Our civilization’s death wish

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Aug 13, 2025

As the world’s fertility rate plunges toward the replacement level, with every indication that it will continue dropping, the mainstream media have belatedly noticed the danger that lies behind that trend. It’s bad for the economy.

As we grow older, the workforce will shrink, since there won’t be enough younger people replacing those who retire. That in turn means a shortage of active wage-earners paying into the Social Security system to support the payments to their elders. More ominously, as we older people decline in health, and need more care, there won’t be enough young doctors and nurses to serve us.

None of these problems should come as a surprise. In his 1987 book The Birth Dearth, Ben Wattenberg predicted all of them. But in the US, at least, the crisis has been camouflaged by the arrival of immigrants in unprecedented numbers, providing a stop-gap solution to the economic problem.

But actually the economic problem should be the least of our worries when we ponder the “birth dearth.” Because a society that does not have children is a society headed for extinction—a civilization with a death wish.

Significantly, in the world today, the lowest fertility rates are found, generally speaking, in the most affluent countries. In other words, the societies that enjoy the greatest benefits from our global economic system are the ones that seem most intent on societal suicide. With the single exception of Israel, every wealthy country is now below the replacement level—in most cases, by a substantial margin.

What should this tell us: that the societies at the top of the civilizational heap today are—more or less consciously, now—arranging for that civilization’s inevitable decline? Does our affluence inspire a death wish?

Sociologists and zoologists and anthropologists and political theorists agree that the most basic drive in man—or in any other animal—is the instinct for self-preservation. We all want to live, of course. But beyond that, we want to preserve our species. At times, in fact, the urge to protect future generations overpowers the instinct for self-protection; parents sacrifice their lives to save their children.

Something different is happening in our society. Notice how the dangers of the birth dearth are expressed first in terms of how it will harm us, the older people, who may not have enough help to guarantee a comfortable retirement. We may give some thought to how depopulation will impoverish our own children, but we rarely think of their children: of the great-great-great grandchildren we will never see.

This too is a new development, I think. In the past, adults thought of themselves as links in a chain that stretch backward and forward across countless generations. Think of the lords of the European nobility, who saw it as their duty to pass along the family’s estate, intact if not improved, to future generations. Those aristocrats had a desire to preserve not only themselves but their families; not only their wealth but their way of life.

In the small New England town where I live, there are tracts of open land, and from time to time a developer proposes to build on them. Immediately, some of the town’s residents suggest that the site would be ideal for housing for the elderly, or a subdivision restricted to owners over 55, or perhaps for small “starter” homes for newlyweds. The point is that any such development would bring in new homeowners—new taxpayers, to ease the burden on current residents—but no new children. Children, you see, are a burden, because most children would go to the public schools, and with the annual cost per student headed toward $20,000, a new family that arrives in town with three or four school-age children will not pay nearly enough in property taxes to offset the educational costs.

You might question, at this point, why public-school costs are so high. Indeed that question is raised quite frequently at our annual town meetings. But then someone stands up and says, “It’s for our children,” and any resistance to the soaring educational costs evaporates. No one dares to suggest that we, as a community, do not care about our children. We dote on our children. We want what is best for them. But we don’t want any more children. And paradoxically, that may be what would be best for them, and for us.