Dear Editor,
It would seem that the demographic pendulum has swung. Overpopulation, fear of having children, and promotion of contraception has been the dominant narrative. Now these agendas have borne their fruit. The world order is changing. These policies have successfully upturned the Northern Hemisphere demography. Less and less young supporting more and more elderly. Meantime the “the less developed world” are demography rich. They have enough young firepower to drive the Northern economy with appropriate training and education as we are already witnessing with diverse nationalities populating the health services, tech companies and government.
But this is not the answer. A vox pop of English people of reproductive age asking why they do not have more family would yield interesting results which would focus remedial interventions. Money is an essential, child care and security of housing and employment are essential, but so too is the reverse psychology of desiring a larger family and reversing the media hype around carbon, climate and overpopulation. People have forgotten the joy of fatherhood and motherhood and the strength of the extended family. Isolation, loneliness, depression and abandonment in old age are all results of small splintered families.
A country’s wealth and future depend on its growing population of healthy youth. A positive psychology of family and children is urgently needed along with the eradication of echo chambers of negativity surrounding the planet, the climate and the future. People need to hear good news and need to see positive role models. The writing is on the wall and unless a sea change in agendas and media bias and funding for families occurs we are looking at the wipe out of the genetic pool.
Getting the numbers ABOVE 1.5