Why do we need to import our replacements?

In the United States and most of the “West” we are below replacement total fertility rates.  While researching for this newsletter post I stumbled across something quite interesting.  The CIA.GOV website has a chart that is filterable and downloadable showing estimated total fertility rates for almost EVERY country on EARTH.  I knew the CIA was tracking some strange stuff, but FERTILITY RATES?!

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/total-fertility-rate/country-comparison/

What is something you notice about countries with very high fertility rates?  You have to get to country #16 on the list to get out of the continent of Africa and only 3 in the top 30 are outside of this continent.  You tend to see countries that have lower GPD and less access to birth control have higher fertility rates.  A replacement birth rate is agreed upon to be 2.1 children per woman or higher per the NIH.  How many countries out of the 227 on the list are at or above that?  96.  If you filter for North America and Europe, how many countries are at replacement?  Take a wild guess……. 1.  The Faroe Islands, or a tiny island group between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic.  Add in East and Southeast Asia you get 6.  If you aren’t alarmed by this you should be!

But then, what in the west is encouraging women and men to get together and have kids?  I don’t really see very many things encouraging it.  In fact, I am constantly bombarded by messaging that we should have less kids.  There is constant pressure on relationships to keep men and women apart.    Serious relationships?  Gross… just worry about yourself, do what feels good today.  You can always find someone later when you are ready to settle down…. Right?

We are also hit over the head with messaging about how more humans is bad for the environment.  Having kids is environmentally irresponsible.  The climate can’t support more people.  There won’t be enough food. 

Have you heard any of these yourself? 

So, what does a government do when it is staring long-term population collapse in the face?  We import more people to replace those that we lost, instead of birthing them.  If you ever wondered why the borders are WIDE open and nobody in charge seems to care about the consequences, you have to ask yourself, “Do they really not know?”  Or is it that we are mistakenly thinking we understand their motives?