No One Left: Why the World Needs More Children    
by Paul Morland | Forum | 2024, 209 pages

We live in a world marinated in “progressivism,” an essentially nihilist, relativist, materialist zeitgeist that brooks no dissent. In public discourse all are expected to bend the knee to “anti-racism,” radical feminism, “diversity,” “equity” and all else precious to the PC post-1960s deus ex machina. Failing to do so would be woefully out of fashion, reactionary and counter cultural. That is problematic for pro-natalists.

Why? Nothing is more traditional, conventional and “normal” than marriage, family and children. Nothing is more antithetical to an ethos equating most things traditional, conventional and “normal” with patriarchy, racism, repression of women, polluting the planet, etc.

As a result, pro-natalists are frequently characterized as “right wing,” “racist,” pro-eugenics and anti-environment.

Paul Morland, the world’s leading demographer

That is all a load of rubbish, says Dr Paul Morland, prolific author and arguably the world’s preeminent demographer. That’s not a direct quote, as Morland is a serious scholar devoid of diatribe. Nonetheless, he artfully debunks such notions in his latest book No One Left: Why the World Needs More Children. In so doing, Dr Morland painstakingly points out that pro-natalism has been around for millennia and has nothing to do with race, oppression and trashing the planet. It has everything to do with survival of the species.

Morland devotes considerable space to the role of religion in reproductive behaviours, with revealing insights into the Abrahamic faiths. Look no further than the Book of Genesis telling us to “be fruitful and multiply.” Other religious traditions convey similar pro-natalist messages. People of faith have higher fertility than non-believers. Israel stands out with a robust pro-natalist Zionism to ensure the country remains majority Jewish. The Amish, Haredi Jews and tribal Islamic people of Niger have the world’s highest fertility. East Asia and Eastern Europe have the lowest. There have been pro-natalist Communists, National Socialists, and all in between. It is not as novel or peculiar as some would have us believe.

Through citing demographic trends and population anecdotes from around the world, Morland constructs a rock-solid case that our survival depends on replacing ourselves. While that may be self-evident to Mercatorreaders, today’s rapidly ageing and somewhat confused world could benefit from an explanation:

Once it was material progress that drove falling birthrates. Now, in much of the world, it is ideals and lifestyle inconsistent with family formation and populations replacing themselves generation by generation.

Can’t you hear the howls of homophobia from the halls of academe? Yet we should confront the discomforting truth: “[I]deals and lifestyle inconsistent with family formation” are sufficiently widespread that large segments of society, especially in the Global North, consider children either too costly, an impediment to career success, or the barrier to an affluent lifestyle. Obligation to family, community, clan or tribe has disappeared – and is even condemned. Religious faith is foregone and forgotten. It is all about the here and now of what is easy, convenient and comfortable. With a critical mass of atomized individuals and rampant self-indulgence, dysfunctional societies arise. Consequentially we’re on the cusp of population collapse.

This is an unfolding human tragedy. However, few are aware of the looming crisis and have no idea of the ramifications ahead. No One Left is an engaging tutorial on the subject. 

Dr Morland forthrightly addresses this in dispassionate, scholarly though easy-to-read prose. His book is a formidable analysis of humanity’s demographic conundrum and is devoid of politics, judgmentalism or cultural bias. He provides us, per the old American TV series Dragnet, with “just the facts.” And the facts are cause for concern.

Denial of the obvious

Often when the subject of demographic collapse is raised, unawareness becomes surprise, then morphs into denial. This can bring on callous condemnation: Pro-natalists don’t care about overcrowding and would be content to see the hive of humanity living cheek by jowl on the verge of starvation. Then the Malthusian argument persists that ecological overshoot will ruin us by depleting the food supply. While that never happened, true believers are legion. The environmentalist contention that children increase our carbon footprint is persuasive among Western up-and-comers. The point is lost that climate is always changing, and that while human beings undoubtedly contribute to it, more greenhouse gases have been released in single volcanic eruptions than humanity generates in years. Garden-variety nihilists don’t want to bring new life into such a horrible cruel world. So it goes.

Such arguments would perhaps be more understandable was a prolonged global population explosion underway, food was running out and the environment was being rapaciously degraded. But the troubling reality is that we’re entering – in the early stages still – a prolonged population implosion. The commensurate disruptions in life as we know it have yet to present themselves in full, as immigration and automation have thus far taken some of the sting out of the birth dearth. Consequently, there is no widespread media-generated alarm. Nonetheless, labour shortages, ageing societies, out-of-whack dependency ratios and family dissolution are upon us. Dr. Morland sums it up with what he calls the “Demographic Trilemma:”

Once through the demographic transition, countries can have two but not three of the following: a low fertility rate and few children, ethnic homogeneity and economic dynamism. I call this the ‘demographic trilemma.’ If they want the first two – both to have a low fertility rate and retain a homogenous society without mass immigration – like Japan they will face an ever-worsening old age support ratio and a waning economy. If nations want a low total fertility rate and a dynamic economy, or at least aspire to economic growth, they will need to keep their old-age dependency ratios down by mass immigration – which is in any case only a temporary solution, given declining global fertility rates. Only by having a high fertility rate can a country have both a dynamic economy and avoid dependence on immigration.

Morland’s ‘trilemma’ is yet another daunting aspect of falling fertility. Immigration has turned out to be a socially disruptive, failed short-term fix. As persistent demographic decline is a recent phenomenon, government, business, religious leaders and regular folks will grapple with the challenge. Out of that some novel solutions will emerge.