A RUSSIAN professor, friend of Putin no less, reckons the West is planning to unleash a deadly virus to kill most of the world’s people. For good measure, he blames LGBT+ ideology in British schools for undermining our fertility.
You must admit that Professor Mikhail Kovalchuk has a point. Western biological research is not a tale of unmitigated glory. There’s that Scottish island used for anthrax research in the Second World War and still unfit for habitation, and when Obama banned virus research in the US the scientists swerved to fund the work in a country where the definition of quality is what you can get away with, and an acknowledged bio-safety rating of two out of five at the Wuhan lab. Bizarrely, there are some Western scientists and doctors who believe that people are like certain species of fish, able to change sex. Many so-called scholars, ranging from Malthus, Dalton, Shaw, Hitler, the late Duke of Edinburgh, Ehrlich, Sir David Attenborough and Bill Gates really think there were or are simply too many of us.
So everything is going swimmingly in Russia then, Professor? Sadly not. Russia’s fertility rate of 1.41 is way below replacement level (2.1). In fact, it’s about the same as ours (1.6), and rather lower if you discount the Muslim provinces and measure only Rus Russia. We promote gender ideology in primary schools and the Russians ban it but the numbers show it doesn’t make much difference. In a further blow, the nefarious Western and Chinese boffins could only make a virus that killed no one but the elderly and infirm, which had no effect on births.
So what explains the large variance in national fertility rates, from an astounding 6.8 in Niger to a pitiful 0.8 in South Korea?
One possible explanation is that the most fertile countries are very poor. Twenty-nine of the top 30 countries are in Africa, the exception being Afghanistan. Maybe, but Montenegro, Bhutan and Puerto Rico are well below replacement level, and few would describe these lands as rich.
One might remark that countries with a high fertility rate are also conflict zones, and there’s some truth in that. Look at Chad, Burkino Faso, Congo, etc. Iran, during the war with Iraq, had a fertility rate above seven; it has since collapsed to 1.7. Lebanon is highly unstable, yet the fertility rate is below replacement level. As for Ukraine . . . Here again the picture is mixed.
Might it be the patriarchy? Mali and Sudan don’t immediately come to mind as beacons of female liberation and abortion rights. Education levels? Maybe there’s something to be said for keeping the womenfolk dumb but I’m not one to say it. Somalia (6.3) and East Africa in general have an average IQ of 80, though I’m not sure I believe that figure. If you are that thick you would be rejected as a grunt in the US army, and Somalians seem pretty adept at waving AK47s around.
Could religion have something to do with it? Perhaps, though Namibia and Papua New Guinea are experiencing a baby boom without a national clerisy.
No single explanation suffices. Multiple factors, including those above, may be in play. One thing is for sure, though. Adopting these attitudes of violent misogyny, poverty, insecurity and tribalism might do wonders for Britain’s fertility rate, but would do nothing for our general level of happiness or prosperity. And importing people for whom these habits are second nature would be even worse.
There is something that could be done, however, to ensure we don’t go extinct before the end of the century. That is to reform the state, and in particular the pension system. It is notable that countries with low fertility rates have high social protections for the elderly. The UK, with its triple lock ensuring a continuous wealth transfer from young to old, is not even the worst offender in this regard (I’m looking over the Channel).
All developed countries’ social systems are basically Ponzi schemes. Ponzi schemes work if there is a sufficient supply of suckers to pay the previous cohort who cash out. Until there isn’t; then they go pop. We are approaching this denouement. Our educated youth, previously forced to make National Insurance contributions, are beginning to emigrate in increasing numbers.
In several ways National Insurance is worse than a Ponzi scheme. At least Mr Ponzi had some stamps as assets, but when you lift the lid on NI . . . there’s nothing there. As Nye Bevan admitted: ‘The great secret of the National Insurance fund is that there ain’t no fund.’
Other elements are madder still. If you had suggested to the enlightened employers of yesteryear – Owen or Cadbury for example – that they should be taxed to employ people with no substantial benefit to their employees, they would have been astonished. Yet that is what we do, and the tax on employment is spent on the dole for workers made unemployed. The newly unemployed, or never employed, still gets his stamp paid by the state, a notional, actually fictitious, contribution which in due course will qualify him for the state pension. Meanwhile, the grafter who works offshore or overseas for four weeks out of six gets taxed up the wazoo with no pension rights.
But, but, but . . . my NICs paid for my OAP! It’s my right! No they didn’t. They were diverted to the NHS, housing benefit, universal credit . . . every current bit of spending the Government incurs. We face a stark choice: either deflate the bubble or prick it. Do you prefer the bandage over the suppurating body politic to be peeled off slowly or with a quick jerk?
When something is unaffordable you stop buying it. Personally, I’m in favour of abolishing the state pension in one go (and I write as a pensioner). It’s bound to happen one day, might as well get it over with. If the nuclear option is too difficult here are some suggestions:
· freeze the state pension, abolish the triple lock, and let inflation do the work;
· stop pretending to pay the stamp for the unemployed;
· extend the qualifying period;
· pay citizens only;
· do not pay expats (Australia doesn’t, why should we?);
· devolve funding to local level (not to the extent of being ‘on the parish’ or burning inconvenient old witches, just far enough to make the fiscal transfer transparent).
In a democratic country like ours, where more than half the adult population are net recipients of welfare, this will be hard to do. The alternative is national bankruptcy, or reforming the franchise to favour parents in gainful employment with extra voting rights.
So far, natalist policies in Europe have failed. France and Hungary have tried tax incentives, which have made little difference. But taking an axe to the problem just might. A recent excavation of a grave pre-dating the invention of agriculture uncovered an old woman who had survived for many years with no teeth. How? Someone (a family member, presumably) had masticated her food before she ate it. (Einkorn and elk meat need to be ground up to allow proper digestion.) This intergenerational contract of reciprocity was the norm for thousands of years. It is only we boomers who have broken it.
Once we rebalance the pact between generations we can get back to a sustainable fertility rate. By all means, discover your inner self in the Maldives and care for stray cats, but don’t expect your neighbours to subsidise your old age when they have made significant sacrifices (no long haul holidays for them) to bring up their own children. The patience of Nanny State is exhausted.
