We need many, many more babies

God’s first command to humanity was direct and clear: Go forth and multiply. It is the first intrinsic good entrusted to husband and wife, an icon of their unique God-imaging and one of the most delightful things humans can pursue.

Too many are under the illusion this divine directive is no longer in effect because humanity has been doing far too much of it and overpopulation is a threat. This is empirically wrong.

Human fertility has been declining precipitously around the globe and this fact is humanity’s most pressing long-term problem. We don’t have a human tomorrow if we don’t have enough babies today. This is precisely what is happening.

Let us start close to home. The U.S. Census Bureau reported at the end of July our nation’s fertility rate dropped to an all-time low: fewer than 1.6 children being born per woman of fertile age. In fact, the last year we saw enough babies born in America to simply replace the current population was 2007. Ever since then, our national fertility has continued to plummet sharply to its current historic low.

You cannot sustain, much less grow, any nation on such a sharp downward trajectory. Marko Jukic, senior analyst at Bismarck Analysis, explains a sustained fertility rate of 1.6 means 50% less people in a nation in just three generations. A 1.2 rate means an 80% drop. He calls these “mass extinction numbers.” Canada, Japan, China, Ukraine, Spain, Italy, Poland, Thailand, and others have generally these rates or below.

Since 1950, global fertility rates have been cut in half. Two-thirds of the world live in a country below replacement level. This stark decline is happening even in low-income countries. To create a verbal picture, no mother would ever let her child roller-skate down hills with the long steepness of these fertility trendlines. In fact, the world passed “peak child” about ten years ago, the point where we will likely never see this many children born in a year … ever.

But aren’t fewer people wise overall, with more finite resources for fewer people? A leading Stanford economist, Charles Jones, wrote a sophisticated academic paper testing this popular thesis entitled “The End of Economic Growth? Unintended Consequences of a Declining Population.” He concludes, based on the groundbreaking ideas of his mentor who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics, “In standard models, [declining populations have] profound implications: rather than continued exponential growth, living standards stagnate for a population that vanishes.”

The reason is quite simple. Jones explains: “Other things equal, a larger population means more researchers which in turn leads to more new ideas and to higher living standards.” And it is not just more creative thinkers coming up with more serious problem-solving ideas and inventions. It means the growth itself spurs technological innovation because of intellectual capitalism. More competition drives fierce consultation and innovation between growing populations at an exponential rate, which benefits us all. This is demonstrably true.

The Human Development Index—measured by global increases in longer, healthy life, improved education, and decent standard of living—has steadily increased in high, middle, and low-income countries following robust population growth over the last century. Of course, this is the exact opposite of what doomsayers like Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich warned us of. Human brains are a stronger blessing than our stomachs are a curse. They are innovating real solutions to deadly problems.

Professor Jones warns that declining populations will kill this vitally important and compassionate progress. Other fact-based global analysts agree. Jones warns, “With negative population growth, however, the flow of new ideas goes to zero.” He adds in sophisticated economist language, “When population growth is negative, both endogenous and semi-endogenous growth models produce what we call the Empty Planet result: knowledge and living standards stagnate for a population that gradually vanishes.”

Vanishing we are.

A group of leading global demographers, funded by the Bill Gates Foundation, have been warning this decline is starker than any imagined. In 2020, they explained total population will likely “peak just after mid-century and substantially decline by 2100.” Their math demonstrates this in chilling fashion: “In 1950, 25 births occurred for every person turning 80 years old; in 2017 that number was seven.” They add in “2100 we forecasted one birth for every person turning 80 years old.” That is the most chilling statistic about humanity’s future you will likely ever read. A 2024 follow-up study by these same scholars confirmed their original warning.

In their very important book Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline, social researcher Darrell Bricker and journalist John Ibbitson write, “The great defining event of the twenty-first century—one of the great defining events in human history—will occur in three decades, give or take, when the global population starts to decline.” They add, “Once that decline begins, it will never end.”

They state this will result in “a relentless, generation-after-generation culling of the human herd.” This will halt all human progress at solving perplexing problems and bringing people out of poverty and into longer, healthier lives.

Leading demographers and sophisticated economists are telling us God’s first command is still very much in effect. In fact, it is our most pressing need right now. Growing populations stimulate a better, healthier world for more billions of people. Thinking we know better by encouraging fewer babies is literally creating our own demographic demise. God is far wiser than we appreciate.