Breeding ourselves out of existence?

'I'VE always been an optimist," said Ben Wattenberg, tuckling into a lunch of turkey with cranberry dressing. "But now I'm not so sure. This stuff is really pretty alarming." "This stuff" is the subject of Wattenberg's new book, "Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future." For 40 years, the columnist and TV talk show host has specialized in forward-looking books, notable as much for their uplift and optimism as for their academic rigor.

And now comes "Fewer," which stands alone in tone and substance--not dark, exactly, but unsettled and premonitory. At its center is an oddly overlooked fact about contemporary life: "Never have birth and fertility rates fallen so far, so fast, so low, for so long, in so many places, so surprisingly."

To put it sensationally, if not quite accurately: People are on the verge of breeding themselves out of existence.

Demographers posit a "replacement rate" of 2.1, which means that women must on average bear 2.1 children each if a population is to grow. In Europe and Japan, fertility rates have been far below "replacement" for years.

What's new and so far unpublicized is this: Among developed countries, the decline in fertility rates is proceeding much faster than anyone expected. Italy and Spain, for example, are now down to 1.1.

Moreover, the decline will soon become universal. Fertility rates in less developed countries, what we used to call the "Third World," are falling so fast that they're due to dip below "replacement" by mid-century, according to United Nations' estimates. Several countries--Mexico, for instance, and Iran--already have fertility rates below 2.1.

"Our traditional view of those countries is completely outdated--the population explosion and all that," Wattenberg said. "Forty years ago, less developed countries averaged about 6 children per woman. Now it's about 2.8--still a growing population. But the UN projects it will fall to 1.85--a declining population."

Wattenberg sees world population, now 6.4 billion, trending to 8 billion over the next several decades, then beginning to fall. At a 1.85 replacement rate, world population would decline to 2.3 billion people by 2300.

The great exception to these trends is the U.S., where the fertility rate is just below replacement and moving higher. The UN projects 400 million Americans by 2050, up from about 285 million. Much of the U.S. growth is fueled by immigration.

"Never before in history have populations chosen not to reproduce themselves," Wattenberg said. "Declining populations have always been a result of plague or famine."

For those people weaned on the small-is-beautiful humbug of the 1960s and '70s, which saw humans as a kind of blight on a pristine planet, news of a population implosion will be good news indeed. But for a "pro-people" futurist like Wattenberg, who sees human beings as a positive good and growth as a gift, the implosion carries ominous implications.

What is commonly called the "aging problem," for example, is better understood as a low-fertility problem. In 1950, 8 percent of Europeans were over 65. That percentage will rise, by 2050, to 28 percent.

Increased longevity plays a part in the aging of the population. "But the principle cause of the aging boom is a baby bust," Wattenberg said. Younger population cohorts have fewer members, thanks to declining fertility rates.

"Who will pay for the public pensions of the senior citizens if there are comparatively few worker bees in the population?" he writes. "Who will pay for the medical care for the seniors? To put it bluntly, with fewer workers, who will empty the bedpans?"

And what happens to business and to economic growth when the consumer base shrinks? Europe, according to UN projections, is set to lose 3 million in population every year beginning in 2050.

Not so long ago, Wattenberg advocated a vigorous package of "pro-natalist" public policies to encourage fertility--tax subsidies for child care, mandates for generous maternal and paternal leave, flex time, even allowances for families who choose to have more children.

Pro-natalist policies have blanketed Europe, however, to little discernible effect. "There's one problem with pro-natalism," he said. "The policies don't work."

So I asked Wattenberg: What's the answer?

"Maybe the answer is that there is no answer," he said, shrugging. "For now, the best we can do is answer like Mr. Micawber in the Dickens novel: 'Something will turn up.' I say that because I'm an optimist. It's hard to imagine the alternative."

Andrew Ferguson is a columnist with Bloomberg News.