from a billion and half to a 'mere' billion people [the same as when I was teenager] - little damage to Chinas industrial productivity and economic growth would result but China could then take over the entire planet at the ballet box without ever firing a shot in only a single generation or two. I see this happening already in Toronto where bank machines now have menus in Mandarin as well as our official English and French [in some areas of the city Mandarin is listed ABOVE our OFFICIAL languages on ATM displays] and there are large areas of the city including entire malls that have predominantly or in some cases exclusively Chinese signage [I'm not talking about a normal urban 'Chinatown' but large parts of our suburbia]...and thanks to our 'multicultural' immigration policies influenced by the political and economic power the increasing Chinese-Canadian population already wields here we are expecting a MILLION more Chinese emigres into Canada's major city of <4 million today... In a couple decades you should expect Toronto will be nothing less than 'Beijing North' - consider the national security implications of THAT my American friends; unlike Russia placing nuclear missiles off your shores in '62 the PRC is now happily placing millions of its people on your northern border. And the Chinese can do that EVERYWHERE foreign governments [ours] allow them to without even noticing the people that leave...but we will notice the flood of them that arrives. Stop worrying about America exporting jobs to China and start worrying about the Chinese exporting PEOPLE before you are inundated; wasn't it Sun Tzu who said: "Those who use fire to assist their attacks are intelligent. Those who use inundations to assist their attacks are powerful" The Chinese NEVER forget Sun-Tzu...and they have the true power of a vast HUMAN inundation to sweep away the West in a true Clash of Civilizations which is not with the Islamic World but with the Eastern Civilization that has been the true enemy of Western Civilization for >4000 years. That is far from the only threat to the West that China can muster...but as a non-military one it is especially difficult to oppose without the liberal media villifying even mentioning it as "anti-multiculturalism" or even 'racist'. And it's one the West can't defeat by increasing our own fertility rates either...unless EVERY family in America and the other Western nations were forced by law almost the reverse of Chinas to have a dozen kids each ["Eight is enough" NOT] it would take a LOOOOOOOOONG time for example for America to QUINTUPLE it's population to 1.5 BILLION and the Western economy as presently constituted at single-digit GDP growth rates couldnt support the effort [IF large scale space industrialization/L5 colonization efforts had been started by America/the West in '77 as we COULD have then we COULD afford to...but we didnt; choosing VCRs and SUVs and IPods instead of moonbases and He3 fusion, microgravity manufacturing and O'Neill colonies with exponential economic growth]. Dont get sidetracked by Americas PRESENT conflict with the radicals in the Islamic World and miss the BIGGER threat that is coming next...or we'll all regret it forever when Humanity is under the bootheel of 'New Celestial Kingdom' Chinese overlords.

[paulat]

I withdraw my comment ;)

[FYREDEUS]

Yes I do know how to make paragraphs and I DID make paragraphs BOTH attempts but it is posting them all crammed together and I have no idea why?

[paulat]

Freepmail me your text, and I will help you.

[Vicomte13]

You touch on a truth here.

For the population to grow, MOST couples have to have THREE children. Children only come in whole numbers, and given infant mortality, celibacy, fertility problems, etc., most people who have children have to have three, not two, to balance the couples who have 2 or one or none, and pull the average up to 2.2.

The median family of 5 in America earns just shy of $51,000 a year family income. That means that there MUST be public schools, and there MUST be medical insurance programs or safety nets for people to have the number of children they have to have for the population to remain stable and to grow.

Truth is, poor Hispanics, especially, have kids because they have the social safety net, but the middle of the middle class? To have three kids would leave them POOR.

So, we either redistribute wealth to help the middle have children, or we die out. Hoping that the race will not die out because npeople will do their part and provide the children, but society not do its part and provide the support: this is naive economics. We don't economically support large families in a world of expensive housing and expenive schooling, and so we don't get large families.

It isn't hard to see, it's just hard to square with what conservatives say they want economically.

[I Like Lincoln]

Good analysis. I read an article on NRO last week calling for more taxation of the lower and middle income earners and less taxation on high incomes.

Unbelievable....

[Puddleglum]

Expecting people to listen to these pronouncements while making $15/hour and living in a 2 bedroom apartment is completely ridiculous and a major reason people are leaving Catholicism.

Have you ever seen one of those pictures of a snake eating its tail (ourobos?). I think that's what happens to an economy when there are fewer and fewer people demanding more and more stuff per person (and there's less and less snake to be gulped down as the population shrinks). If extra people=extra producers, then there is no problem.

My dad supported a large family the hard way, and I am glad he chose to have more than 2.5 kids or I wouldn't be here.

Society spends more on images of itself than it does on actual people. Hence the increasing divorce rate/bloating government budget/shrinking individual autonomy.

Life is an investment that the next generation won't be as selfish and stupid as this one, I suppose.

[PeterFinn]

With over 300 million children lost to abortion it is no wonder the West is in decline.

[NYer]

With over 300 million children lost to abortion it is no wonder the West is in decline.

Bingo! And you won't find Muslim women aborting their children.