Fruitful

Via Ezra Klein, Michelle Goldberg thinks there's nothing contradictory between liberalism and wanting higher fertility rates. Some liberals have argued, as Goldberg puts it, that "concerns about demographic decline [are] an anti-feminist race panic." But actually, the rich countries that have the youngest, most fertile populations are the ones with the most gender equality:

[T]he only solutions to the problem are liberal ones! Basically, the societies where birthrates have plunged to dangerous levels – Russia, Catholic countries like Poland, Spain and Italy, as well as Japan and Singapore – are all places that make it very difficult for women to combine work and family. In countries that support working mothers, like Sweden, Denmark, Norway and France, birthrates are basically fine[.]

Essentially, when societies get rich, women have an incentive to start working. Conservative societies say "No, you have to choose either home life or a career," and so the women who choose the career end up going childless and the fertility rate goes through the floor. But liberal societies bend their traditions and allow moms to work. So more working women become moms, and the population stays stable.

I think Ezra Klein puts it exactly right:

Women aren't giving up the pill or leaving the workforce. Attempts to increase birth rates by making 21st Century families act like 19th Century families are doomed to failure. Rather, you have to make it easier for a 21st Century family, with all its aspirations and independence and desires, to have a big family.

In other words, we should focus on creating a society where women are free to do anything and everything that they want to do with their lives. And women will reward that society by not causing it to vanish like dust on the wind. And so everybody will be happy.