Demographic apocalypse
Matt Yglesias reminds me today of an interesting fact. I tend to believe that most people who want to regulate access to contraceptives do so out of a sexist desire to regulate female sexuality. I forget that some people manage to find a way to bring elitism, racism, and religious intolerance to bear on this question.
It will not be long, if current demographic trends continue, until the United States of America has no racial majority; non-Hispanic whites will constitute a plurality, rather than a majority of the nation's population. A few states, including California, have already achieved this "minority-majority" status (even if Wikipedia gets it backwards--"majority-minority" describes the status that African Americans enjoy as the nation's largest minority group, though not for long).
You can see related world-wide data here. (Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a good summary of the data that directly supports the conclusion about the relative sizes of population groups in the U.S.) A country needs to have a total fertility rate of 2.1 to achieve a roughly constant population (one child per parent, plus a few extra to replace the ones that don't make it to 15). The United States of America is just at that number: 2.09 for 2007, according to the Wikipedia chart. Most of Europe has already fallen below the replacement rate; their populations are getting smaller, especially in countries like Germany that have high barriers to citizenship for immigrants. Meanwhile, if you look at this map, you will see that the countries with the highest fertility rates--the ones thus driving the total increase in global population--constitute most of the world where white people are a minority.
This demographic datum disturbs some people. What will the world be like when wealthy, white, Christian men no longer control the world's economy? To avert this potential calamity, the thought goes, we must keep up with the dark-skinned hordes. We need to make more white people. One source of these demographic trends, plausibly, is the ready availability of effective contraceptive methods in the mostly-white "first world" of America and Europe. Take that away, and our fertility rate will increase.
I remember that one day, in high school, a classmate gave a presentation about this demographic data. She was the sort of pro-lifer who takes Planned Parenthood to be the root of all evil, and indeed, her thesis, probably culled from some conspiracy theorist's website, was that Planned Parenthood's ultimate goal is to reduce the total fertility rate of Europe and the United States (and Canada, I suppose). According to this theory, Planned Parenthood is actively working to realize a future in which rich, white, Christian men no longer have the outsized influence on the world that they do now.
I hope I needn't spend any time pointing out what's wrong with this argument for restricting the availability of contraceptives. The moral of this post is rather just that people work for this backwards goal for more than just one crazy reason.
It will not be long, if current demographic trends continue, until the United States of America has no racial majority; non-Hispanic whites will constitute a plurality, rather than a majority of the nation's population. A few states, including California, have already achieved this "minority-majority" status (even if Wikipedia gets it backwards--"majority-minority" describes the status that African Americans enjoy as the nation's largest minority group, though not for long).
You can see related world-wide data here. (Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a good summary of the data that directly supports the conclusion about the relative sizes of population groups in the U.S.) A country needs to have a total fertility rate of 2.1 to achieve a roughly constant population (one child per parent, plus a few extra to replace the ones that don't make it to 15). The United States of America is just at that number: 2.09 for 2007, according to the Wikipedia chart. Most of Europe has already fallen below the replacement rate; their populations are getting smaller, especially in countries like Germany that have high barriers to citizenship for immigrants. Meanwhile, if you look at this map, you will see that the countries with the highest fertility rates--the ones thus driving the total increase in global population--constitute most of the world where white people are a minority.
This demographic datum disturbs some people. What will the world be like when wealthy, white, Christian men no longer control the world's economy? To avert this potential calamity, the thought goes, we must keep up with the dark-skinned hordes. We need to make more white people. One source of these demographic trends, plausibly, is the ready availability of effective contraceptive methods in the mostly-white "first world" of America and Europe. Take that away, and our fertility rate will increase.
I remember that one day, in high school, a classmate gave a presentation about this demographic data. She was the sort of pro-lifer who takes Planned Parenthood to be the root of all evil, and indeed, her thesis, probably culled from some conspiracy theorist's website, was that Planned Parenthood's ultimate goal is to reduce the total fertility rate of Europe and the United States (and Canada, I suppose). According to this theory, Planned Parenthood is actively working to realize a future in which rich, white, Christian men no longer have the outsized influence on the world that they do now.
I hope I needn't spend any time pointing out what's wrong with this argument for restricting the availability of contraceptives. The moral of this post is rather just that people work for this backwards goal for more than just one crazy reason.
posted by gregates at 2:02 PM
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