Fertility is Overrated

One of the more obnoxious conservative critiques of Europe is that its low fertility rates are an indication that its civilization has failed, or that it is effete and lacks vigor. This "argument" is often accompanied by a quasi-racist anxiety that whites aren't reproducing enough, especially relative to other races.

I guess I should just point out that low fertility is associated with many desirable traits. The least fertile nations are the most prosperous, the best-educated, the most free, etc. I wonder how many conservatives consider the West Bank a better society than Israel - on the basis of fertility, the West Bank is almost twice as "vigorous" or "thriving" or whatever.

This reflects that it is often problematic to use aggregate statistics to derive individual virtue. So for instance, countries vary in their savings rates. One might be tempted to describe a high-saving society as frugal and a low-saving society as profligate. This is almost always nonsense. People save at different rates over their lifetimes, so national savings rate might reflect demographic differences. Alternatively, national savings rates can reflect different political priorities. The US is running a deficit in part to finance a very expensive war - this doesn't make Americans less frugal than other people, except in a very attenuated sense.

Other times such derivations are more appropriate. Some societies really are more violent or less literate or whatever. If anything, though, low fertility rates should be a point of pride. Many people don't realize this, though, so it's a way to score some cheap points at the expense of societies with enviable social statistics.