Because Feminism Is Causing Global Population Decline, Suddenly Population Decline is Bad
Since the 1960s, scientists and other experts have been in a panic about global population growth. Fueled in part by racist pseudo-research and anti-immigrant think tanks, the concerns about “population explosions” have cycled in and out of the news each time the world’s population adds another billion people. Is population growth a problem? Surely, it’s bad for the environment, conservation and climate change. Climate change is such an emergency, some people are limiting the number of children they have.
But we may never know for sure, because new research shows that the global population may be about to peak and will then begin to decline. The reason? As a recent study in the Lancet put it, “continued trends in female educational attainment and access to contraception.”
Put another way, the reason is feminism.
You would think that the news of global population decline would be met with relief and celebration by experts around the world, alongside billions in funding flowing into women’s groups everywhere. Instead, the idea that feminism appears to be single-handedly solving so many of the world’s most pressing problems, without oppressive government policies, but instead by giving people more rights and freedoms, has been met with pearl-clutching panic. Why?
The First Rule of Fight Club is that feminism is always bad, no matter what
The truth is that nobody knows whether population decline will be in the aggregate bad or good. It will help the environment and may become a key part of reducing climate change, but it may also cause recessions. The image of rapidly declining birth rates may cause countries to become more right-wing, undermining feminist progress, or, countries may step up to help parents by providing baby subsidies, free child care and other assistance. It’s good to ask how the ill effects of population decline may be mitigated by good policy, while the good effects are encouraged.
Whatever governments do or do not do, birth control, perhaps the most popular invention of recent memory, is likely here to stay. Humans just aren’t going to give up sex for fun, no matter what policy makers, religious leaders and tech-bros say.
