The Demographic Winter

Hello everyone! My name is Seth H and I have been studying a lot about marriage and families so I have decided to start a blog about it. While studying different topics about marriage and families, I have been looking at different studies and research that have effect on families in the world today. There seems to be a lot that goes into this kind of research because every family is different.

I wanted to talk about an unusual problem that the world is currently facing. The media has long talked about how we are experiencing overpopulation in the world. They claim that we will eventually run out of resources to provide for everyone. This is partly due to a popular book that was released by Paul R. Ehrlich in the year 1968 titled "The Population Bomb". This book had a massive influence on the media and helped create the fear of the possibility that we are overpopulating. However, it turns out that we are facing the exact opposite of the issue. The world is heading towards what's called The Demographic Winter. The Demographic Winter refers to a worldwide decline in birthrates. The theory is that over time, people on average will have less kids than what is required to keep the population growing and the world will fall into a constant decline in population. To help you understand better, I'll give you some of the stats.

For example, in the year 1950, worldwide birth rates were around 37.8 births per one thousand people. In the year 1980, the worldwide birth rates were around 28.2 births per one thousand people. Today the results are at a shocking 17.6 births per one thousand people. It seems that as the world continues to change in culture and the media grows darker and away from traditional family beliefs, people start not wanting kids as much.

Now what can we do to change this? Well my personal/spiritual belief is that God wants us to have families. I believe that families are part of God's plan for us. The world is moving away from that belief. People start to think of children more as a burden rather than a blessing. If we were able to help change the culture and belief that children are just an expensive burden then that would fix many of the problems we face in the world today.

One of the issues that we face in our culture is the idea of cohabitation. This is when two people live together and have sexual relationships but are not married. Lets say we have John and Mary living in the same house. They don't want to get married because they aren't "ready for that kind of commitment yet". However, John and Mary love each other and eventually have a child. After a while, John realizes that he doesn't really want to live with Mary anymore. Since they aren't married, John finds it easy to leave Mary and their child. This leaves Mary alone to take care of the child thus causing a lot of issues in the child's life. I mean sure John has to pay child support and sees the child every once in a while but its just not the same.

There are many other cultural issues that I could go into but I'll save those for another time. In this blog, I will attempt to help people understand what they can do to be a better parent and raise their child with good values that will bless them and others throughout their life. I am not perfect and I am not an expert. However, I believe some of my beliefs and opinions will have a positive effect on those trying to pursue a happier family lifestyle.

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