Alaka Basu, a visiting scholar in the Sociology department and former professor in the Department of Global Development, pushes back on Victor Kumar’s article, “Progressives Should Care About Population Decline, Too” (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 6).
To the Editor:
This is an unpersuasive article. Declining population growth rates and declining population size are not a problem for an earth of eight billion-plus people. Current consumption patterns and the urge for ever more consumption are.
Moreover, on the one hand, we worry about machines and A.I. making more and more humans redundant, while on the other, we whine about not having more humans being born.
Birthrates are coming down globally and voluntarily. If women (and men) find smaller (and even childless) families more affordable, and more fun, that is something for them to decide. Families still need child care and other support, but this should be provided to improve women’s lives, not as a means to increase their fertility.
As a social demographer, I find the current efforts to control reproductive behavior to increase birthrates in rich countries as problematic as earlier implicit and explicit efforts at “population control” in poor countries.
Read all of the letters to the editor in response to Kumar's opinion essay.
