One Reason Why Large Families Are a Good Thing

The Population Bomb

 Over the course of three weeks in 1968 Paul Ehrlich wrote a paperback entitled The Population Bomb.  In his book Ehrlich stated that the earth was overpopulated and that this would have dire effects on the world in the next two decades.  Ehrlich predicted that “hundreds of millions of people [were] going to starve to death” in the 1970s and 80s, that there would be no oil by the 1980s, that pollution would increase, and that the environment in general would be decimated.  Humanity was doomed, Ehrlich said, and the outcomes were unavoidable, because people had been irresponsible and had decided to have too many children.

What People Were Led to Believe

The book soon became a bestseller—a kind of Bible for many college students of the day—and the impact that it has had on the world has been culture-changing.  Ehrlich convinced a large portion of humanity that the world was overpopulated and, as a result, led people to believe that that growing populations in general were a negative thing.  That made childbearing look bad.  More babies meant death to humanity and the environment.  Populations needed to be controlled to prevent calamities from happening.  Ultimately, Ehrlich’s book helped to change peoples’ perception of the family from positive to negative.

Why It’s False

In 1968 the world’s population was 3.35 billion.  As of 2017 it is 7.35 billion. That is a difference of 49 years and 4 billion people and as of yet none of Ehrlich’s predications have come true.  Hundreds of millions did not starve to death in the 1970s; the 70s and 80s actually saw an age of prosperity.  We haven’t run out of oil, pollution is better than it was in the 60s, and the environment has not been decimated.  Ehrlich was just flat wrong.  The world is not yet overpopulated, 4 billion people later.

Since 1968, world populations have continued to grow, but this is not due to a rise in fertility rates (the average number of children born to an average woman over her lifetime), as Ehrlich stated.  As a matter of fact, the number of babies being born today is not enough to keep world populations at a rate of replacement.  The minimum fertility rate required for population replacement is 2.13.  In the United States today the fertility rate is 1.8 and in many other countries it is even lower.  The reason for population growth is actually a lengthened life expectancy due to technological advances. 

Consequences

If current fertility rates stay where they’re at, the world’s population will reach it’s peak by about 2050 and then start to decline—and people still believe that populations need to be controlled.  If large populations really did decimate the earth, depopulation would be a great thing, but Ehrlich was wrong.  If the population of the world starts to decline exponentially, as it will if fertility stays at sub-replacement rates, we will see the ruination of our economy and society as we know it because these things depend upon currently decreasing human capital.

A decrease in populations also means that some cultures are at risk of becoming totally extinct.  Much growth in European nations today comes solely from immigration, putting European culture at risk.  Think this can’t happen?  Take a look at the Romans.  In the time of Julius Caesar fertility rates were scarily low.  Eventually laws were even passed, requiring young men to marry and raise families, but overall people refused to worry about having children and Rome fell because it did not have enough citizens to support it.

Conclusion

In the face of economic and social decline, there is an answer.  One reason why fertility rates are below replacement level is because people think that large families are a bad thing, that having more children means fewer resources for themselves and for future generations, but if this belief and other negative beliefs about childbearing and the family could be reversed, and, then fertility rates would again start to rise and the human family would be not only saved, but a it would also be a lot happier and healthier.

N.B.

While this writing is my own, these ideas and facts are not.  This is simply my own version of what I have learned about populations from the documentary "The New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter" and from subsequent discussion in my BYU-Idaho Family Relations class.  I give them 95% credit for this post :)