(5:39)

Hard to believe, but it has been 18 years since the world wide financial meltdown known as these Great Recession. As with many crises or catastrophic situations, the consequences often take long to develop. One of the consequences of a crisis in 2007 is that 18 years later there are fewer children coming into adulthood to fill in holes in the workforce being left by retirees. 

There are also fewer 18 year olds going on to higher education. We are now beginning to see the some of the consequences of policies that have slowly hollowed out the middle class over decades but which had a real wallop as Republican policies led to financial failure across the world in 2007 and 2008.

As college enrollments slow there will consequently be shortages in college trained individuals to move into professional jobs and leadership roles. And as a compounding factor, the fewer children of this generation will also be having fewer children since many of the policies that produced this pull back in children will only be worsened by the coming administration.

From the Hechinger report, a web site that watches trends in education comes a report on the current state of higher education. They note that not only is the demographic cliff beginning to emerge, it will be a long term trend. 

“This so-called demographic cliff has been predicted ever since Americans started having fewer babies at the advent of the Great Recession around the end of 2007 — a falling birth rate that has not recovered since, except for a slight blip after the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Demographers say it will finally arrive in the fall of this year. That’s when recruiting offices will begin to confront the long-anticipated drop-off in the number of applicants from among the next class of high school seniors.

But the downturn isn’t just a problem for universities and colleges. It’s a looming crisis for the economy, with fewer graduates eventually coming through the pipeline to fill jobs that require college educations, even as international rivals increase the proportions of their populations with degrees.”

Expected bad policies from the upcoming administration will most likely contribute to expanding what already seems to be a trend. One of the methods of population replacement has long been immigration. Policies expressed by the new administration including deporting over 11 million immigrants should really stunt growth from that area. 

Population growth within a country is not only the way to keep jobs filled, but also to keep the supply of labor sufficient to keep the price of labor (wages) low for business owner. Right wing politicians have been decrying access to abortion for decades. The unstated reason was that as the amount of laborers decreased the price of labor rose.

One answer they had was to outlaw abortions. When Dobbs v. Jackson was decided in 2022 that greatly restricted abortions in the US there was an unexpected reaction in this country. Instead of leading to a rise in births it led to a rise in permanent sterilization among young people. Surprise, surprise!

The plummeting birth rate is not only a phenomena in the US, it is much bigger in other nations as the Times of India points out that birth rates in China and India are low enough that both countries are expected to be below one billion in population by the end of the century.

But back to the United States. Vox has an analysis on the reasons behind our falling birth rate. It looks like much of the problem is due to the policies that MAGA has foisted on this country:   

In the US, meanwhile, rhetoric aimed at getting people to have more children can ring hollow given a racist history in which white motherhood has been lauded while Black women’s fertility has been viewed as disordered and suspect, to the point that Black women have been forcibly sterilized. In a country where Black women die in childbirth at nearly three times the rate of white women, it’s impossible to hear calls to increase the birth rate without questioning who they’re really aimed at. Black women have always understood, “You’re not talking about me when you’re saying these things,” said Regina Davis Moss, president of the nonprofit In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda. Indeed, college-educated Black women in the US have fewer children than their white counterparts, with researchers speculating that concerns about maternal mortality could be a reason why.

Snip

The lack of family-friendly policies like paid leave and subsidized child care could also contribute to falling fertility in the US. There’s evidence, for example, that some people are having fewer children than they want. In a 2018 US poll, about a quarter of respondents said they had or were planning to have fewer kids than they would ideally like to have. Of those, 64 percent cited the cost of child care as a reason. Ballooning costs — of child care, housing, college, and more — are an issue around the world, with South Korea and China topping the list of most expensive places to raise a child. “When you ask people, why aren’t you having the kids that you want, we do see economic reasons come to the fore,” said Gemmill.

It is to be seen whether lowering birth rates will be good or bad. My take is that there will be some of each. But since the world is so stressed as it is, it seems lowering the population wouldn’t hurt. Like it or not it looks like we are about to find out.