Why J.D. Vance is Wrong About Large Families
Narrow-minded responses to complex issues amplify the existential threats to a viable civilization.
Although J.D. Vance and Viktor Orbán exhibit an unusual disdain for small families, they are not alone in their anxiety over declining populations. Many — from mainstream voices to fringe elements, spanning progressives and conservatives, economists and demographers, as well as leaders across the various institutions — believe that falling fertility rates will doom their countries. While some of their concerns are valid, the underlying perspectives are as outdated as stoning women for adultery and pose significant risks to our survival on this planet.
First, the valid concerns.
Fertility rates in over half of the world's countries have dropped below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, the threshold necessary for a stable population. National populations in about forty countries, including China, Russia, Japan, Italy, and Ukraine, have already peaked and are experiencing declines. Without immigration to bolster numbers, these nations face substantial socio-economic challenges in the coming decades.
Concerns about weaker economies, diminished political influence, and reduced military capabilities plague some of the world’s egotistical leaders. However, these implications extend beyond personal anxieties; they affect everyone. The declining birth rates and increasing life expectancy contribute to a demography of growing pool of retired citizens coupled with a diminishing workforce.
This demographic change is reflected in the rapidly declining ratio of tax-paying workers to retirees. According to the Social Security Administration, this ratio in the United States fell from 42 to 1 in 1945 to 3 to 1 in 2010 and is projected to reach 2 to 1 by 2035. Currently, there are only three tax-paying workers for every Social Security beneficiary in the U.S. By 2086, Social Security alone may cost the country about $8.6 trillion, if benefits and tax rates remain unchanged. This figure will be dwarfed by expenses related to Medicare, veterans’ benefits, and government workers’ pensions, along with interest on the debt incurred from these benefits.
A principal concern for many – I can’t speak to Vance’s motives – is that much of America’s wealth will be directed toward sustaining the elderly, potentially undermining critical social services such as education, infrastructure, and environmental protection. This situation may even threaten the sacred cow of military spending.
Western Europe and Japan, with their lower fertility rates, generous safety nets, and fewer immigrants, face even graver financial futures. In "super-aged" Japan, half of government spending is now allocated to social security. Meanwhile, according to the UN Population Division, nearly 80 percent of the world’s estimated two billion older persons will reside in developing countries, many of which are already overwhelmed by various ongoing natural and human made stressors.
To counter declining birth rates, some sixty-nine governments have implemented various pronatalist policies. South Korea, Taiwan, Russia and Australia offer subsidies for childbirth, sometimes referred to as "baby bonuses." Vladimir Putin has called demographic trends “the most acute problem facing our country,” prompting cash payments equivalent to roughly nine thousand U.S. dollars for a second child. Taiwan's programs encourage singles to meet and marry, while France provides generous maternity and paternity leave and tax reductions for new parents.
Beyond financial rewards, Russia, Poland, and Hungary have also promoted traditional values through aggressive advertising campaigns, often infused with xenophobic, anti-abortion, and nationalistic overtones that push against multicultural and liberal values.
The practical argument against these pronatalist policies is their ineffectiveness. None of the incentives introduced in the past two decades have successfully reversed falling fertility rates. And neither the heavy-handed policies advocated by figures like Vance nor the kinder approaches seen in France and Sweden are likely to alter fertility trends in the United States.
Perhaps the path forward lies not in resisting demographic changes but in accepting and adapting to them. As Paul Ehrlich suggested almost sixty years ago in his controversial book, The Population Bomb, the challenges of an aging population could be addressed by the judicious reallocation of resources from young dependents to the elderly. It is our entrenched beliefs and cultural perceptions that often complicate what could be straightforward solutions. The greatest obstacles to the challenge of the “elderly bulge” are not economic as much as they are outdated perspectives, such as our obsession with competitive economies and militaries and longstanding patriarchal norms that have relegated women's roles primarily to childbearing and caregiving.
The looming “elderly bulge” may turn out to be one of the more manageable issues societies face in the coming decades. Contrary to pronatalist assertions — like Elon Musk's claim that "population collapse due to low birthrates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming" — humanity’s greatest challenge will be mitigating and adapting to the simultaneous crises stemming from population growth.
We are depleting and polluting natural resources at an unprecedented rate, disrupting planetary systems — from monsoons to the Amazon rainforest — that support a human-friendly biosphere. Climate change, combined with the rapid loss of forests, wildlife, biodiversity, healthy soil, and groundwater, poses existential threats that could persist for centuries. Together, they may not only undermine national economies but threaten the viability of global civilization.
Our impact on the biosphere has been particularly acute. A recent study suggests that only four percent of mammal biomass now consists of wildlife; the remaining 96 percent comprises humans, livestock, and pets. To pasture all these domesticated animals, we have commandeered a cumulative area the size of Africa. And to grow our crops we additionally farm an area equal to that of South America.
Despite turning the Earth into a vast food trough for our species, we still struggle to adequately feed ourselves. The world’s farmers presently produce enough food to meet everyone’s needs, yet gross inequity leaves more than 700 million people chronically hungry and over two billion malnourished. At least ten million people die prematurely each year from diseases their malnourished bodies cannot combat. The pressing question becomes: What will happen if — or rather, when — we transition from global food abundance to food scarcity? Likely outcomes include widespread famine, mass refugee crises, spikes in violence, and potentially global economic collapse. These threats are far more serious, complex, and enduring than a transition to a smaller, sustainable population.
The most direct way to mitigate ecological destruction is to consume and pollute less. Reducing family sizes and national populations will significantly contribute to this effort. This is essential not only in regions experiencing rapid population growth, such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, but is especially critical for wealthier countries. It is the consumption habits of affluent nations that drive much of today’s poverty and environmental degradation.
On average, an American consumes more than thirty times more resources than a person from the Global South. A recent Oxfam report finds that the world’s wealthiest one percent uses twice the energy and produces twice the carbon emissions as the poorest half of the global population.
As Jared Diamond argues in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive, societies must adapt to changing circumstances by making difficult decisions about which treasured values and practices will continue to serve them. A sober evaluation may lead to adjusting or even discarding some entrenched beliefs. Clinging to outdated ideals — like large families and extravagant lifestyles — may jeopardize our ability to survive, much less thrive, in the world we are inadvertently creating.
This is where pronatalists, regardless of their motivations, fall short in understanding population dynamics. While they raise legitimate concerns about the challenges posed by declining populations, their solutions will probably lead to graver consequences. Narrow-minded responses to these complex issues will not adequately address the existential threats that jeopardize the foundations of our civilization.