Editor’s Pick (Article and Video): Demographic Winter by Deacon Antonio

September 27, 2012 / MariaNews.com

Editor’s Pick:  Demographic Winter

By Deacon Antonio 

The following is a quote from the DVD video, Demographic Winter, the decline of the human family:

“One of the most ominous events of modern history is quietly unfolding. Social scientists and economists agree – we are headed toward a demographic winter which threatens to have catastrophic social and economic consequences. The effects will be severe and long lasting and are already becoming manifest in much of Europe.

A ground breaking film, Demographic Winter: Decline of the Human family, draws upon voices from different disciplines – demographers, economists, sociologists, psychologists, civic and religious leaders, parliamentarians, and diplomats. Together, they reveal in chilling soberness the dangers facing societies and the world’s economies, dangers far more imminent than global warming and at least as severe.”

A demographic winter has the potential to cripple the world’s economies, and cause the collapse our own country.

The root of the problem is that birth rates are decreasing in most countries and in 70 countries the birth rates are already below the replacement level needed to avoid population decline, that is, statistically at least 2.1 children per family.

It all started in the 1970s when non-demographers coined the term, “population bomb” and predicted that the population was increasing so rapidly that the earth’s food resources would soon be insufficient.  The result, they said, would be mass starvation in many parts of the world.

The press popularized the overpopulation myth and soon it was accepted as gospel truth. But Harvard Professor, Nicholas Eberstadt says that the increase in population growth in the last century was not because people were breeding like rabbits; rather, it was because they were not dying like flies. Improvements in medicine were responsible for the spike in population growth.

A healthy population needed for a healthy economy can be represented by a pyramid in which the number of elderly people is at the top and the number of children is at the base. When the birth rate is below replacement value of 2.1 children per family, the pyramid is inverted with more elderly at the top than children at the base. Economists say this translates into a depressed economy.

In the United Sates we haven’t had population decline. However, our growth in population can be attributed to immigration primarily of Hispanics.

The various experts from different disciplines featured in the DVD video attribute the low birth rates to inaccurate assumptions about overpopulation, the sexual revolution, affluence, higher education of women and divorce. (Contraception and abortion are related to some of these factors). The concerns of the researchers, was not only the birth rate, but also the responsibility of parents for the education and healthy development of the children that they bring into the world.

The sexual revolution decreased chastity and increased cohabitation before marriage. Both of these factors translate to unstable families more likely to divorce and decrease in birth rate. In fact, persons who have no sexual partners before marriage have the lowest divorce rate of 20%, those who had one sexual partner whom they did not marry before marriage to somebody else, had a divorce rate of 46% and the more sexual partners before marriage greatly increases the divorce rate. Children from divorced or separated parents, cohabitating couples, and single mothers have greater problems in every category relevant for development of children into responsible adults – education, behavior, poverty, etc.

Affluent parents have a tendency to have fewer children because they want to live their lives as individuals rather than as family. Educated women tend to use their education in a career and often postpone having children until later in life and generally have fewer children than couples who have children at a younger age.

The researchers from the different disciplines who contributed to this video based their conclusions simply on the social and demographic data, and not on moral or faith based arguments. I do think that most people would agree that the only solution to stave off the impending disaster of a “demographic winter” is to return to traditional Catholic values concerning sexuality, marriage and family. Following Church teaching will help us to get to heaven and to procreate more children to perpetuate future generations on earth.

Check out the trailer:

Check out the official website for Demographic Winter here:

*Catholic Marriage Resources:  http://foryourmarriage.org/

Read more by Deacon Antonio here.

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