Wanted: less brown kids

Writing in The Nation, Kathryn Joyce says that conservatives' hysteria over low fertility rates in Europe is primarily due to their desire to see white Christian people remain a majority.

Well, duh.

It hardly takes a well-written multi-page piece of journalism to prove that conservatives want white Christians to stay a majority - you could just watch Fox News, where they say it outright.

But will liberals gain anything by fighting against conservative attempts to raise European birthrates? Those attempts are probably doomed to failure anyway. The only policy that has been repeatedly shown to raise birthrates in rich countries is to give women better work opportunities. That's something that liberals should want for its own sake.

And let's not forget that the primary population-related challenge facing our world today is to reduce fertility rates in the poorest countries. Population explosions in Sub-Saharan African and South Asia condemn those nations to extreme poverty, rampant violence (caused by surplus young men), and massive inequality. And those high fertility rates are usually achieved by keeping women in domestic bondage.

Lowering fertility rates in African and South Asian countries, by providing access to universal birth control and education for women, is the quickest and best way to enrich those countries. This will naturally result in fewer brown kids, even as better opportunities for women in rich countries results in more white kids (because fertility rates will converge toward 2 children per woman everywhere).

Ironically, this is exactly the outcome that tribalist white Christian conservatives would want. That doesn't mean we shouldn't bring it about. Western liberals have been the most consistent force for women's equality in poor and rich countries alike, and we should not stop fighting for that simply because we're afraid it will create the racial/tribal balance that conservatives want.