Baby Gap

How to Boost Birthrates and Avoid Demographic Decline

By Steven Philip Kramer

(Professor of Grand Strategy at the National Defense University’s Industrial College of the Armed Forces)

Foreign Affairs, May/June 2012

This article focuses on the decrease and sustainability of population growth in economically developed countries and policies that those countries are implementing to increase their fertility rate. Keep in mind that this essay is opinionated even thou it contains mostly facts. This article starts with clearly stating the dangers of low fertility rates causing lower birthrates with leads to each generation being smaller than the last one and with life expectancy reaching record highs it will lead to an increase in dependency ratio. Mentioning the age distribution will look like a upside down pyramid, with more elderly people depending on the young. All of that will lead to unpleasant policies like “cutting benefits, raising the retirement age, or hiking taxes”. Steven Kramer believes that “Low birthrates threaten not only the viability of the developed world’s welfare states but also developed countries’ very survival.”  Many countries are close to falling in what demographers call “the low fertility trap” what Steven Kramer describes as “a vicious cycle whereby fewer and fewer women have fewer and fewer children, leading to an accelerating spiral of depopulation.” Some countries like Austria and Germany may have already fallen in to the trap. A solution to that problem might be mass immigration to meet their economies’ labor needs, but immigration on such a scale is unacceptable. By looking at history it is proven that the government can increase or stabilize its birthrates by implementing the right pronatalist policies, such as “available high-quality and affordable child care, offering families financial support, and supporting mothers who pursue careers.” The article goes on in a section titled “MAKING MOTHERHOOD WORK” that looks at the successful examples of France and Sweden that have increasing birthrates. Making motherhood work looks at how France and Sweden implemented policies to deal with the change in women’s role in society and economy, Seven mentions Gunnar Myrdal and his book that was published in 1934 saying “If Sweden was to boost its low birthrates, women had to be able to both raise children and have careers- a revolutionary idea at the time.” France and Sweden fully support families and gives women the opportunity to peruse carriers thru social support. For example “The Swedish model provides new parents with over one tear of paid leave based on their salaries” Sweden offer’s public preschool, and allow women return to their job after a maternity leave. In France they provide more financial incentives and provide a free preschool. The French and Swedish systems are supposed to make it easier for parents to balance work and family. The Second part of the article is titled “GONE BABIES GONE” and focuses on Japan, Italy and their failure to increase their fertility rates. Italy for example has a problem where its “welfare state was already stretched to capacity” when the problem of low birthrate was identified. Italy also has the Catholic church supporting the stay at home motherhood, and because of the economic crisis younger people have harder time finding jobs and stay in their parents’ house till they are 30 years old. Therefore thy have fewer or no children and start families later in their lives. Similar issues are happening in Japan, where women have to choose between career or family and therefore postpone or never have a family and if they do they have fewer children. And the laws like “the 1994 Angel Plan, the 1995 Child Care and Family Care Leave Act, and the 1999 New Angel Plan” that are meant to help are often unenforced. The third section of the article is titled “DEMOGRAPHICS AND DESTINY”. Steven Kramer explains that there is not jet a population crisis, because we are still not beginning to feel it's effects and therefore politicians have no interest in to fixing the low birth rates. Some even think that lower birth rates might be good for the environment but Steven Kramer believes that “That they would admittedly do, but environmental degradation is a lesser threat than depopulation.” Other believing that the government should not regulate such a privet matter or that the problem will fix it self. For Courtiers to increase their birth rates they need to implant population policies and for those population policies to be successful they need finical support, the same way Sweden and France give 4% of their GDP to supporting families, and they need to be implemented in time as a long term investment, because “when it comes to population policies, there is no such thing as short term success.” Another important factor is Gender equality, immigration regulation, and acceptance of non-traditional family structures. And as a last warning from Steven Kramer “Time matters. If they (Nations with low birth rates) wait too long and get caught in the low fertility trap, they could find themselves in an uncharted era of depopulation that will be eerily different from anything before. And escaping that scenario will be difficult, if not impossible.”