(JustPatriots.com)- During his remarks the day after Christmas, Pope Francis warned that low birth rates are impacting countries throughout the world which could lead to a “demographic winter.”
Speaking during the celebration of the “Feast of the Holy Family,” Pope Francis emphasized the importance of the family and warned that postponing having children or choosing to have fewer children was of great concern.
This week, the Pope again addressed plummeting birth rates, noting in public remarks that couples who choose pets over children are being selfish. He said pet-keeping was a “denial of fatherhood and motherhood” that takes away humanity. Without children to replace us, the Pope said, civilizations grow old and a country suffers.
There is no doubt the population decline and plummeting birth rates are reasons for concern.
When birth rates fall below replacement rates, the median age increases, and populations dwindle.
In the spring, the CDC reported that America’s birth rate has declined to a record low, placing it below the 2.1 replacement level. And if a country isn’t replacing the population that dies, not only will its population shrink, the median age of the population rises.
For example, Japan has been far below the replacement rate for decades. Over the last nearly sixty years, the median age of the population in Japan has grown older and older as their birthrate steadily declines. In 1965, Japan’s median age was 27.18 years old. By 2020 it was 48.36 years old.
Likewise, the median age in the US has steadily increased by ten years since the 1970s. By 2020, the median age in the US was 38.31 years old.
This is how nations die. Just as a lake needs a constant influx of new water to avoid turning stagnant, a country needs a constant influx of new generations to avoid becoming an old, exhausted shell.
And while he isn’t exactly the Pope, in a May 3, 2021 column titled “Conservatives Need to Get it On,” columnist Kurt Schlichter argued that if America wants to avoid going down the same road of extinction Europe is on, couples need to start making babies.
