Our birth rate has plummeted (tip to Instapundit):
America’s demographic edge has a variety of sources: our famous religiosity, our vast interior and wide-open spaces (and the four-bedroom detached houses they make possible), our willingness to welcome immigrants (who tend to have higher birthrates than the native-born).
And it clearly is an edge. Today’s babies are tomorrow’s taxpayers and workers and entrepreneurs, and relatively youthful populations speed economic growth and keep spending commitments affordable. Thanks to our relative demographic dynamism, the America of 50 years hence may not only have more workers per retiree than countries like Japan and Germany, but also have more than emerging powers like China and Brazil.
If, that is, our dynamism persists. But that’s no longer a sure thing. American fertility plunged with the stock market in 2008, and it hasn’t recovered.
Yeah, I assumed a demographic edge when I wrote of China's challenge to our economic supremacy.
One can hope this is a temporary reaction to the Great Recession of 2008 and the Great FUBAR of 2009-2012 that interfered with recovery that would have happened if our government had simply done nothing but watched Adam Smith lead the recovery.
But what if it isn't? Reportedly, illegal immigration from Mexico is drying up due to our economy and their declining birth rate which reduces the pressure to come here. So illegal immigration won't make up for our declining birth rate. Can we increase legal immigration from other parts of the planet to make up for these factors?
For years, I've kind of assumed that Europe's fertility issue would be addressed with cloning while Japan's fertility issue would be addressed with robots.
What do we do if fertility rates and immigration dry up here?
