In my first post
(Part 1) in this series, I introduce the public policy topic that dare not
speak its name: the dilemma caused by falling birth rates.
Exhibit One: The Ukraine’s falling birth rates mean that
troubled nation is losing people at
the rate of 150,000 per year.
The situation in this country is not
nearly as dire. Demographers look at a
measure called the fertility
rate. Demographers have calculated
that a rate around 2.1 will produce a stable population, over time. A number below 2.1 is said to be below
replacement rate. For comparison, Ukraine’s
fertility rate stands
at 1.29.
The population of a nation whose rate
falls below 2.1 is not necessarily shrinking.
If the death rate is falling (people are living longer) and/or (more
importantly) there is net immigration into the area, the population, overall
could actually be increasing, even with falling birth rates.
Spain (1.48), Germany (1.42) and Italy
(1.41) are examples of western nations maintaining their population levels
through immigration, despite extremely low fertility rates among the current
population. Greece (1.41) is
not so lucky. Its population is falling
as the result of a low fertility rate combined with emigration due to the poor Greek
economic environment.
In the United States, the fertility rate
stands at 1.931, below replacement rate.
America’s population continues to increase, as a result of immigration.
The fertility rate in Minnesota stands
at a slightly better 1.961. However,
this 2010 figure is likely to fall further, as we already know the 2011 birth
rate was one of the lowest for decades.
Our population may continue to grow if life expectancies can continue to
increase and/or we can attract migrants from other areas.
But where would our immigrants come
from? Neighboring states have,
historically, provided a steady source of new people. However, at present, North Dakota, South
Dakota, and Iowa all offer better economic prospects than we offer here in the
North Star State.
Foreign
immigration is a possibility.
However, Minnesota’s mid-continent location, northerly climate, and
middling economic prospects may induce immigrants from abroad to look
elsewhere.
Unfortunately, the Twin Cities’ regional
government Met Council has developed a
multi-decade plan premised on a population boom that appears unlikely to
materialize. The Met Council expects the
region to
grow by over 800,000 people, or some 29 percent, in the next 30 years.
With the local population actually
shrinking, from where will these new residents arise? Furthermore, the Met Council’s plan to
recreate the region as a high-density, mass-transit-dependent mega city will
further complicate efforts to grow the population, naturally.
As it happens, the nations with the
world’s lowest fertility rates are those dense, urban city-states that feature
just the type of lifestyles preferred by the Met Council. Singapore (0.79), Macau (0.79), and Hong Kong
(1.11) are struggling
with the pressures of population decline.
From the Singapore Straits Times,
If Singapore does not raise its birth rate, the number of
grandchildren of today's generation will shrink by two-thirds-and will still
have to support their parents and grandparents.
Apart from the increased burden tomorrow's generations
will face, the shrinking citizen population will also mean a shrinking local
workforce. So, while efforts are being
made to get more Singaporeans to reproduce, immigrants are needed fill the gap
to maintain the Singapore core.
What our Met Council seems to not
understand is that creating a high-density, transit-dependent urban environment
is working at cross purposes to its desire to grow the region’s population. Such environments discourage family formation
and the raising of children. Ever try to
parallel park a minivan?
Among those regions that the Met Council
models for its new vision—the San Francisco Bay area, the Pacific Northwest of
Seattle and Portland, and Boston, Massachusetts—none have healthy birth or
fertility rates.
Back in 2010, the Wall
Street Journal reported the following in regards to San Francisco’s
death-spiral demographics,
San
Francisco births are headed for a steep decline. According to projections from
demographic researchers at California's Department of Finance, San Francisco is
one of just four counties in the state with projected drops in births over the
next decade, along with Humboldt, Alameda and San Mateo. But San Francisco's
drop will be the largest, with 2,064 fewer births in 2019 than in 2009, a fall
of 23%, while San Mateo has the second-biggest projected percentage decline of
8%.
The
trend could be driven by people in their 20s and 30s fleeing San Francisco's
high housing and rental prices over the past several years, says finance
department senior demographer Melanie Martindale, as well as the fact that
"high fertility isn't a characteristic of Bay Area women at any age."
Ms. Martindale says the change could ripple out into thinner enrollment in
public schools and more pressure on local hospitals tending to an aging
population.
Of fertility rates elsewhere in the
nation, Washington State (1.907), Oregon (1.791), and Massachusetts (1.665) all
rank below the national average and all rank below Minnesota’s.
Worldwide and across America the
experience has been that you can have high density and transit dependence or
you can have natural population growth, but you can’t have both.
As the above quotes indicate, some are
beginning to wake up to the public policy implications of falling birth rates. A little over a year ago, Rick Newman wrote
in US
News and World Report,
This development [falling birth rates] doesn't directly affect anybody,
since it's one of those long-term societal trends that occurs in small increments
and doesn't change the unemployment rate, the price of gas, the direction of
the stock market or any of the big economic forces that make our lives better
or worse today. And since the trend is strongest among immigrants, it sounds
like maybe this is something happening in a shadowy part of the economy that
doesn't matter all that much.
But it does matter, and if the trend persists, it could mean lower living
standards for most Americans in the future.
Newman adds,
These
types of demographic trends get the attention of economists when big changes
might raise or lower the economy's capacity to grow—which could be happening
now. Fewer marriages and fewer children lower the rate of household formation,
which means people spend less on everything from appliances to clothing.
"Fertility rates have plunged, and that will have an impact on future
consumer spending," says Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economists at forecasting
firm IHS Global Insight.
The Met Council wants us to emulate those wealthy, dense cities on the two
coasts. But the Council has the
causality backwards: Boston and San
Francisco did not become wealthy because they are dense, they grew dense
because more wanted to move there to share in the wealth.
By adopting its preferred policies of density and transit dependence, the
Council is choosing a future of declining birth rates and declining prospects,
without ever passing through the interim “getting rich” stage.
In Part 3, we will—you guessed it—examine the political implications of all
of this.
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