Our economic
realities could be driving
humankind to extinction

Study suggests some human ethnicities
could die out in as little as 700 years

By Patrick Vaillancourt, Contributor

uestion of whether or not to have a child. Children can bring couples and
families closer together, bring joy and meaning into one’s life, and allow
parents to leave an earthly legacy long after they are gone. Bringing a child into
the world is one way parents secure a type of immortality.

At least, this was how people thought about the question of children
decades before we came along.

Nowadays, the discussion a couple has with respect to having children is
largely centred around economic issues rather than the traditional notions of
family unity and legacy. The reality of our generation is that it’s becoming more
costly to live, and children are not very cost-effective.

It used to be that parents wanted to bring their children into a world
that would surpass their own lifestyle. As children brought the family closer
together, parents poured every financial resource they could into ensuring their
children were properly educated—in turn, and although an unspoken social
contract, children with means would care for aging parents when the time came
for them to do so. Children used to be an investment that paid in dividends
for parents, and parents had a stake in making sure that their children were as
successful as they could be.

The economic realities of our generation, however, make such attitudes
to having children appear old-fashioned. Gone are the higher ideals and the
benefits of having children, superseded by the economic burdens of raising
them and giving them a reasonable opportunity to be successful in a world
that has become more demanding of us mentally. To add to these issues,
government welfare and retirement programs, such as pension plans and
retirement facilities, have allowed traditional attitudes of caring for the elderly
to disappear.

Te is no more fundamental a decision one could ever face than the
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Fertility rate refers to the number of children, on average, that women ina
geographical/geopolitical area will have throughout their lifetime.

Replacement rate refers to the number of children, on average, that women in
a geographical/geopolitical area would need for the population-level to remain
stable (i.e. zero growth).

 

 

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The economic realities of our times are such that there is no real incentive
to have children. Statistics gathered by governments all over the world show
that this trend is real: people are getting married much later than they used to,
and having children later and in reduced numbers. This leads us to the new,
more significant problem of population management.

Many countries in the world, including Canada, are at a point where
the population is unable to replace itself naturally through the birth of new
children, This is what’s known as a nation’s fertility rate—the average number
of children born throughout a woman’s lifetime. Canada’s fertility rate has been
steady at around 1.6 children per woman, and although that rate is still below
the replacement rate (usually about 2.1 for developed countries), Canada’s
population continues to grow steadily, thanks largely to our nation’s long-
held tradition of open immigration. Immigration accounted for two-thirds of
Canada’s population growth from July 2012 to July 2013.

Other countries, however, are facing a real crisis which could have
catastrophic economic ramifications in the future. In some cases throughout
East Asia, there is even talk of a “doomsday scenario” where entire ethnicities
may even go extinct if something is not done to encourage an increase in
fertility.

A study recently released by the Korean National Assembly Research
Service suggests that some Asian ethnicities could become extinct in as little
as 700 years. The study takes a look at the fertility rates of countries across East
Asia and singles out South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand as countries that
need to take action to prevent a “doomsday scenario.”

Taiwan, for example, with a fertility rate that has dipped below one child
per woman in recent years, will see its population begin to decline in 2022—
years earlier than expected.

The replacement rate varies from country to country based on the mortality rate
of a country’s population. For example, the replacement rate in Canada is stable
at 2.1 children per woman, and that rate is standard throughout much of the
developed world. Think of it as a woman having two children, to replace herself
and her husband/partner for the next generation.