SHOULD WE TRY TO (RE)PRODUCE MORE?: Andrew Ferguson

"I've always been an optimist,'' said Ben Wattenberg the other day, tucking into a lunch of turkey with cranberry dressing. "But now I'm not so sure. This stuff is really pretty alarming.''

"This stuff'' is the subject of Wattenberg's new book, "Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future.'' ...

At its center is a simple but oddly overlooked fact about contemporary life: "Never have birth and fertility rates fallen so far, so fast, so low, for so long, in so many places, so surprisingly.'' ...

What's new and so far unpublicized is this: Among developed countries, the decline in fertility rates is proceeding much faster than anyone expected. Italy and Spain, for example, are now down to 1.1.

Moreover, the decline will soon become universal.

Fertility rates in less developed countries, what we used to call the "Third World,'' are falling so fast that they're due to dip below "replacement'' by mid-century, according to United Nations' estimates. Several countries -- Mexico, for instance, and Iran -- already have fertility rates below 2.1. ...

The great exception to these trends is the U.S., where the fertility rate is just below replacement and moving higher. The UN projects 400 million Americans by 2050, up from about 285 million. Much of the U.S. growth is fueled by immigration. ...

Not so long ago, Wattenberg advocated a vigorous package of "pro-natalist'' public policies to encourage fertility -- tax subsidies for child care, mandates for generous maternal and paternal leave, flex time, even allowances for families who choose to have more children.

Pro-natalist policies have blanketed Europe, however, to little discernible effect.

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