Britian’s chief rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks links excessive consumerism and selfishness to couples having fewer or no children. That’s probably true (up to a point), but this isn’t: Sacks said, “Europe today is the most secular region in the world. Europe is the only region in the world experiencing population decline. Wherever you turn today the more religious the community, the larger on average are their families.” Europe probably is the most secular and more religious countries generally have higher fertility rates, but Europe is not the only region experiencing population decline. Only three large industrialized countries have actually been shrinking for the last few years: Russia (arguably an Asian country) and Japan. Germany, Italy and South Africa have just begun to get smaller (Germany and Italy have occasionally experienced single years of “negative population growth” in recent decades but it appears they are about to have sustained periods of depopulation). Within the next 10 years South Korea will be joining the legion of depopulating countries and within 30 years so will China.
