The Empty Cradle - book

The subtitle of this work explains succinctly what it is about, “How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prospertiy (and what to do about It). From my own prospective I might have added “Humanicide Revisited.”


My son has been telling me about falling birthrates for some time but for some reason I didn’t pay much attention. He finally insisted I read this book. I did, and I found it a genuine eye-opener as well as greatly disturbing. If the author’s statistics are valid, and I have little reason to suppose they are not reasonably so, it appears that the human species may be on the way to a type of humanicide not heretofore well considered. You may recall that I suggested there were probably two separate meanings of the term humanicide, the primary one having to do with the threats to humankind from pollution, war, and technology that might be seen as leading to the suicide of the species. Another meaning, I suggested, may lie in the use of the term to describe certain acts of terrorism in which the targets were humanity at large (as in 9/11 or the Oklahoma bombing). I did not suspect there might well be a third type of humanicide, a kind of Lemming-like behavior that could be the result of falling birthrates (remember the myth of Lemming suicide when their population explodes). It is true that Lemming populations, and that of other rodents, can fluctuate widely from time to time for reasons largely unknown. It is also known the populations of predators of various kinds will also fluctuate depending upon the availability of their primary food supply or changes in their environments bringing about new demands on their behavior.

Longman says in this book that contrary to the fears of some about overpopulation, the birthrates of all European nations are not sufficient to maintain their populations over time. Indeed, this unprecedented drop in fertility rates is occurring all over the earth, in both hemispheres and in nations both wealthy and poor. In Industrialized countries an average woman must bear 2.1 children over her lifetime to replace the populations. In Italy, perhaps the best example of the magnitude of the problem, the present fertility rate is only about 1.2. Alarm over this is being sounded all over, in Turkey the fertility rate is 2.32, barely enough to replenish the populations and dropping, a situation that has caused the Prime Minister to urge people to have more children. Both China and India have seriously declining birthrates. In Russia I understand they are offering cash incentives for women to have children. Birthrates are also declining in Muslim countries. In the U.S. the declining rate is approaching danger.

The reasons for this decline in human populations are not completely understood but obviously have to do with the availability of contraceptives, feminism, better educational and economic opportunities for women, and the crowding and related factors associated with urbanization. Although Longman does not mention it, there is some evidence that sperm counts have been slowly decreasing over time. This would seem to indicate that in general the human species has been and is undergoing significant and probably detrimental changes in environmental and the cultural conditions of human life, changes that may even threaten the continued existence of the species. There is little doubt that life styles have a marked impact upon both health and human birthrates as the author shows with a number of comparisons (a most interesting one between the states of Utah and Las Vegas, for example).

Some, especially those who have been concerned with overpopulation, may think this reduction in the population is a good thing, fewer people less demands on natural resources, and etc. This might be true except for the fact that as the population shrinks because of low birthrates there is a larger and larger proportion of elderly people compared to younger people, and these elderly are living longer and longer than ever (only because of less infant mortality, rather than in absolute years of longevity) with an insufficient population of younger workers to support them. Longman discusses the problems attendant upon this situation in great detail and concludes that if this trend continues the human species will be in trouble.

If all this is true, and it seems to be, it would seem to be a much slower and more insidious form of humanicide that the fear of nuclear explosions or even global warming. The Empty Cradle is a fascinating and enlightening book, the moral of which seems to be, do your duty and breed.