LETTER: Pets replace children as fertility rates fall
However, Africa, with the world’s highest fertility rate of more than 2.6, will experience increasing levels of poverty, social disruption and violence
Easter is essentially a northern hemisphere fertility festival. While its Christian overlay has subtly deflected the emphasis to animals through chocolate eggs and rabbits, the complicated arena of human fertility festers beneath our obvious economic challenges.
In Japan, the total fertility rate has crashed to 1.36, and in Europe to 1.56. China is experiencing the unexpected consequences of its 1979 one-child policy. America’s rate only exceeds 2.16 because of immigration. To those who see global population levels as being too high, falling fertility rates should be good news. But our growth-dependent economies were designed in the post-war baby boom, and embracing a new normal will not be easily done...
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