Franke: Population Worries
by Mark Franke
During the 50 plus years of my adult lifetime, world population has been an issue but with a change in perspective. In the 1960s the concern was uncontrolled and unsupportable growth especially in the poorer parts of the globe. The doomsayers predicted mass starvation and other unpleasant outcomes unless the rate of growth was not slowed or preferably reversed. Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb: Population Control or Race to Oblivion?” was the bible for those foreseeing disaster.
Nowadays, we don’t hear much about that. Instead, a new concern is that we are facing the polar opposite—depopulation, especially in the West. Birth rates in many nations are inadequate to maintain current populations. The United States is expected to begin a backward population slide by 2080 while nations such as China, India and most of Europe are already below their replacement rate.
So what, you may ask. Wouldn’t it be better for the planet if it had to support fewer consumers competing for limited and nonrenewable resources? That was the question addressed by my Socratic discussion group at our June meeting. We looked at the issue from both the moral and practical sides of the equation.
The practical issue became immediately obvious as one of the younger members of our group recited what it costs in 2025 to have a baby, raise a child and prepare him or her for adulthood. This continuum of child-rearing financial requirements begins with the hospital bill that comes home with a new baby and continues through the sticker shock of getting the first college tuition bill. For middle class parents it is not workable without a two-income household, which brings its own incremental cost in childcare expenses.
Economists speak of opportunity cost as being the only true costing model. What must you give up in order to have something else? This is where the moral aspect comes into play. Bank account aside, what else must the prospective parents forego in welcoming the new baby? The mother’s career? The parents’ social life? Personal free time for the parents’ hobbies? And I don’t need to mention the chronic loss of sleep as babies awaken during the night, demanding attention.
My Socratic group has members across all ages, with many of us now retired. We remember what life was like during our childhood and when we started our families. What we all could attest to is that societal priorities have changed, and not for the better. Priority is given now to the individual over the family and the community. Self-absorption has replaced self-sacrifice as part of our societal DNA.
One member of our group, with tongue in cheek I hope, asserted that our cultural mantra has become “I know what I want and I want it now!” This is at least superficially true, as one can see how many young people remain single and career focused, without any apparent permanent attachments. The group wondered if this might be not by choice but by acquiescence to a society that reinforces these attitudes and denigrates more traditional ones. As exhibit number one, depression rates are highest among young adults and suicide is the second leading cause of death for this cohort.
Loneliness has replaced belonging in our culture. Belonging insists on commitment, at times foregoing personal wants to support the needs of others in the family or community. This is not a giving up as much as it is a giving to if your perspective is right.
There has to be a better way. Even the federal government has recognized the problem and is considering actions to increase the birth rate. The tax code offers increasing deductions and credits to encourage larger families. Now we have Trump accounts as part of the One Big Beautiful Bil Act, offering a $1,000 deposit into a qualified account for each new baby. Just think how this might solve the Social Security insolvency crisis, making deposits at birth as true retirement accounts instead of the income transfer shell game that the program has become.
But this is America in 2025. Not everyone is on board with the importance of reversing the birth rate decline. Anti-natalism is a current ideology that still believes the world’s population ought to be significantly decreased, human beings being bad for the planet. The most radical gleefully anticipate the extinction of the human race but fortunately they remain on the fringe.
Back in the day when Ehrlich and his population explosion fellow travelers were doing their best Chicken Little impersonations, someone proposed a simple question to be put to each set of prospective parents. Can you afford to support this child? If so, you are not contributing to overpopulation.
Today that question should be modified to ask if the parents are willing to sacrifice to support the child. Declining birth rates suggest the answer is too often “No.”
Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
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