‘This has never happened before in the history of mankind’

Prof. Wolfgang Lutz (U of Vienna, Austria), one of Europe's leading demographers, on the future of the global human population

As part of our ongoing coverage of birth rates, I came across an interesting legacy media piece in the Swiss Sonntagszeitung, the weekend special of the Zurich-based Tagesanzeiger. I shall reproduce the article below, as always in my translation and with emphases added.

Note that the below article is actually an interview and that the interviewee’s answers are formatted as quotes

like this

while the interviewer’s questions are formatted ‘normally’.

Who is the interviewee? The article in the Sonntagszeitung writes this:

Wolfgang Lutz, born in 1956, is an Austrian social scientist and one of the world’s most renowned demographers. He is the founder and director of the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital in Vienna, deputy director of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and professor of demography at the University of Vienna.

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‘This has never happened before in the history of mankind’

Why are fewer and fewer children being born? Demographer Wolfgang Lutz explains that the latest figures have even experts puzzled. And he answers the question: How bad is it?

By Sandro Benin, Sonntagszeitung, 19 April 2024 [source; archived link]

Mr Lutz, recently there has been talk of a dramatic and mysterious population decline. Is there any truth in this?

One aspect of this development is indeed puzzling.

Which one?

Up to now, the Nordic countries have had comparatively high birth rates within Europe. This has been explained by socio-political factors, such as the fact that it is easier for women in Norway, Sweden and Finland to reconcile work and family life. However, the so-called fertility rate, i.e., the average number of children per woman of childbearing age, has fallen from 1.8 to 1.4 in Finland within a relatively short period of time [note that Prof. Lutz does not cite a timeframe]. The situation is similar in Norway, while the decline in Sweden is somewhat less dramatic. The development is strange in that neither the socio-political framework has changed in these countries, nor is there a severe economic crisis.

What could be the reasons for this phenomenon?

For the time being, scientists only have hypotheses about this. The most plausible hypothesis is that the development is linked to social media and the generational shift. According to this hypothesis, young people are so busy with social media that they no longer have time to have children [read: Big Tech is destroying humanity—go figure]. According to this hypothesis, there is also a change in values. Members of Generation Z are increasingly reluctant to bring a child into the world because this is known to be a very long-term and very weighty commitment. If this is the correct explanation, then it naturally applies beyond Northern Europe.

The fertility rate is still particularly low in Italy and other southern European countries, right?

Yes, low birth rates [why are we now confusing birth vs. fertility rates?] are typical in countries where a conservative family image goes hand in hand with a high standard of female education and good career opportunities for women. As soon as a woman marries and has children, she is expected to stay at home. When well-educated women are faced with the alternative of a career or a family, many opt for a career. This plausible explanatory model is still valid, but the latest information from Scandinavia shows us that there are other important factors that we need to understand better.

For the population not to shrink, the fertility rate must be 2.1. Is that still the case anywhere in Europe?

No. It was still highest in France, at around 2, but even there it has fallen. Without immigration [note the confusing of in-migration with immigration], the population would shrink in all European countries.

The Hungarian government under Viktor Orbán has at least managed to raise the fertility rate from 1.26 to just under 1.6 thanks to financial incentives and other social policy measures [what did Mr. Orbán do? Most importantly, each child results in 25% reduction of the mother’s income tax; 4 kids = no income tax; but since Mr. Orbán is, of course, Lucifer, no-one must speak about this].

Yes, and that is why Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni recently travelled to Budapest for the demographic conference to praise the Hungarian measures and promise to apply them in her country too. However, Hungary’s alleged success is propagandistic hype. This is because it is based on a phenomenon known in demography as the ‘tempo effect’.

What is that?

Assuming that 10 per cent of women are encouraged to have a child a year earlier through government measures such as birth premiums—then the fertility rate for the corresponding year increases by 10%. However, this does not mean that these women will actually have more children in the course of their lives. They prefer to make a decision, but the decision itself does not change. If this effect is factored out, the fertility rate in Hungary is also relatively stable at a low level [I don’t know if this is true, and this is not what data from, e.g., the World Bank, shows; this could be explored by the interviewer, but for ‘whatever’ reasons, the topic shifts].

Has there ever been such a marked decline in the birth rate in Europe in the past? [no starting or end point is given]

No, such a long and voluntary decline in births is a unique phenomenon in human history [I suspect meant is ‘after 1945’]. By ‘voluntary’ I mean a decline that is not the result of wars or epidemics. Incidentally, there is an interesting socio-psychological phenomenon in this context that I call the ‘low fertility trap’.

What do you mean by that?

That many women orientate themselves towards a certain norm, regardless of financial circumstances. In Europe, the norm of the two-child family still prevails, even if this ideal is being lived up to less and less. In Chinese cities such as Shanghai, on the other hand, 80% of women say in surveys that they only want one child. They themselves have grown up surrounded by one-child families and cannot imagine anything else for their own family.

What other dynamics characterise population development?

Population development depends on three factors: Birth rate, death rate, and immigration. Until the 19th century, birth and death rates in Europe were actually uncontrollably high and more or less balanced each other out. This is why the population did not grow significantly. Then medical achievements, clean drinking water, better hygienic conditions, and other factors led to a sharp decline in the death rate in a relatively short period of time, while the birth rate remained temporarily high. The result was very strong population growth. This is one of the reasons why millions of Europeans emigrated overseas.

And then?

Then, from the 1920s onwards, with increasing prosperity and, above all, thanks to the literacy of the population as a whole, better education and the growing self-confidence of women, the birth rate also fell—apart from brief phases such as the baby boom after the Second World War. It was long assumed that the fertility rate would stabilise at around 2 as part of this demographic transition. Then it was thought that it might stabilise somewhere between 1.5 and 1.8, but this was obviously premature. It will go even further down.

The proverbial 1 million dollar question is now: is this bad?

Firstly, there are historical and psychological reasons why we tend to perceive population shrinkage as bad. Since our economy is designed entirely for growth, the very word ‘shrink’ makes us uncomfortable. In addition, a shrinking population has always been a sign in human history that something has gone wrong: wars, epidemics, some other catastrophe. However, it was not the shrinking that triggered the catastrophe, but the other way round: the catastrophes caused the decline. Although we are now experiencing a voluntary shrinkage in prosperity for the first time, so to speak, the old reflex of associating a population decline with a catastrophe is still in effect.

So in reality it is not a disaster?

In the short term, it is even an advantage. Children cost something, and if there are fewer children, the investment in each individual child increases while resources remain the same [that is an interesting hypothesis, although the cost of keeping infrastructure in place is excluded here]. In developing countries, the term ‘demographic dividend’ is also used to describe a positive development when the number of births falls.

However, we already have a shortage of labour, fewer and fewer young people are having to finance more and more pensioners, and the number of people in need of care will increase massively.

The whole thing is complex, you have to differentiate, and the longer-term a forecast is, the more uncertainties arise. The problem with these dramatising scenarios is that they only look at the quantitative age structure and neglect qualitative developments [wouldn’t that, in principle, also apply to ‘climate change’?]

Can you explain this in more detail?

If you look at the quantitative ratio between people over 65 and people aged between 20 and 65, for example, the proportion of older people is increasing rapidly. However, this development is less dramatic than it seems because the labour force participation of young women has increased massively at the same time. If we also take into account higher education, better individual skills, technological development, and the increase in productivity, the picture looks even less bleak. A similar argument can be made for care: The share of 80-year-olds who will need care in thirty years' time will be significantly lower than it is today, thanks to medical advances and higher education. Of course we will have to adapt our pension and care systems, of course these are major challenges. And yes, there is the question of financing. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the future will be worse.

In order to better manage the demographic challenges, we should be saying to every refugee and every migrant: ‘Welcome!’ Instead, we are making a huge fuss about the so-called migration crisis. [now this turns into a wild ride and extremely politicised]

Mass immigration is also problematic insofar as it raises the question of cultural integration. But one reason why many people are so upset about the falling birth rate is the fear that their own countrymen are becoming fewer and fewer. This clearly has a nationalistic component, which is also widespread among cultural pessimists: European culture is threatened with extinction!

Couldn’t this fear be factually true, beyond ideology and nationalism?

The fact that certain cultures have declined while others have become dominant has occurred throughout human history. It is undisputed that the proportion of Europeans in the world population, which is now approaching 10 billion, is falling. But ultimately it is not so much the number of heads that matters, but what is in the heads. A well-educated population can compensate for many of the disadvantages associated with the demographic transition. The quality of the education system is crucial [lol, I mean, sure, of course, but with the woke in charge?]

Won’t it be boring for the few young people in a society where they are surrounded by senior citizens? [WTF has this to do with the quality of education?]

First and foremost, the crime rate in an older society is significantly lower than in one where there are many young men with excessive testosterone. I wouldn’t call that boring. As far as the connection between generational size and quality of life is concerned, there are two contradictory approaches in research.

Which ones?

According to one hypothesis, young people have a harder time if they are part of a large cohort. Getting a good place at school or university, joining a sports club, finding a job: there is competition everywhere. The American economist Richard Easterlin has also shown that income development is significantly worse for people from large birth cohorts.

And the other hypothesis?

It says that people from a low birth cohort have less political influence. This is why politicians make decisions that contradict their interests. Perhaps the two hypotheses cancel each other out. There is not much to influence the fertility rate anyway.

How high is the global fertility rate?

At the moment, it is estimated to be just above the so-called replacement level, i.e., around 2.2. In the next few years, it will fall to 2. In East Asia and Latin America, many countries already have fertility rates similar to those in Europe, and in South Korea, according to the latest figures, which have not yet been officially confirmed, it could even be below 0.7. Even in parts of East Africa, which had the highest fertility rate in the world for a long time at over 7, it has fallen to 3. It is currently still very high in the Sahel region, for example in Mali or Burkina Faso—traditional Islamic societies in which the education of children and women is still poor.

Is the image of Africa as a demographic pressure cooker that is exploding and will lead to the immigration of millions of desperate people here in Europe true?

In the medium term, the population in Africa will continue to grow significantly. Recently, infant mortality on the continent has fallen sharply and many of these children, who are now fortunately surviving, will in turn have children as adults. Nevertheless, the decline in birth rates is continuing almost everywhere in Africa. The great demographic transition that gripped Europe at the end of the 19th century did not actually begin in Africa until the 1960s and 1970s—when people began to invest in education after colonialism. It is the same process as here, but it is taking place almost a century later.

Will the decline in birth rates help us to solve climate change and other ecological problems?

In the short term, we need to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This can only be achieved through changes in behaviour and the use of green technologies. Demographic developments are too slow to have a strong influence. But in the longer term, we must also adapt to a certain degree of climate change that is already unavoidable. Demographics certainly play a role here. A low birth rate can be an advantage and, above all, it has been shown that better educated populations adapt more easily.

What do demographers argue about at international conferences?

One controversial point is where the limit of life expectancy lies and whether its increase will level off at some point. Is 100 years the biological limit, or is it 120? Or even more thanks to medical advances? The second controversial question is: how much further can the fertility rate in developed countries fall? Permanently below the value of one? Or even lower? I have spoken to many biologists about this. Their most frequent answer was: if we can satisfy the sex drive without producing children, then we are no longer dealing with a biologically controlled development, but only with a cultural one.

What does that mean?

That means it could go very low.

And what are the medium and long-term global population forecasts?

We will most likely approach the 10 billion mark globally sometime between 2060 and 2070. Whether it will be exceeded is still unclear. After that, however, the population will decline. In the 22nd century, there may be three to four billion people living on Earth again, as there were in the 1960s. And that wasn’t a catastrophe.

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Bottom Lines

I found this an interesting, of short-circuited read. Yes, demography is a highly interesting topic, but for whatever reasons, some of Prof. Lutz’ answers were not followed-up on. This is most obviously apparent in the brief, if superficial, section on Hungary.

As to the seemingly Aldous Huxley-inspired key question—satisfaction of the sex drive w/o ‘producing children’—I do wonder if biologists might include the, well, biological fact that most women have an innate drive to have children.

We’ll also find out if Africa will experience their own cataclysmic ‘world wars’ in the 21st century, much like Europe did during the last century. I wouldn’t be surprised, esp. as natural resources and foreign meddling have not decreased of late.

As regards the effects of the WHO-declared, so-called ‘Pandemic™’, well, they were not discussed, which I think is kinda ‘fair’ as far as demographers are concerned. Until, well, it’s not, esp. given the recent unprecedented changes with respect to births and deaths, esp. in Scandinavia:

2022 Births in Norway Hit 38-Year Low, with YoY Decline the Largest Since 1972

'I've never seen anything like this': Excess Mortality Among Young People in Norway

And then there’s the entire ‘other’ aspect of Nordic/Scandinavian state support for mothers; although Jordan Peterson called this out many years ago (and correctly so, I’d add), it would appear that these ‘considerations’ of his are impossible to discuss in today’s juste milieu. What a shame.

So, onwards we’ll stagger as mainstream Western society descends ever further into un-reality.