In a generation, Italians and Japanese and their priceless cultures, 
will die off.


12/18/07 Wall Street Journal: The Next Sexual Revolution,
by Ronald W. Dworkin
    Marxists divide life into real events and pseudo-events. Real events, such as wars and revolutions, have sociological significance.
    Pseudo-events have no such significance, no matter how exciting they are, or how much of a spectacle they are on television. The Super Bowl is a pseudo-event. So is the World Series. So are most medical discoveries.
    The last "real" event in medicine (perhaps the greatest "real" medical event of the 20th century) was the creation of the birth-control pill, which helped fuel a sexual revolution that changed people's entire reproductive patterns. The political consequences reverberate to this day.
    Today another "real" event looms: a practical method of storing unfertilized human eggs. Until now, only fertilized eggs (embryos) and sperm have been amenable to cryopreservation. The high water content in unfertilized eggs causes crystallization under freezing conditions, rendering the eggs useless when thawed.
    A couple can store embryos indefinitely. A man can store his sperm indefinitely. But until now, a woman has been unable to store her eggs. If she wants to postpone having children, she must mix some sperm with her eggs before freezing them. That means going to the sperm bank, or getting sperm the old-fashioned way: going out on blind dates or asking friends if they know someone, all while worrying about her biological clock and working on her career.
    The technology permitting egg storage, called "vitrification," is still in its infancy, but success is inevitable, and when it arrives, the sociological consequences will be enormous. Right now, one in five children world-wide is born to women over 35. When mass egg storage becomes feasible, that number will likely increase dramatically, and include not just women in their late 30s and 40s, but also women in their 50s, even 60s. The hurdle for a 50-year old woman trying to get pregnant is not that she can't carry a baby -- supplemental hormones can fix that, even after menopause -- but that her 50-year old eggs, assuming she has any eggs, won't implant in her uterus. But eggs harvested when she was a 20-year-old, stored for three decades, then thawed and fertilized, will implant. A uterus is ageless.
    One consequence of this new technology is a potential reversal of the declining birth rate in Western countries. Low birth rates, especially in Europe , have already caused political and cultural dislocation.
    Raising children while building a serious career is hard for women, and when presented with the choice, many women opt for the latter. Half of Germany 's female scientists, for example, are reportedly childless. By the time a career is established, say, in a woman's 40s, it may be too late to have a baby.
    If women could store their eggs, they could remain fertile.
    Freezing unfertilized eggs gives women a way out of a complicated cultural maze. Decades ago, the lives of men and women diverged at adolescence. Men prepared for careers while women prepared for domestic life.
    Today, many young men and women go through high school, college and professional school often mistakenly assuming no differences in their respective trajectories.
    When I suggested to a 22-year-old female medical student that she consider a career in anesthesiology because the hours were flexible enough to raise a family, she shot back: "I went to Harvard! Now I'm going to Johns Hopkins! I'm going to be a department chairman someday! And you want to put me on the mommy track?" Seven years later, when this woman applied for a job as an anesthesiologist, the first question she asked me was: "I'm trying to have a baby. Can I go part time?"
    Our culture encourages women to pursue high-powered careers. Many women must pursue at least some kind of career: With the divorce rate over 50%, women can no longer rely on the integrity of the family unit to support them. The culture paints a rosy image about career and family. Then biological truth breaks through, by which time these women have lost a decade of their best childbearing years.
    Women who opt to freeze their unfertilized eggs will gain those years back -- and more -- giving them the freedom to leisurely follow the male career trajectory. No more late night panicking. No more marrying a man you don't love "just to have the baby."
    No more lurching from Harvard to the mommy track.
    True, if these women still decide not to have children when they hit their 40s or 50s, having grown accustomed to freedom, then the population in Western countries will not rise but plummet further. Yet most middle-aged people know that many careers can be pretty dull, without much chance to create. Following rules and procedures until midnight in a law firm may seem acceptable when you're 25, but not when you're 50. Armed with this insight, money and perfect eggs -- and with an expected life span of 86 years -- many women will likely choose to create a family.
    But what kind of family? Women in their 30s are reluctant to use banked sperm to get pregnant, in part because they still hope to meet someone, because they can't support themselves as single mothers, or because they fear being judged by their peers.
    A woman in her 50s probably has less hope of finding a man who wants to start a family than a woman in her 30s. And so a 50-year-old woman, without serious marital options, loaded with money and eggs, and far too wizened to worry about what other people say, might just go ahead and call that sperm bank if she wants a family. Or maybe she'll marry a 70-year-old man, who thinks that if women can be mothers into their 50s and 60s, why can't he be a father too?
    While Marxists divide life into real events and pseudo-events, a more accurate division is between the truths of the times and the truths of fact. Young women forsaking their careers to bear children -- this is a truth of the times. Women driven by nature to procreate but having to find a new way to do so amid today's realities -- this is a truth of fact that is likely to prevail in the end.
    Dr. Dworkin is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and the author of "Artificial Happiness" (Basic Books, 2006).

11/7/07 Los Angeles Times: "Why Some Women in Egypt Are Choosing to Stay Single,"
    Egypt's marriage market is being disrupted by educated, career-oriented women who stay single into their 30s, refusing suitors who ask them to sacrifice their professional identities, reports the Los Angeles Times's Jeffrey Fleishman.
    The pressure remains on working- and middle-class women to marry young, says Madiha El Safty, a sociology professor at the American University in Cairo. But among the more affluent, Prof. El Safty says, there are a growing number of unmarried women. A big factor is rising education and literacy rates among women, giving them greater access to professional jobs. A United Nations study found that increasing numbers are joining the labor force, accounting for 31.4% of workers in 2005, up from 18% in 1996. 
    On the other side of the equation, low wages are forcing men to delay their plans for marriage since they can't put together a dowry impressive enough to win over potential in-laws. Even if they can, an offer of security and children is no longer enough to convince a prospective bride.
    "The men I meet are educated, yes that's true, but some Egyptian men don't like 'girls' to talk about politics and culture, or to argue with them about ideas," says Mai Hawas, 30 years old. "But ... I don't need someone else forming my mind." Ms. Hawas has had two marriage prospects but turned both down. One of them dismayed her when he insisted as a condition of marriage that he receive half her salary.
    Despite their growing independence, Egypt's unmarried professional women still abide by the culture's conservative traditions. Most live with their parents -- moving out and living alone invites suspicious gossip and would bring too much shame on the family. 

10/31/07 Miami Herald: Stigma of childless career woman fading,
by Cindy Krischer Goodman
    As women make strides in the business world, could it be that they now see children as avoidable obstacles in their path to success?
    It turns out public acceptance of childlessness has increased, especially among women. Even more, women are twice as likely as men to reject the idea that childbearing is the purpose of marriage, that it is better to marry than remain single, and that marriage is for life.
    ''Women regard both childbearing and marriage as being less central and more optional in women's lives,'' said Tonya Koropeckyj-Cox, a University of Florida sociologist whose study is in the November issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family. With more opportunity, ``women may be asking more questions about whether everyone needs to follow the same path.''
    Koropeckyj-Cox suspects women now see firsthand the personal and economic costs of juggling work and family and are not only delaying having children but revising their overall attitudes.
    The more education women have, the more they are challenging the motherhood mandate, the survey shows.
    One Miami businesswoman finds her choice not to have children allows her time to chair her local Chamber of Commerce and FIU's Womens Studies Center and to work late whenever she feels like it -- choices working moms might forgo.
    ''It's obvious women who have children want to make them their priority, and that can put them behind in their careers,'' says Gayle Bainbridge, vice president of a large South Florida insurance agency. Bainbridge, 56, says she has never felt judged about her status as single and childless.
    After running her own event-planning business, Liana Rodriguez, 30, knows adding marriage and children will be challenging. Many of her nights are consumed by work, putting on fundraisers or special events. She still wants to have kids but understands why women her age are choosing otherwise. Adds Rodriguez, ``that's why it's going to be important to have a supportive significant other.''
    According to the U.S. Census, the number of childless women approaching the end of their childbearing age has risen. Among women 40 to 44 years old, 19 percent were childless in 2004, up from 10 percent in 1976.
    And when women are having children, they are limiting the number and waiting longer to become parents. In 2004, women approached the end of their childbearing years with an average of one child fewer than in 1976.
    Women also are delaying marriage and childbirth, raising questions about how many will remain permanently childless by choice or because of age-related infertility.
    This is coupled with the fact that more women are starting their own businesses and advancing in companies to positions that make family life difficult.
    Recently, I came across a published interview with The Miami Herald's travel editor, Jane Wooldridge. The article quoted Wooldridge saying ''If I had children, I don't think I could do this.'' She told me she chose not to have children because of her long work hours and travel schedule. ``I figured if I was going to have them, I would need to make them my top priority.  For me, work was something I knew would take top billing.''
    As CEO of the Florida Regional Minority Business Council, Beatrice Louissaint sees many singles who are so busy with careers that they don't have time for social lives, let alone families. But for well-educated black women, she says, finding a suitable mate gets particularly challenging. Although Louissaint, 41, hopes to find love and have children, she says, ``people make plans, and when things don't happen, you make other plans.''
    But men have a different attitude about children and marriage. Most men still believe that people without children lead empty lives and that children are the main purpose of marriage, Koropeckyj-Cox's study shows. Fathers are the least accepting of childlessness. In fact, some men register strong feelings about children as their legacy.
    ''For men, fatherhood generally brings enhanced status and emotional benefits, with few if any costs in the labor market,'' says Koropeckyj-Cox.
    Hank Klein, a successful real estate broker, does not see childlessness the same way as most men in the survey. Klein, 63, and his wife, Lisa, chose not to have children. Along with their careers, they both focus on personal fitness and community involvement.
    ''We have people who tell us they envy us,'' he says.  And, while he knows that acceptance of his choice is increasing, he adds, ``people are not going to stop having kids.''

7/2/07 Associated Press: Survey: Fewer Americans see kids as key to a good marriage,
    New York - The percentage of Americans who consider children "very important" to a successful marriage has dropped sharply since 1990, and more now cite the sharing of household chores as pivotal, according to a sweeping new survey. 
    The Pew Research Center survey on marriage and parenting found that children had fallen to eighth out of nine on a list of factors that people associate with successful marriages well behind "sharing household chores," "good housing," "adequate income," a "happy sexual relationship" and "faithfulness." 
    In a 1990 World Values Survey, children ranked third in importance among the same items, with 65 percent saying children were very important to a good marriage. Just 41 percent said so in the new Pew survey. 
    Chore-sharing was cited as very important by 62 percent of respondents, up from 47 percent in 1990. 
    The survey also found that, by a margin of nearly 3-to-1, Americans say the main purpose of marriage is the "mutual happiness and fulfillment" of adults rather than the "bearing and raising of children."
    The survey's findings buttress concerns expressed by numerous scholars and family-policy experts, among them Barbara Dafoe Whitehead of Rutgers University 's National Marriage Project. 
    "The popular culture is increasingly oriented to fulfilling the X-rated fantasies and desires of adults," she wrote in a recent report. "Child-rearing values sacrifice, stability, dependability, maturity seem stale and musty by comparison." 
    Virginia Rutter, a sociology professor at Framingham (Mass.) State College and board member of the Council on Contemporary Families, said the shifting views may be linked in part to America 's relative lack of family-friendly workplace policies such as paid leave and subsidized child care. 
    "If we value families ... we need to change the circumstances they live in," she said, citing the challenges faced by young, two-earner couples as they ponder having children. 
    The Pew survey was conducted by telephone from mid-February through mid-March among a random, nationwide sample of 2,020 adults. Its margin of error is 3 percentage points. 
    Among the scores of questions in the survey, many touched on America 's high rate of out-of-wedlock births and of cohabitation outside of marriage. The survey noted that 37 percent of U.S. births in 2005 were to unmarried women, up from 5 percent in 1960, and found that nearly half of all adults in their 30s and 40s had lived with a partner outside of marriage. 
    According to the survey, 71 percent of Americans say the growth in births to unwed mothers is a "big problem." About the same proportion 69 percent said a child needs both a mother and a father to grow up happily. 
    Breaking down the responses, the survey found some predictable patterns Republicans and older people were more likely to give conservative answers than Democrats and younger adults. But the patterns in regard to race and ethnicity were more complex. 
    For example, census statistics show that blacks and Hispanic are more likely than whites to bear children out of wedlock. Yet according to the survey, these minority groups are more inclined than whites to place a high value on the importance of children to a successful marriage.
    The survey found that more than 80 percent of white adults have been married, compared with about 70 percent of Hispanics and 54 percent of blacks. Yet blacks were more likely than whites and Hispanics to say that premarital sex is always or almost always morally wrong. 
    Among those who have ever been married, blacks (38 percent) and whites (34 percent) were more likely than Hispanics (23 percent) to have been divorced. 
    Delving into one of the nation's most divisive social issues, the survey found that 57 percent of public opposes allowing gays and lesbians to marry. However, opinion was almost evenly divided on support for civil unions that would give same-sex couples many of the same rights as married couples. 
    Asked about the trend of more same-sex couples raising children, 50 percent said this is bad for society, 11 percent said it is good, and 34 percent said it made little difference.

6/807 Wall Street Journal: My Only Son,
by Leon De Winter
    During the past four years, 170,000 Americans have died in traffic accidents. For young people, traveling in a car is the leading cause of death. Over the same period, 3,500 Americans were killed in Iraq in a war against radical Islam. These statistics haven't been properly contrasted.
    Mobility is a must in Western society. It's a prerequisite for affluence and it fosters a sense of freedom. No politician could ban cars or severely limit their use. Transportation is the nation's lifeblood. Its inherent risks are inescapable for an open society.
    So Americans manage to deal with the fact that tens of thousands of people will be killed each year on the roadways. But when it comes to the war against Islamic fascism, the nation may soon decide that 3,500 deaths over four years is too much. This for a great nation of 300 million inhabitants.
    If that is the case, then the United States will have begun to undermine the moral foundations spelled out in its own Declaration of Independence. If America is unable to carry out a war of its own choosing in defense of liberty because the cost of 3,500 lives is unacceptable, then it will soon be unable to maintain its position and power in the world.
    It is essential for American culture that it recognize a serious, organized attack on liberty in the world as a threat to its own existence and to the global development of durable peace and prosperity. This is the essence and destiny of the United States, and in this it differs gloriously from every other nation in human history. If America now denies its very nature and refuses to make any further sacrifices, it will be signaling the imminent demise of Western civilization.
    These are sharp words, but they present themselves unavoidably in the struggle against the misanthropic ideology of Islamofascism. Because Islamic terrorists are prepared to sacrifice their lives, they cultivate a philosophy in which they actually desire suicide and they can recruit from a large reservoir of willing young men.
    How did we get to this point?
    Western civilization's pursuit of affluence, secularization and sexual revolution have all sapped its willingness to make sacrifices. Today's parents often have no more than two children, some may have only one son. His life is so precious that it has come to seem unbearable for him to be killed in battle. In his study "Sons and World Power," German genocide expert Gunnar Heinsohn investigates family size in various societies in relation to the frequency of violent conflict since 1500 A.D. His conclusion is disturbingly simple: The presence of large numbers of young men in nations that have experienced population explosions -- all searching for respect, work, sex and meaning -- tend to turn into violent countries and become involved in wars. He cites, as an example, the Palestinian territories, where many families have as many as four sons.
    Most countries in which Islamofascism has taken root have experienced population explosions. Huge numbers of young men are searching in vain for a respectable future. They legitimize their frustration with a radical ideology that channels their dissatisfaction and finds roots in the ancient religious traditions of Islam.
    Mr. Heinsohn's explanation shows the extreme pacifism of today's Europe to be more than a response to the horrific experiences of World War II.  He sees Europe's low birthrate as the basis for the remarkable period of peace Europe has nurtured since 1945. Europe 's sons have become too precious for war.
    This same phenomenon is also happening in America.  Large families are becoming scarce. As a result, the sacrifice of a second or third son to a violent death, a possibility since the dawn of civilization, is not possible because those sons simply aren't there.
    Pacifism is becoming a guiding principle, in part, because of the decreasing size of the average Western family. Mr. Heinsohn predicts that the birthrate in Arab and other Islamic countries will drop in the coming decades and then these nations will in turn settle down.
    Until then the West must defend freedom by making the most horrific sacrifice it knows: the death of the only son. While America is prepared to pay with the lives of 42,000 men, women and children each year because it needs to travel for work and pleasure, the sacrifice of 850 lives a year to defend the principle of universal freedom has thrown America into a state of profound introspection. Every victim represents immeasurable grief to his parents. This is only bearable if society as a whole supports them and comforts them in the knowledge of the sacred common values for which their son died. This America has always done in the past, but looks now to give up.
    Since the start of the war in Iraq, 170,000 people have died in car accidents in America.  Remember to buckle up.
    Mr. de Winter is a novelist and magazine columnist in the Netherlands and an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute

1/5/07 Associated Press: German population continues to decline,
by Stephen Graham
    Berlin - Germany's population fell for a fourth consecutive year in 2006 and recorded the biggest drop since the country's reunification in 1990, the government said Friday, days after launching financial incentives designed to stall falling birth rates.
    The number of births, meanwhile, was the lowest since World War II.
    At the end of 2006, the number of people living in Germany was an estimated 82.3 million, 130,000 below the total at the end of 2005, the Federal Statistics Office said.
    Germany's population grew in 2001 and 2002, but has fallen each year since. From 2003-2005 the population dropped by 5,000, 31,000 and 63,000, respectively.
    German officials have been reluctant to ease immigration rules to bolster the work force, despite complaints from industry that there are not enough skilled workers in some areas. Demographers and economists say the problem will only grow worse, and that an aging population will put serious strains on pension funding and on the economy for lack of workers.
    A recent government study forecast that the population could fall as low as 69 million by 2050.
    During 2006, the agency said there were about 675,000 births, down from 686,000 recorded in 2005. The latest figure represents the fewest since World War II and far below the 922,000 births recorded in 1946, when the country lay in ruins after its defeat.
    The population decline was also due to a drop in net immigration, from 79,000 in 2005 to between 20,000 and 30,000 last year, officials said.
    "Immigration was nowhere near enough to make up for the births deficit," the statistics office said.
    Starting Jan. 1, the parents of newborn children are entitled to share up to 14 months of leave from their jobs and receive about two-thirds of their net salaries in a bid to encourage couples to have more children.
    The move, designed particularly to help working moms have more children, follows similar moves in other European countries concerned about their aging populations.

10/20/06 Wall Street Journal: Population Control: In Estonia, Paying Women To Have Babies Is Paying Off.  As Low Birthrates Threaten Growth, Developed Nations Watch Incentive Effort.  $1,560 a Month for Annaliisa
by Marcus Walker
    Countries with birth rate below 2.1 mark necessary to maintain current population:
U.S. 2.0
U.K. 1.8
Canada 1.5
Estonia 1.5
Japan 1.3
Italy 1.3
Germany 1.3
South Korea 1.1
    Tallinn, Estonia -- Pia Kurro sat cross-legged on her bed in a drab, Soviet-era maternity ward that smelled of detergent and old linoleum and breast-fed her two-day-old daughter, Syria, who owes her existence to state subsidies.
    In return for having the child, Ms. Kurro will receive the equivalent of $1,560 a month from her government for over a year, a lot of money in a country where the average monthly salary is $650.
    "I would not have had a baby without the support," said the 39-year-old business consultant.
    Ms. Kurro embodies an increasingly urgent question: Can government policies aimed at raising a nation's birthrate actually work? The answer is vital to the future of the global economy. Like most developed countries around the world, Estonia has a critical shortfall of children that, if not reversed, will lead to a sharply aging and shrinking population. That will undermine economic growth and public finances as a dwindling work force struggles to support a growing pool of retirees who are living longer.
    A handful of developed countries, including the Nordic nations and France , have stable populations thanks to a long tradition of financial support for families. But for other countries in Europe and Asia that have already seen steep falls in birthrates, demographers have doubted there was much that could be done. Governments agreed, making little serious attempt to boost their birthrates. Estonia stands out because it has made a dramatic shift, from laissez-faire to aggressive activism, in an attempt to alter its future. And as other nations slowly start to address the risk of declining birthrates, the effort there is being closely watched around the world.
    Estonia 's wake-up call came in 2001, when the United Nations' annual world-population report showed that Estonia was one of the fastest-shrinking nations on earth, at risk of losing nearly half its 1.4 million people by mid-century. Estonia 's fertility rate -- the average number of children a woman bears -- had collapsed to 1.3 in the late 1990s, down from 2.2 under communism only a decade earlier.
    In an attempt to stop that downward spiral, Estonia took a bold step: In 2004 it began paying women to have babies. Working women who take time off after giving birth get their entire monthly income for up to 15 months, up to a ceiling of $1,560. Non-wage-earners get $200 a month. The welfare perk -- known locally as the "mother's salary" -- was a sharp about-face for the radically free-market government.
    "Step by step, [the declining birthrate] became a danger to the survival of the nation, so we had to do something," says Paul-Eerik Rummo, minister for population affairs and a member of the Reform Party in Estonia 's ruling coalition.
    Tentative Results
    Now, two years into the program, the government is seeing some of the first tentative results. Since the adoption of the new benefits, Estonia 's fertility rate has improved to 1.5. That's still below the 2.1 children needed to stop the population from shrinking (one child to replace each parent, plus some room to allow for child mortality). And it will take years to see the full impact of the mother's salary. But the apparent early success has inspired the government to look at other ways of getting people to have more children -- everything from subsidies for nannies to linking pension payments to the number of children one has.
    Many countries once loath to meddle in matters of fertility are looking at their numbers and concluding that they must take similar steps. "Governments may not achieve their aim, but the competing risk of doing nothing is too great for many countries -- their future young labor supplies are going to be decimated," says Peter McDonald, professor of demography at the Australian National University in Canberra .
    The fertility rate in the 30 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the club of the world's leading industrialized democracies, was only 1.6 in 2005, down from 2.4 in 1970. Mexico , at 2.4, is the highest, with South Korea the lowest at 1.1. Demographers say the decline is due to fundamental changes in society. They include: greater economic opportunities for women; advances in birth control that have made reproduction a matter of choice rather than accident; and the spread of ideas about individual freedom and happiness that are hard to reconcile with caring for a large family.
    Some European countries are experimenting with monthly cash compensation to women who leave work to have babies, including Lithuania , Austria and Slovenia . Starting next year, Germany and Bulgaria plan to pay new mothers benefits linked to their previous earnings. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who bemoaned his country's lack of children in his last state-of-the-nation speech in May, has also promised more aid to parents.
    Elsewhere, Australia introduced in 2004 a one-time bonus per baby, currently worth about $3,000. The fertility rate is believed to have risen slightly thanks to a combination of the incentive and a booming economy, but is still around 1.8. Australia 's finance minister has even exhorted parents to "do your patriotic duty tonight," echoing similar campaigns in the city-state of Singapore , which is still struggling with a fertility rate that hovers barely above 1.2. South Korea has introduced several policies this year, including more financial aid for day care and for fertility treatment.
    Payments such as Estonia 's are predictably controversial. Some demographers argue that paying people to have a baby simply makes them have one earlier; it doesn't necessarily make them have more. That point is tough to prove for now: Only after the current generation of young women passes menopause will it be clear whether they had more children in their fertile years than women of an earlier age group.
    But the experience in places such as France and the Nordic countries suggests that incentives can have an impact. For example, women in Sweden and Norway , which support families with generous benefits, labor laws and child care, have close to two children on average. "Where there are consistent family-oriented policies in place for a long time, people have more children," says Tomas Sobotka of the Vienna Institute of Demography.
    The main exception to the rule is the U.S. , where the average woman has two children, despite only modest public support for families, largely via tax breaks. Demographers say America 's tradition of mass immigration and its large minority populations make it unusual among developed nations. Hispanics, in particular, boost national fertility, with more than three children per woman. The U.S. 's population passed 300 million this week, according to the Census Bureau's estimate. About 55% of America 's population growth is due to legal and illegal immigrants and their children, according to the Population Reference Bureau in Washington .
    Estonia 's experience shows what may lie ahead for many countries. Since it regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the small Baltic country has emerged as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and is now a member of the European Union. Along the way, family dynamics in Estonia raced through a transformation in 15 years that took a century in many other countries.
    For many, a spartan but stable lifestyle under communism preserved traditional family customs longer than in the West. Estonians tended to marry young and have two or more children despite hardship and little help from the state.
    Different World
    The world looked very different to many young, educated Estonians only a few years later. Miina Puusepp and Aive Levandi, both age 36 now, were 21 when Estonia broke from the Soviet Union, offering up new opportunities that pushed having children into the background. "After independence, the world was suddenly open," said Ms. Puusepp, sitting with her friend in a Tallinn cafe.
    The two young women worked and studied around Europe during the 1990s, eventually building careers in marketing and tourism. Ms. Levandi has had one boyfriend for the past 12 years. They didn't want to start a family because it would have cramped the couple's lifestyle. "We are living a full life, traveling a lot," Ms. Levandi said.
    Meanwhile, many working-class Estonians were putting off thoughts of childbearing, too, but for different reasons: They saw their real incomes and job security eroded.
    The Estonian government had dismantled welfare provisions -- even closing many kindergartens -- and pursued some of the most radically free-market policies in Europe . The country became a model for light business regulation. It encouraged investment and entrepreneurship with flat-rate income taxes and no tax on reinvested corporate profits. Economic growth soared, topping 10% in 1997. But the benefits flowed more to newer service industries and entrepreneurs -- and less to the old-line heavy industries that nonskilled workers relied on.
    The U.N.'s 2001 warning that Estonia 's population would almost halve by mid-century was widely publicized, pushing the plunging birthrate to the center of national politics. When the country held elections in 2003, fertility was the main issue along with tax cuts. Every party promised generous financial aid for families. The Reform Party, previously known for championing small government, proposed the mother's salary, arguing that in a country where most women work, women needed to have their income protected if they were to have children.
    Now, Estonia 's government is debating other measures, such as subsidizing nannies and private day care. Currently in Tallinn , there are waiting lists of as much as three years for day-care centers. Only the relatively wealthy can afford a nanny to bridge the time between the mother's salary and kindergarten.
    Advisers to the population minister are also studying different ways to link people's pension entitlements to the number of children they had. And the government is expanding pre-abortion counseling, in the hope of giving more women confidence that they can cope with a baby, and of reducing the country's high abortion rate.
    " Estonia should be a test site for the rest of Europe ," says Kristina Tht, who advises the population minister on family policies.
    Many Estonians say the mother's salary is contributing to a change in climate. Indeed, for the capital of a country that's critically short of children, pregnant women and mothers pushing strollers are a surprisingly common sight in Tallinn -- a new trend many locals are quick to comment on.
    At the Merimetsa mall near Tallinn 's Baltic seafront recently, Leila Niidas pushed her five-month-old daughter Annaliisa in a stroller. "In the past I didn't see little children in the streets. Now it's crazy how many children you see here," she said.
    Now 41, Ms. Niidas decided last year to have a third child, 15 years after her second child was born. She wouldn't have had Annaliisa, she said, if the government hadn't ponied up, replacing the income from her marketing job at Hansabank, the country's largest bank.
    "My husband's salary would not have been enough," Ms. Niidas said. "We spend all that we earn." In addition to paying loans on the family's large four-room apartment and upmarket Audi station wagon, she has a 19-year-old son who wants to go to college in Florida , where he recently spent his last year of high school.
    Not surprisingly, the mother's salary has had the biggest impact on the birthrate of affluent, career-oriented women, because the amount is linked to the mother's previous wages. Researchers at Tallinn think tank Praxis say the biggest statistical change is that more high-salaried women are having second and third children. While Ms. Niidas's higher income qualifies her for the maximum $1,560 monthly benefit, less well-off Estonians get less help.

9/1/06 Wall Street Journal: Missing Children,
by Gary S. Becker
    The 1992 Nobel economics laureate, professor of economics at the University of Chicago and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
    The 20th century was the one with the greatest decline in death rates not only in rich countries but also throughout the world. Very low birth rates in a rapidly increasing number of countries are shaping up as the defining demographic event of the 21st century. The total fertility rate, which measures the number of births to the average woman over her lifetime, must be at least 2.1 in order to prevent a country's population from declining in the long run in the absence of enough immigration. Yet there are now about 70 countries, which comprise almost half the world's population, with fertility rates below 2.1, and in many nations birth rates are far under this maintenance level. All European countries have low birth rates, and so do many Asian ones, including Japan, China, both Koreas, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Japan , Italy , Russia and Spain are the countries with the lowest birth rates, with the typical woman giving birth to not much more than one child during her lifetime. The last major census in Hong Kong shows an even more extreme picture, for the typical woman has less than one child over her lifetime.
    When a country's birth rate is much below the replacement level, it must receive enough immigrants to maintain a stable or growing population. Since Japan has been especially reluctant to accept immigrants unless they are of Japanese descent, net immigration has been negligible. It is not surprising that Japan is among the first countries to be already experiencing a population decline. Russia , too, has a falling population because it not only has a very low birth rate, but also net outmigration of its population and high death rates -- life expectancy for males is under 60 years. The U.S. , by contrast, still has a growing population because it has birth rates at about replacement levels, and because it continues to attract many immigrants (and these immigrants on average have higher birth rates).
    The rate of population decline in Japan and Russia will accelerate if their low birth rates persist, and these countries do not change either their attitude toward, or their ability to attract, immigrants. The reason is that eventually low birth rates lead to smaller numbers of men and women in the child-producing ages. The larger numbers at these ages presently resulted from much higher birth rates in the past. World Bank projections are that the Russian population will decline by more than 25% to about 100 million by the year 2050 unless present birth, death and immigration trends are radically reversed. Japan 's population is expected to decline by a similar percentage.
    Not long ago many persons were concerned, and some still are, about the rapid growth in world population. If they were right, one might have expected the specter of declining population to be welcomed. Yet most countries with low birth rates are worried about the prospects of declining population. To reverse this trend, many of them have proposed or implemented subsidies to women who have larger families. France has expensive systems of allowances to women with more than one child. Vladimir Putin proposed an even more liberal system of benefits to encourage Russian women to have additional children. Japan has been discussing greater incentives to women there to have more children.
    What is concerning people about low birth rates that is overlooked by the many neo-Malthusians who continue to rail against growing population? One consequence of low birth rates and extensions of life expectancy at older ages is that fewer people are at working ages compared to the number of retirees. As a result, financing of retirement income and medical expenditures becomes more of a challenge with an aging population since most countries finance retirement income and medical spending on the elderly by social security taxes on the working population.
    Fortunately, shifting away from a pay-as-you-go social security system to an individual account system can alleviate this problem. Under the latter, individuals accumulate assets over their working lives in retirement and health savings accounts. They would draw down this capital at older ages to pay for consumption and medical expenses. This system would break the link between taxes on the working population and retirement benefits, and reduce the negative consequences of having a smaller number of working people relative to retirees.
    Another important negative consequence of population decline is seldom discussed, but it is not eliminated by changing the structure of taxes and saving, or even by increasing the fraction of married women and older men in the labor force. Smaller populations reduce the amount of innovation partly because it leads to fewer younger persons, both absolutely and compared to the number of older persons. This shift toward a younger population is bad for innovation because the vast majority of important new ideas come from inventors and scientists who are younger than age 50, often far younger.
    Innovations also require an intense initial effort on R&D with considerable inputs of high-level personnel and capital. These costs become worthwhile only when the demand for new products and ideas is sufficiently great. The magnitude of demand obviously depends on per capita incomes, but also on the number of persons who can benefit from new consumer goods, and advances in medical and other knowledge. The number benefiting is related to population size, and possibly also to its age distribution. The 1983 Orphan Drug Act recognizes the importance of population in stimulating innovations. This Act gives pharmaceutical companies special patent protection if they produce new drugs that help persons with rare diseases; that is, diseases that affect less than 200,000 persons.
    Even some frequently cited negative effects of larger populations, such as greater pollution, can be alleviated, if not fully solved, by a bigger population. Larger populations, as argued, increase incentives to innovate, which include innovations that reduce pollution and other negative effects of more dense populations.
    What does the future path of fertility look like in countries like Japan where women are producing too few children to prevent their populations from falling? Some commentators have expressed their belief that fertility rates are only temporarily low, and that before long they will increase significantly toward replacement levels. In fact, the number of births in Japan was up by about 2% in the first six months of 2006 compared to the same period a year ago. The Japanese Health Ministry has taken an optimistic view that this might be a harbinger of further fertility increases as Japan regains more rapid economic growth and lower unemployment.
    I am less optimistic than this ministry about any spontaneous large increase in birth rates. Since 1970, no country has had a large increase in its total fertility rate after this rate had fallen much below the replacement level. Birth rates are low for good reasons, especially the high time cost involved in raising children, particularly the time of more educated women, and the desire of parents in knowledge-based economies to invest more in each child instead of having additional children. Births rates could be raised by increasing child allowances to mothers, establishing paid leaves to mothers, and providing subsidies to child-care facilities. However, even generous subsidies to parents appear to have only modest effects on fertility. Two French economists have studied the elaborate French system of allowances to mothers who have more than one child. Their conclusion: Even this thoroughgoing system of allowances raised the total fertility rate by no more than 0.1, from 1.7 to 1.8.
    My reading of the evidence is that fertility in countries like Japan with birth rates that are far below the replacement level of 2.1 children per women will not rise to anywhere near that level in the next few decades, even with generous financial and other child-care support. If I am right, the only solution for countries that continue to be concerned about a future with declining and aging populations is to open their gates to immigration. Yet in most countries large-scale immigration creates political, economic and social problems. Immigration is an especially unwelcome alternative for Japan , given the history of Japanese reluctance to have many foreigners settling in their country. As a result, Japan , Russia and many other countries face a worrisome demographic and economic future.

8/17/06 Wall Street Journal: Cash Incentives Aren't Enough To Lift Fertility,
by Mark Fritz
    A growing number of nations, seeking to replace aging work forces and retain their national identities, are paying people to become parents. But the cash incentives to spawn new citizens may already be too late.
    Low fertility rates, combined with population booms in poorer nations, are prompting wealthy nations to open their doors to a flood of immigrants, according to an annual report from the Population Reference Bureau, a 75-year-old nonprofit foundation that collects global demographic data. Much of the pressure to relax immigration restrictions is coming from private businesses, which fear labor shortages.
    In the past year or so, dozens of industrialized nations have introduced or beefed up economic incentives -- ranging from cash bonuses to tax breaks to extended maternity leaves -- to get people to have children. Just since March, 16 countries, ranging from Bulgaria to Taiwan , have increased incentives. Germany is expected to raise its fertility incentives soon. Japan has been weighing the idea for 10 years.
    "All low-fertility countries are looking at this," said Carl Haub, senior demographer for the Washington-based population bureau. "But some of these countries are going to be forced to bring in immigrants. For many, it's too late to increase fertility."
    Fertility rates have been on the decline in industrialized nations for decades, but they are now becoming a serious economic problem, felt around the globe, from the European Union to China , Japan and South Korea . Uganda 's population is on track to triple to 150 million by 2050, while Germany 's numbers are projected to decline to 75 million from 82 million during the same period, according to the report.
    A birthrate of 2.1 children per female is considered optimal for replacing an aging work force. The U.S. has a fertility rate of two children per female and is one of a few industrialized nations with a rate that high, something analysts attribute to higher fertility rates among immigrants, particularly among Hispanics.
    The German Bundestag currently is considering reforms designed to make it economically easier for women to bear children. Under the proposed measures, backed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, the government would pay women 67% of their salaries, with a ceiling of 18,000, or about $23,000, for a 12-month parental leave. Men are eligible for a two-month stipend, for a total of 14 months per couple.
    Results of such incentives have been mixed. In 2004, Australia began offering bonuses to people who had babies, increasing the bounty to about $3,000 this year. The government has credited that bonus with pushing the average number of births per female to 1.82 from 1.76.
    Japan , on the other hand, has been extending maternity leaves and other incentives only incrementally, and its fertility rate has continued to decline, hitting a post-World War II low of 1.3 births per female.
    The thinning populace prompted Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in January to invoke the Japanese calendar to persuade people to procreate. "It is the Year of the Dog. Dogs have lots of offspring, and I hear they have an easy time giving birth," Mr. Koizumi said at his first news conference of the year.
    France 's fertility rate has risen steadily through increasingly generous tax exemptions for parents with children. Its 1.9 fertility rate far outpaces that of other European Union countries.
    Anti-immigration laws around the world -- passed in the decade following the Cold War, when the 1991 collapse of the Soviet sphere opened borders world-wide -- are being eased, notes Mr. Haub, the demographer. Singapore , Spain , Portugal , Greece and Finland have recently relaxed immigration laws in response to declining population. Britain is actively recruiting Poles, and Russia has made the dubious offer to Indians to settle Siberia .
    "That's going to change the nature of a lot of countries. Japan will not be as Japanese and Germany will not be as German," said Mr. Haub.
    Businesses are driving both the increases in fertility incentives and the push for selective immigration. South Korea , which has a fertility rate of 1.1, is blaming worker shortages for a decline in new manufacturers, reporting a 26% plunge in manufacturing start-ups in June compared with the previous year.
    In Japan, Sony Corp. executives recently called for more immigration. In 2004 the president of the German firm ZDH, or Central Handicrafts Association, called on the government to promote immigration of skilled workers.
    In the U.S. , hospitals have been trying to alleviate a chronic shortage of nurses by recruiting nurses in Jamaica , where a labor dispute over wage increases has proved intractable.
    "There is a growing interest among governments, civil society, the private sector and others to capitalize on the benefits and minimize the negative consequences of migration," a United Nations population report said in March.

6/30/06 Associated Press: Japan passes Italy as most elderly nation,
By Hiroko Tabuchi
    Tokyo - Japan said Friday it had surpassed Italy as the world's most elderly nation, fueling concerns over the effects of a rapidly aging population on the world's second-largest economy.  Japan 's population dropped in 2005 for the first time on record, shocking officials and spurring a spate of measures to encourage women to have more babies. The government began a five-year project to build more daycare centers, while encouraging men to take paternity leave. Towns and villages have also launched matchmaking services to get more people to marry. Japan 's reluctance to open its borders to immigrants and refugees despite an urgent need for new workers to replace its aging work force has also compounded the problem. Foreign residents accounted for only about 1.2 percent of Japan 's population at the end of 2005, and a government panel may propose limiting the ratio of foreigners to 3 percent of the country's population.

6/2/06 Wall Street Journal; Page W13: "Editorial: Making Babies,"
   In his 2004 book, "The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It," Phillip Longman exploded one of the planet's most enduring modern myths. He demonstrated that population growth is not the threat that it has been made out to be and that population decline is the real challenge ahead of us.
    By the time of the book's publication, many developed nations were already struggling to address the obvious result of falling fertility: What to do when so few babies are being born that eventually there won't be enough workers to sustain your country's economy, let alone support the elderly?
    One of the most recent answers comes from Portugal , where the birthrate has fallen to 1.7 -- below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per couple. The government there has come up with a plan to give tax breaks to people who have more than two children and to levy higher taxes on those who have fewer than two. Singapore , France , Sweden and many other states already employ various incentives to encourage parenthood.
    Falling birthrates are a concern for more than just the most prosperous countries, too. Along with all of Europe, Japan and Canada , Mr. Longman notes, China and parts of the Middle East are experiencing population loss. Russia is in one of the most dramatic demographic tailspins. Last month Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the government will pay mothers about $9,200 to have a second child.
    What a change from only a few decades ago, when conventional wisdom had it that the only route to prosperity was smaller families. In 1968, biologist Paul Ehrlich famously predicted that hundreds of millions of people would starve to death in the 1970s and '80s thanks to overpopulation. Not only have Mr. Ehrlich's predictions not borne out but there is no evidence that overpopulation has ever been at the root of poverty. As economist Thomas Sowell has noted, there is no country that had a higher standard of living when its population was half of what it is today.
    Oddly, economic opportunity turns out to be an astoundingly effective form of birth control. When people don't need to use children as worker bees in a desperate struggle to survive, and -- more important -- when they can imagine a secure future for their offspring, they tend to plan families with fewer children in the hope of showering each with more advantages.
    At some point the scale tips, however, and people enjoy their own creature comforts so much that they become disinclined to spend time and money on more children. That's one reason to doubt whether incentive plans for childbearing will work.
    Even in Russia -- where the disincentive to childbearing is not a surfeit of comfort but rather the lack of it -- the extra rubles may not do the trick. When the future looks gloomy in an industrialized nation, it's hard to put a compensatory price on the burden of raising a child.
    Yet sometimes, it seems, the balance is just about right. Thanks in part to immigration, the U.S. is not facing a population deficit. Other factors are at work, too. This country has a high rate of religious belief, which usually corresponds to a higher birthrate, as well as a general sense of optimism. On the practical side, the U.S. has a tax regime that is not too crushing and, at present at least, a job market ready to absorb the next generation. All these things encourage parents to indulge a natural desire to raise children.
    With its cradle still full, the U.S. is in effect seconding Mr. Longman's theme. Our thriving economy is testimony to the fact that human beings, so long demonized as the ultimate threat to the planet, are its most indispensable resource.
   

5/22/06 Wall Street Journal: Running Out of Russians,
By Padma Desai
    In his state of the union address recently, Vladimir Putin divided his attention between his country's strategic forces and its alarming demographics. The former is a familiar matter of Western commentary and concern, but the latter is not; and this was the first time a Russian president had raised the topic on such an occasion. While Mr. Putin confronted this critical issue, however, he failed to provide a compelling set of solutions.
    The key problem he addressed was the decline in the Russian population, which has dropped from 148.7 million in 1992 to 143.5 million in 2003. The U.N. estimates that it could fall to 101.5 million by 2050. Earlier contractions of Russia 's population were brought about by the massive losses associated with World War I, the civil war, famine, the repression and purges of the 1930s, and World War II. The current demographic decline is the result of a declining birth rate and a high mortality rate.
    To address the former, Mr. Putin announced income subsidies of up to $9,200 for women following the birth of a second child, beginning in 2010. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said the money could be used for taking a mortgage, paying for a child's education or adding to a pension account.
    The minimum monthly wage in Moscow is currently $150, so $9,200 would be a significant amount for many Russian families. The government has also pledged more financing for nursery schools and foster family care (which can reduce abortions of unwanted children). But neither measure addresses the most important cause of the declining birth rate. Anatoly Vishnevsky, director of the Center for Demography and Human Ecology in Moscow, says the cause, as in all industrial, urbanized societies, is the "almost complete elimination of child mortality, the emancipation and self-fulfillment of women and an increased freedom of choice for them . . . the higher levels of education and so on."
    Russian women have joined their liberated sisters in the developed countries, especially in Europe , in registering a fertility rate below the population "replacement rate" of 2.1 children per woman. It is unlikely that subsidies can ever be large enough in the foreseeable future to offset the advantages that Russian women now see in having smaller families. Equally problematic is the high mortality rate among working-age men, reflected in their life expectancy of just 55 years. Many experts attribute this to "external" causes such as excessive alcoholism, suicides and accidents. But these causes are internal to the inherited Russian health-care system as well.
    The Soviet health-care system succeeded in combating infectious diseases through mass campaigns and obligatory vaccinations. But it has failed to foster a voluntary activism in which the public avoids undisciplined indulgence -- and thus the noninfectious diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disorders, that unhealthy lifestyles breed. Without a shift away from overwhelming reliance on old-fashioned "paternalistic" arrangements toward a modern, preventive approach by health officials and real behavioral changes by citizens, the mortality rate will not improve appreciably.
    Russia 's geography and the spatial distribution of its population provide even more cause for concern. More than a quarter of Russians live and work in the central federal districts, which comprise less than 4% of the country's territory. By contrast, 21% of the population is settled in Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, which accounts for 75% of the country's land mass and most of its natural resources.
    Moreover, 73% of Russians are city dwellers -- almost equal to the American rate of 75%. Yet Russia lacks the thriving urban metropolitan centers that usually provide the impetus for widespread regional growth. As of the 2002 census, only two Russian cities had populations exceeding two million; the U.S. has 14 such cities. Russia needs more people in much of its vast territory so that its abundant natural resources can be exploited. But it also needs a thriving network of large cities that can provide the financial, technological and innovative traction for this and other endeavors.
    Given current trends, however, it's unlikely to have either. So where might Russia find the extra population it needs?
    The best hope is through immigration; but Russians appear to have abnormally strong negative attitudes against immigration -- not only by ethnic migrants from the Caucasus, Central Asia and China , but even by ethnic Russians from former Soviet republics. According to Mr. Vishnevsky, the Russian public does not support an active immigration policy to counter the population decline: Russians displayed a "negative attitude toward immigrants long before immigration inflows began." In other words, Russia 's "migrant-phobia" is compounded by its long-held xenophobia.
    Some Russians also fear that the Chinese, seeking to increase trade, will come into the Far East and settle down permanently -- and that Beijing will then somehow stake a claim on Russian territory! This is nonsense, of course, but I encountered such fevered scenarios of the "yellow peril" even among some liberal acquaintances on my recent trip to Russia .
    Revealingly, the 2002 citizenship law was overly restrictive of applicants seeking Russian citizenship. A subsequent amendment in 2003 relaxed some of the restrictions with regard to Russian-speaking former citizens of the Soviet Union . But it provides only a mild palliative for the labor shortage, rather than a proactive remedy for absorbing the 20 million Russians scattered in surrounding states.
    Of all the policy challenges facing Mr. Putin and his successor, the designing and implementation of a pro-immigration policy will remain the most urgent and formidable. Without progress on that front, the demographic crisis will continue to stalk Russian leadership for years to come.
    Ms. Desai, Harriman Professor of Comparative Economic Systems and director of the Center for Transition Economies at Columbia University , is the author of "Conversations on Russia : Reform from Yeltsin to Putin," just out from Oxford University Press.

5/10/06 Reuters: Putin talks babies, avoids tangle with US in speech,
    President Vladimir Putin offered couples cash to have more children to halt a dramatic decline in population and called for a stronger army in a key speech on Wednesday in which he shrugged off sharp attacks by Washington. 
    Putin, defying predictions he would focus on foreign policy, zeroed in on Russia 's dwindling population -- an issue with huge implications for the economy -- which is falling by 700,000 people every year.
    His proposal to boost the birthrate is Putin's first real attempt to tackle a catastrophic demographic decline in the world's biggest country.
    Describing the issue as contemporary Russia's most acute problem, he told Russian couples he would more than double to 1,500 roubles ($55.39) monthly payouts to families for the first baby and then double that to 3,000 roubles for a second child.
    Average wages are below $100 a week.
    The trend is driven by low life expectancy, particularly among men, due to poor diet, heavy drinking and smoking.
    If it continues, officials say today's population of around 143 million will be down to 100 million by the middle of the century, translating into a weaker workforce and smaller army. 
    "We are talking about love, about women, about children, about the family," Putin said.
    "The problem of low birth rates cannot be resolved without a change in the attitude of our society toward the issue of family and family values," he said.

8/17/05 Dallas Morning News: "Careers create 'aging society' in S. Korea : Economic stagnation foreseen as women's choices lower birth rate,"
by Jim Landers
    Seoul , South Korea At 26, Park Su Mi is a well-educated bride-to-be who's decided she and her husband will have just one baby. That would make them an average couple in South Korea , which now has the lowest birth rate in the world.    
    "My mother says more than two children would be better, but I don't want to give my future to my children. I want to enjoy my life," Ms. Park said.
    South Korea 's rising prosperity gives young women choices and powers their mothers and grandmothers never had. But a declining birth rate has made the country an "aging society." In another generation, South Korea will become a "super-aged" society, where more than 20 percent of the population is older than 65.
    That promises the sort of economic stagnation already characteristic of Japan and spreading through much of the developed world. As President Bush warns Americans, a shrinking workforce will struggle to pay taxes into overstretched health care and retirement benefit programs. 
    The United States is in better shape than many countries. The U.S. birth rate is 2.08, a level that keeps the population steady between births and deaths. The U.S. population is still growing because of immigrants. 
    South Korea , like Japan , is a nation that shuns immigration. 
    In Asia , aging societies crimp consumer spending as workers put more of their disposable income into savings. 
    In aging South Korea , even the dream of reunifying the Korean peninsula gets pushed into the future as Koreans worry about absorbing the enormous economic burden of the backward North while also trying to cope with the costs of a declining birth rate. 
    A book titled Korea: Your Future, describing such changes helped startle South Koreans and their government earlier this year. Oh Jong Nam , an executive director at the International Monetary Fund who has a doctorate in economics from Southern Methodist University, wrote the book. 
    "The unraveling social safety net, finding work for the elderly, strengthening pensions nobody was paying attention," Dr. Oh said. 
    One example: Having fewer young workers in the pipeline should encourage employers to keep their current staff longer. But South Koreans, urged on by employers, start to retire at age 45. "If you are still working at 56, you are considered a thief taking work from the young," even though the unemployment rate is less than 4 percent, Dr. Oh said. 
    The root of the problem, however, is a dearth of babies. Dr. Nam headed the country's National Statistics Office in 2002 when it announced that the birth rate the number of children born of each woman of child-bearing age had fallen to 1.17. 
    The rate crept back slightly to 1.19 in 2003, but only because the number of women of child-bearing age had dropped, he said. Today, "1-1-9" is a symbol of national emergency for South Korea . 
    In the 1960s, women here were giving birth to an average of six children. But South Korea was a poor country hoping to catch up with economic growth in the Philippines , and so it adopted a family planning policy that encouraged women to have just two children. 
    By 1983, the birth rate had fallen to 2.08 a balance. But, "contrary to common sense," said Dr. Oh, the military government decided to strengthen birth control by denying medical insurance for maternity costs from a third pregnancy. The policy wasn't reversed until 1997. 
    Part of the declining birth rate is caused by women entering the labor force. Half of young South Korean women, who are among the world's most educated females, have careers outside the home. 
    Women are waiting longer to get married. Since 1985, the average marriage age of women has risen from 24.8 years to 27.5 years. 
    "Most women now feel getting a job comes first, and marriage second," said Jo Seong-Eun of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. 
    Cho Yu Mi feels that way. She's 23 and is preparing for the exam that is a prerequisite for becoming a journalist. 
    "Journalists say they work 24 hours a day," she said. "They work together, drink together, play together. That's their lifestyle. And my career is more important than marriage now. I prefer to get married when I am in my early 30s." 
    For working women who marry and have children, there's far too little child care. Of 4.3 million toddlers of working mothers in 2002, only 700,000 could find a place in child-care centers. 
    Husbands don't make matters easier. Like women, Korean men dedicate themselves to their jobs. Ms. Jo of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said a recent survey of Korean couples found that working women spent an average of three hours and 40 minutes a day on housework. Korean husbands spent 34 minutes an increase of just four minutes since a similar survey in 2000. 
    A dedication to work spreads to children as well. It's not uncommon for school children to spend an extra eight or nine ours a day with tutors or at private prep schools where students cram for college entrance and career examinations. 
    "Their zeal toward education is abnormal," said Jonathan Kim, a Korean-American who is a professor at Southwestern Theological Seminary in Fort Worth . "And it is so, so expensive. They don't trust public education anymore. So once school is over in the afternoon, they put children in private education institutions, and that drains a lot of economic power from homes. They cannot afford to have two children." 
    Learning English has become so important that thousands of Korean couples live apart so one parent can enroll their son or daughter in schools in the United States, Canada, Australia or other countries while the other parent stays behind working in South Korea. 
    Timothy Choe, who publishes the weekly News Korea in Dallas , said there are about 10 of these "wild geese" families in his Korean-American church where the father is in South Korea while the mother and children are in Dallas for the schools. 
    "There's really too much competition in Korean higher education," Mr. Choe said. 
    Divorce is also rising, and women like Ms. Park and Ms. Cho say that having more than one child is a gamble. 
    "The declining birth rate is a great social problem," Ms. Park said. "But my friends in my peer group feel like me. To keep a balance between work and a family, one baby is enough."

8/6/05 Dallas Morning News: Beyond Red & Blue:
    More I dos Among the Red Than the Blue.  Marriage is far more prevalent in the most Republican states.  Nineteen of the 23 have a higher percentage of married adult residents than the U.S. average (Led by Idaho and Utah , at 62 percent each).  The U.S. average is 56 percent.  Eight of the states with the lowest percentages are the most Democratic.  (The lowest, by far, is the District of Columbia , at 36 percent.)
    Getting an Early Start on Producing New Voters.  The highest birth rate among teens was in the District of Columbia (69.1 per 1,000 women).  The next 15 highest rates were in the most Republican states.  Six of the seven lowest teen birth rates were in the most Democratic states, led by Massachusetts (23.3 per 1,000 women).  The U.S. average is 43 percent.

6/15/05 Wall Street Journal: Fast-Aging Japan Keeps Its Elders On the Job Longer,
    Japan 's declining work force comes from two trends linked with economic development. Better diet and health care have helped raise Japan 's average life expectancy at birth to 82, the highest in the world. Meanwhile, women in Japan are having fewer and fewer children -- an average of 1.28 each, compared with 2.04 in the U.S. -- so there are fewer people available to join the work force.
    These trends are also rippling elsewhere in the world. Italy and Spain , for example, have fertility rates roughly the same as Japan 's. South Korea 's recently plunged even lower, to 1.19. At the other end of life, the Chinese are living to an average of 71 years old, while Americans and most Western Europeans on average make it to their late 70s. Younger populations in developing countries like Brazil and India give their economies a demographic advantage -- but only a temporary one, as the same birthrate and life-expectancy trends are taking hold there amid growing prosperity.

9/18/04 Dallas Morning News: Readers see born trouble, by Scott Burns
    Some columns hit a nerve. A recent interview with Phillip Longman about his book, The Empty Cradle (Basic Books, $26), did just that. It brought a torrent of mail, much of it abusive.
    This is clearly an area where emotions make communication difficult. So hang with me, please. Let's consider three important words: Demography. Care. Nurture.
    In the demographics
    It's true that world population is rising and will continue to rise for more than half a century. It's also true that we, collectively, will be hard-pressed to provide adequate resources for the increased population. Water is a particular concern. So is energy. I have written about both even though my beat is personal finance.
    Demography isn't a quick-change subject. If it were a boat, demography would be an aircraft carrier, not a Jet Ski. In demography, 25 years is statistical noise. Fifty years starts to look meaningful. A century can be telling. Decisions made today will only see their full ramifications in 75 years. Here are some figures.
    According to recent United Nations figures, the total population of the more developed regions of the world was 1.19 billion in 2000. It will reach 1.22 billion by 2050. The population appears flat because the rising U.S. population covers the declining population of Europe and Japan .
    United States population is rising, but what the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta calls our "intrinsic rate of natural increase" has been negative for over 30 years. The population of Europe will decline by nearly 96 million people over the next 50 years, reaching an estimated 632 million. The population of Japan will fall from 127 million to 110 million. Because the United States , Europe and Japan account for most of the consumption in the world, the pressure on some natural resources won't be as great as it would be if developed world population was rising rapidly.
    The population of Russia will virtually collapse, falling from 1.5 billion to 1 billion by 2050.
    The population of China will continue rising to 2030, peaking at 1.5 billion, but will decline to 1.4 billion by 2050.
    About one-third of the expected population growth will occur in Africa except that estimates are revised downward year after year to reflect the downward spiral from HIV/AIDS and political anarchy.
    Even areas of sustained population growth have rapidly falling birth rates. In India , the birth rate fell by one-third between 1981 and 1997.
    Focus on families
    Phillip Longman directs his concern to the unsung hero of human societies: the family. Most economists treat families as mere tools for consuming the output of business or the purported benefits of government.
    In fact, no business or government institution can replace the functioning of a family. Without that functioning, society would cease to exist. (Skeptics should check what it costs to institutionally care for an abused child or a parent with Alzheimer's disease.) Mr. Longman sees a birth rate that is literally verging on extinction (nearly half the required rate for replacement) in Europe, Japan and Russia . And he asks questions few are asking.
    In words
    Those questions turn on two words.
    Care. It will become more difficult in such a rapid population shift. Mr. Longman points out that there will be 35 million fewer children in the world by 2050 but 1.6 billion more elderly people. We can measure that by asking what portion of the population will be at least 60 years old in 2050, remembering that in most of human history it has been less than 5 percent.
    In forever-young America , the figure will hit 26.9 percent, the lowest of any of the developed economies. In Italy and Japan it will be 42.3 percent. In Germany it will be 38.1 percent.
    These are massive changes. They will absorb the lifetime work of millions of younger people. It will strain or completely destroy institutional systems of retirement income and health care that depend on transfers from younger workers. It will put devastating strain on younger households that may have to care for aging parents and stepparents.
    Nurture. This is what adult parents do for the next generation. Nurture will be increasingly problematic as young couples confront the competing demands of caring (or paying) for the elderly, paying off education debts taken on to be competitive in the job market and paying for expensive housing in the shrinking number of school districts that offer quality public education.
    Many underestimate the pressure on today's young people. They should read books such as The Two-Income Trap by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi (Basic Books, $26) and The Price of Motherhood by Ann Crittenden (Owl Books, $15).
    This is about the human condition. I pray that we can find as much concern for human beings, as a species, as we can find for whales and birds.


8/21/04 Dallas Morning News: A bearish birthrate outlook.
By Scott Burns
    We're not facing a nuclear war or a population bomb, we're facing a depopulation bomb. This isn't just Europe . It's the entire world." 
    That was one of the first things Phillip Longman said when I called to talk about his book, The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity (And What to Do About It) (Basic Books, $26). 
    I called him because he is one of the few economics writers whose vision includes families as something more than consuming units. 
    He clearly recognizes that families are powerful economic institutions in their own right. Without families and all they do to create and prepare the next generation our market economy and public service economy would collapse. 
    If the idea of falling population strikes you as odd, you need to update your picture of the world and the problems it faces. 
    Less than 50 years ago (1957, the year Lyle Lovett was born, to be precise), the U.S. birthrate hit a record and began to decline. From 3.7 births per woman well over the 2.1 required to maintain a level population our birthrate has been falling since. It is now hovering just below replacement rate. 
    A global concern 
    In Europe , birthrates are even lower. As a consequence, by 2050 the population of Europe will have fallen to what it was in 1950. Mr. Longman says this is happening all around the world: Women are having fewer children. 
    It's happening in Brazil , it's happening in China , India and Japan . It's even happening in the Middle East . 
    Wherever there is rapid urbanization, education for women and visions of urban affluence, birthrates are falling. 
    "One of the reasons is that human beings have created an environment that is negative for childbirth. There is a demand for human capital, but there is almost no reward for it. So people have fewer children. 
    "On a farm, you can have children and they will be useful from age 5. But in an urban environment, children are liabilities. And 50 percent of all the people in the world live in urban environments. 
    "People who are involved in raising the next generation are typically paid far less than they would make doing something else. You can earn more, for instance, teaching real estate than being a schoolteacher." 
    Questionable benefits 
    "Why does this happen? Think about it like this. When you go to a casino, you keep all the winnings. But when you have a child, you have to share the benefits of your investment with the entire society. 
    "So we have a 'free rider' problem. You don't need to have children to provide for your old age but the pension systems need them." (He was referring to the coming Social Security crunch as the number of retired people rises faster than the number of workers.) 
    I asked whether the problem was that people were more self-centered. 
    "This isn't about selfishness. Surveys show women haven't had as many children as they wanted to have. 
    "The average woman in Europe , for instance, wanted to have 2.1 children but only had 1.3. In the United States , the average woman wanted 2.3 children [enough for population growth], but only had 2.02. 
    Bad timing 
    "People, particularly in Europe , aren't producing as many children as they would like to have. 
    "The economy is asking them to do more and more in their best reproductive years. They're expected to get educated, get a job, find a nice neighborhood, etc. By the time they do that, they've missed their best years for reproduction. 
    "Basically, our societies have put a tax on nurture. Parents create value, but they get little of it." 
    I asked how the nurture tax could be measured. 
    "Parents are effectively taxed in several ways. They pay the same Social Security taxes as others. But at the same time, they produce the children that will secure the future of Social Security. 
    "And children are an enormous investment. The government estimates it's about $200,000 in direct expenses. 
    "There's also an enormous opportunity cost the forgone wages. Even if the wife doesn't stay home full time, the part-time work is an opportunity cost." 
    The Empty Cradle captures a lost truth: There's more to life than investments. And there's more to investments than money.  

8/17/04 Associated Press: Report: Japan, Russia to Lose Population,
    Washington - Many of the world's largest industrialized nations will lose population between now and 2050 as low birth rates, struggling economies and curbs on immigration stifle growth, says the author of a world population report. 
    The annual study by the private Population Reference Bureau found that, while the world's population will increase nearly 50 percent by mid-century, Japan will lose 20 percent of its population in the next 45 years, while Russia , Germany and Italy will also see declines. 
    The United States is the biggest exception among developed countries, with its population forecast to rise by 43 percent from 293 million now to 420 million at mid-century. 
    Still, most of the world's population growth will come in developing nations, even though these less developed countries generally have much higher rates of HIV and AIDS infections and infant mortality. 
    China , currently the world's most populous nation at 1.3 billion, would see an overall 10 percent increase between now and 2050 to over 1.4 billion in 2050, but its peak population is anticipated to be reached by 2025 with declines thereafter. 
    By 2050, India is expected to overtake China , rising almost 50 percent from under 1.1 billion now to 1.6 billion at mid-century. Nigeria 's population is expected to nearly triple in size to 307 million, while Bangladesh would double to 280 million. 
    The trends could change further depending on the how successful doctors are in treating AIDS infections and reducing infant mortality rates and, how prevalent contraceptive use and family planning become in developing nations. 
    "This only tends to accentuate the opposite poles of population growth you have in industrialized and developing countries," said Carl Haub, author of the report by the bureau, which does population research and is supported by government, foundation and other grants. 
    The report says the world population should rise 45 percent to nearly 9.3 billion by mid-century, on par with similar projections from the United Nations and the U.S. Census Bureau. 
    While the population of developed countries would rise 4 percent to over 1.2 billion, the population in developing nations would surge by 55 percent to over 8 billion. Countries in Africa and south Asia would see the largest increases. 
    Haub highlighted Nigeria and Japan as examples of two countries heading in different demographic directions. About 44 percent of Nigeria 's population today is younger than 15, while just 3 percent is older than 65. Nigerian women typically give birth to almost six children over their lifetime. 
    Japanese women, on average, give birth to just over one child in their lifetime. While 14 percent of the Japanese population is younger than 15, 19 percent is older than 65. 
    "Clearly, Nigeria has millions of young people to educate and employ. Vast investments are needed to provide a higher quality of life for Nigeria 's growing population," he said. " Japan must find ways to take care of more and more retired people and still maintain an adequate work force." 
    There are recent signs that Japan 's economy may be on the upswing, though a Japanese government report last year suggested that stronger measures were necessary to encourage people to have more children and to make domestic markets more attractive to foreign investors. 
    Having younger residents is often seen as a good indicator not only for future population growth, but as a tax base to support programs for the aged. In a rough parallel to the Social Security program's challenges in the United States , a growing number of retirees in Japan has been consuming the nation's huge savings pool. 
    Meanwhile, many European countries with aging populations have sent out conflicting messages of seeking more workers while blocking out immigrants, the U.N. Population Division has said. The issue has sparked political debate in Austria , France and the Netherlands . 
    Societal norms play a role as well in many countries, Haub said. He highlighted Italy , where many young men live at home with parents until their late 20s because it is less acceptable to live with someone and raise a family out