Pregnancy is contagious, I often say. That is, one thing that causes people to have babies or to have a lot of babies is other people around them having lots of babies. The reverse is true, too: One thing that causes people to not have babies or to have fewer babies is other people around them having few or no babies.
Obviously, pregnancy is not transmitted through aerosolized particles, but the childbearing behavior of others around you does affect your child-bearing behavior in a number of ways.
ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA PROMOTE RACISM WHILE TRYING TO RUIN PEOPLE'S LIVES
Sometimes it’s just what seems normal. In my very Irish-Catholic social circles, having five to 10 children is not weird, and so a couple with two kids doesn’t feel social pressure to stop, or doesn’t simply assume it’s time to stop.
But also, having children around makes parents more considerate of children’s needs and wants. In a town with lots of children, a parks department with some land to develop is more likely to think of a playground or a skate park than in a town with mostly retirees or single, college-educated, secular, professional 22-year-olds.
For this reason, as America’s birthrate falls well below two babies per woman — and most of that is due to more women having zero babies — the “germ” is less present in the population, and so we should assume birth rates will continue to fall.
To phrase it like a demographer, low and falling fertility is self-reinforcing — which is the opposite of what Thomas Malthus’ model dictates.
To phrase it more directly, let’s quote columnist Stephanie Murray: “America's fertility decline is about more than money. It's about a society that doesn't like kids.”
Murray aptly summed up the sense of elite America thus: “Children are a personal choice and therefore a personal problem, many people seem to believe. Have as many as you want — just make sure they don't bother the rest of us.”
But children cry, take up space, sometimes run around, and sometimes smell bad. A culture based on “personal space,” autonomy, and minding your own business is a culture that pretends children don’t exist. The more people who go through their daily lives not seeing kids, or seeing only very few, the easier it is to uphold this myth of a childless world — and then that childless world becomes reality.
See South Korea. Birthrates there are shockingly low (below 0.8 babies per woman of childbearing age), and that has led to a world in which adults simply aren’t used to seeing kids. In such a world, kids become less welcome.
The New York Times ran a piece earlier this week about how much of South Korea has been ruled “child-free.”
Government incentives for babies have failed to boost the birth rate anywhere near the replacement level. That’s because the government can’t change people’s family desires if the culture is anti-family.
“There are hundreds of no-kids zones throughout South Korea. The National Library of Korea, for example, prohibits anyone under the age of 16 from entering without special permission.”
Most of the population approves of these child-free places, the Times reports:
"'I usually go to cafes to study. I don’t want to be interrupted by crying kids,' Lee Chan-hee, an engineering student in Seoul who frequents a cafe that prohibits children, said in an interview this week."
Other reasons for supporting the zones include the prevention of accidents and property damage as well as injuries to young children. Protecting the rights of small business owners was also a consideration.
A great contrast is Israel, where children are accepted and even expected almost everywhere. At “beer and pizza” at 8 p.m. on a Wednesday night, you’ll see little kids. “The bus drivers have an affection for kids,” is how one former resident of Jerusalem put it.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Israel has one of the highest birth rates among wealthy countries.
A place that openly loves kids will have more kids, and a place with more kids will be more welcoming to kids. That’s a virtuous circle. South Korea — and most of Europe, along with the U.S. — is experiencing the opposite.