Population decline is a major problem facing many Western countries. Without enough children being born, the economy slows down, quality of life declines, and there are not enough workers to support the older populations. What is to blame for this situation? Largely, secularization is to blame. People are also becoming more self-centered and do not want to spend any time or effort raising a family. They would rather just have fun without responsibility.
One type of people that is having a large number of children are religious people. And the more religious they are, the more children they have. God said "Go forth and be fruitful." The most religious people are adhering to this. According to a German publication from 2008, those who never attend a church service have an average of 1.67 children. However, those who attend more than once per week have an average of 2.5 children.*
Many countries are panicked that their populations are not growing fast enough. A population decline has many negative effects. In fact, many countries offer incentives to people to have children. No country that I am aware of has officially stated that overpopulation is a major problem.
One of the reasons why the populations are becoming dangerously low is that people are using a lot of contraception. Contraception is the only medical device that prevents the normal function of the body. In other words, it twarts the natural design of the human person. It's astonishing that it's the only thing that does this. It takes something that is completely healthy and renders it nonfunctional.
Many people talk about all the sacrifices they must make for children. What people often don't hear is the joy children bring to a family. Many childless families are rather sad. I'm sure there are many exceptions, but it is often the case.
* Michael Blume (2008) "Homo religiosus", Gehirn und Geist 04/2009. pp. 32 - 41.
Protestantism is another factor that is increasing the use of birth control and slowing population growth. I bet the number for church attending people would be higher if not for Protestant teaching that promote birth control and smaller families.
ReplyDelete@Phil
ReplyDeleteThanks for that post! :-)
@Athanasius
At the beginning of the 20th century, the fertility of Catholics in Europe was about 0.5 higher than that of European Protestants. But the effect vanished in the 70s, with the Protestants (especially devout minorities) showing higher fertility now. In the US, Catholic immigrants are having higher birth rates, but Protestant Amish and Hutterites are showing all-time highs. You might like:
http://www.blume-religionswissenschaft.de/pdf/BlumeHayekAmishFertility.pdf
Best wishes!