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The People Paradox (56 min) was aired on MPT (Annapolis, MD) on Dec. 21, 2006. We have lately heard a lot of concern about the lower reproduction rates in Europe and Japan, well below replacement rate. Russia will lose 20% of its population by 2050, and Japan’s rate is 1.3 children per family. More women have joined Japanese corporate culture, which is so demanding that families cannot afford the time to have children. There is also the problem of “parasite singles” who deny becoming “Christmas cakes” at 25. In Japanese culture, families, especially women, are expected to take care of their aging parents, so they are heading toward a dead end.
India has a birth rate of 3 per child, but needs to reduce it further to get hold a reasonable population level. The educated south has a rate of 2, but much of the rest of the country has an illiterate patriarchal society with arranged marriages, dowries, and burnings of women who fail to bear male heirs, which keeps the population exploding and impoverished.
Sub Saharan Africa still has a huge birth rate, providing reproduction age men, but AIDS is creating a “knob” style pyramid, especially in Kenya. AIDS is often transmitted in marriage, and a new gel may kill HIV and allow children to be conceived more safely.
The United States has an almost sufficient replacement rate, and replenishes its workforce partly with immigration, so its demographic shrinkwrap is not as bad as Europe’s (despite the social security and Medicare debate).
Of course, all of these observations are collective in nature. People in poorer societies behave according to the familial demands of their cultures. People in richer countries have other options for self-fulfillment, and it leaves some career women and homosexual men in the position of being regarded as potential moral parasites. All of this makes up an “inconvenient truth 2” perhaps. Ultimately, we are left with debating how global problems translate into moral demands upon individuals.
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