Free Republic

Russia is going after TV series Game of Thrones, Sex and the City, and the Harry Potter franchise in an effort to purge what it claims is the promotion of "childfree ideology." The development comes months after Russia passed a bill banning what state-run news wires describe as the "public propaganda of the ideas of voluntarily choosing not to have children." It comes as Russia grapples with a dwindling birth rate and as President Vladimir Putin scrambles to encourage women to have children.

A phenomenon that Elon Musk has called 'the greatest risk to the future of civilization' just got worse, according to a new study. Musk - who has 14 children with four women - has for years warned about population collapse caused by baby bust in America and the West. The consensus was that countries needed a fertility rate of 2.1 children per one woman to continue growing - a concern given that the US's is at 1.62. But now researchers say that fertility target may be too low. A new study found populations may need a fertility rate of 2.7...

After years of ominous headlines about the world's shrinking birth rates, there's a bright spot. The US birth rate increased slightly in 2024, according to preliminary data from the CDC. The 1% rise in births was largely driven by moms in their early 40s, who gave birth to 2% more children in 2024 than in 2023. Moms in their 30s and late 20s also experienced slight increases in births. Brady Hamilton, the lead author of the report, told Business Insider that the stats are a continuation of the trends of the last three decades. Women in their late 20s to...

A Southern California mayor is under fire for wanting to eliminate his city’s homeless population by giving them “all the fentanyl they want” — a shocking remark he reinforced by calling for a federal “purge.” Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris shared his controversial views during a Feb. 25 city council meeting when a resident took issue with the city’s attempt to address the homeless crisis by “enclosing” the unhoused at an abandoned golf course near a residential neighborhood. “What I want to do is give them free fentanyl,” Parris said as he interrupted the woman’s comments, according to footage of...

The trend among Chinese women of postponing or eschewing marriage will undermine Beijing’s efforts to boost falling birth rates, says Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.New marriages in China reportedly plummeted by one-fifth last year, implying that the official number of births will likely fall from 9.54 million in 2024 to between 7.3 million and 7.8 million in 2025. Thus, while China represents 17.2 per cent of the global population, it will account for less than 6 per cent of births – comparable to Nigeria. Moreover, China’s fertility rate in 2025 is expected to fall to 0.9 births per...

Pronatalists, a controversial fringe group almost exclusively from the political right, claims that some of the most powerful people in the US government are sympathetic to their cause. But how much influence do they really have? Simone Collins is sitting in her 18th century cottage in Pennsylvania, dressed in a black pilgrim pinafore with a wide collar, bouncing one of her four children on her lap. It is 8.30am and she looks a little tired – she runs several businesses, a foundation and is currently pregnant with her fifth child, though she and her husband Malcolm plan to have more....

All of the 10 fastest growing counties with more than 20,000 residents between 2023 and 2024 were in five states (see Table below), according to just released Census Bureau data (Texas, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Arizona). Nine of the 10 fastest growers were in the now dominant southeast region. Taxes are well below the median in each of these states and they are all right to work states. Four of the fastest growing counties were in Texas. Kaufman County in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area had the largest percentage increase among the metropolitan areas. The nation’s fastest growing county...

One of our current cultural mantras is “you do you” - putting your personal desires over the greater good of others and society. In other words, living selfishly instead of selflessly.The manifestation of such a philosophy and its implications for our society is particularly acute when it comes to the institutions of marriage and family.As the late James Q. Wilson, former professor of government at Harvard University, wrote in his book, “The Marriage Problem”: “It is not money, but the family that is the foundation of public life. As it has become weaker, every structure built upon that foundation has...

Marriages in China plummeted by a fifth last year, the biggest drop on record, despite manifold efforts by authorities to encourage young couples to wed and have children to boost the country's declining population. Declining interest in getting married and starting a family has long been blamed on the high cost of childcare and education in China. On top of that, sputtering economic growth over the past few years has made it difficult for university graduates to find work and those that do have jobs feel insecure about their long-term prospects. More than 6.1 million couples registered for marriage last...

The ineffectiveness of pro-natal programs suggests raising the next generation isn’t a main priority of 21st-century adults.Hungary’s fertility rate dropped to a record low in 2024 despite its best efforts to reverse the birth dearth through economic incentives. Those advocating for similar policies in the United States could learn from Hungary’s unsuccessful pro-natal programs, which have a track record of negligible results everywhere they have been implemented.Nordic countries have the most generous family policies in the world, yet fewer children are born there almost every year. Even in socially conservative Poland, where the “Family 500+” program is widely popular, the...

Falling birth rates have put major global economies on the path toward "population collapse," according to a report from McKinsey Global Institute. By 2100, some counties could see their populations tumble 20%-50%.

New York City officials are reacting to a bombshell new report by The Post that shows an alarming 58,626 migrants with felony records or facing criminal charges are freely roaming the Big Apple, with some 670,000 in total across the country. Out of the 759,218 illegal border-crossers who now call the five boroughs home, 7.7% were either previously convicted of crimes or had criminal charges pending, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data. But instead of rounding up and deporting tens of thousands of known criminals, critics say the city has rolled out the red carpet with its...

The best way to promote fertility isn’t funding parenthood. It’s stopping the government programs that discourage people from having babies.Birth rates are plummeting in the United States and globally, forecasting a political and financial crisis. The most recent estimate predicts the average American woman will have 1.6 children in her lifetime, far below the rate of 2.1 required to maintain a steady population and even further below the 2.5 rate observed in the United States as recently as 1970.Many cultural and technological factors have contributed to this dramatic decline, and public policies play a role in shaping people’s decisions about...

There is no doubt that President-elect Donald Trump has won a sweeping victory, becoming only the second U.S. president to be elected to a second, non-consecutive term in one of the most remarkable political comeback stories in American history. But his victory in the Electoral College would’ve been even bigger if two factors hadn’t cheated him out of the additional votes he should have received. Why do I say this? Because of the jarring errors the Census Bureau admitted it made in its population numbers for multiple states, and its unfair inclusion of aliens in the population used for congressional...

A few days ago, I heard a Spanish politician complain about the birth rates, currently way less than the 2.1 per woman needed to maintain a population. Then, the lady went on to say that we will have to import immigrants to boost the births, and support our aging population.Enter former President Clinton and let’s hear what he had to say, in similar fashion:The plummeting American birthrate has become a partisan political issue.On the campaign trail Monday for Vice President Harris, former President Bill Clinton pointed to waning fertility rates as a pretext for more immigration. ‘We’ve got the lowest...

Global Baby BustWhy aren’t people having babies?Cutting across language, geography, and culture, one societal trend is beginning to loom larger than any other: falling birth rates.Millie Giles10/13/24 8:00AMFor a large part of the last century, after a post-war baby boom saw 76 million births over just 18 years in the US alone, fears of overpopulation were rife.In 1968, Stanford entomologist Paul Ehrlich published the landmark book “The Population Bomb,” which posited that overcrowding was not only the cause of many of the era’s issues, but would eventually lead to dystopian outcomes of famine, pollution, ecological disaster, and possibly even societal...

Although few yet see it coming, humans are about to enter a new era of history. Call it “the age of depopulation.” For the first time since the Black Death in the 1300s, the planetary population will decline. But whereas the last implosion was caused by a deadly disease borne by fleas, the coming one will be entirely due to choices made by people. With birthrates plummeting, more and more societies are heading into an era of pervasive and indefinite depopulation, one that will eventually encompass the whole planet. What lies ahead is a world made up of shrinking and...

Today, the working age population in almost half of U.S. metropolitan areas has declined due to demographic shifts, and this trend is set to continue.As a result, the U.S. workforce is projected to grow at just 0.2% annually over the next decade, roughly a quarter of the rate of markets like India and Mexico. Given the low birth rates and aging populations across many advanced economies, the world’s workforce is set to change significantly, with implications for economic and productivity growth.This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, shows the projected growth in major economies’ working age population, based on analysis...

The United States is reportedly on pace to hit another record in 2024 regarding the homeless population. Preliminary data gathered and reviewed by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) showed the number of people living in encampments, on streets, and in shelters has grown since 2023, the newspaper reported on Saturday. The article noted: The numbers come from more than 250 homeless-service organizations covering cities, metro areas and vast rural areas. They are meant to reflect homelessness as it existed on a single night early this year. The Journal’s count includes about 550,000 homeless people so far, up about 10% from...

In 1980, the Chinese government instituted what became known as the "one child" policy, forbidding families from having two or more children without special permission from the government. The government in Beijing feared what they described as an impending "demographic disaster" if the nation's population continued to grow at the current rate seen during that time. It was a brutal approach to what was being seen as an intractable problem. The rules were enforced vigorously, with many women being forced to have abortions or be sterilized. At first, the policy appeared to be having the intended effect and the country's...