birth rate

A common theme in movies that depict the future is that the population on the earth reached a tipping point and that the earth could not sustain as much life as it had. While that is not an unrealistic situation, I think the opposite situation is more likely in the near term. I think that in the next one hundred years that most countries that currently have extremely low birth rates and extremely restrictive immigration policies, which are mostly the rich industrialized nations, will buckle under the weight of their aging populations.

Among industrialized nations the United States is actually near the top of the list in regard to birth rates, so all is not lost. I have read some explanations regarding this, largely concerning lower rates of abortions in the United States than in other countries. I think abortions probably do have something to do with it, but I also think that the large numbers of people who belong to religions that discourage other forms of birth control (Catholicism and Mormonism spring to mind) also have a significant impact. Whatever the reason the United States has a birth rate that allows for the population to stay constant. Since more people immigrate to the United States than emigrate away from it, this is what accounts for U.S. population growth. For this reason, I am actually largely in favor of decreasing barriers to legal immigration.

Other nations are not so fortunate. One example is Japan, which regularly rates among the lowest birth rates in the world. I came across the following story about one Japanese company, Canon, which is attempting to do its part to increase the birth rate in Japan. It is a drop in the bucket, but it's a start.