The birth rate crisis is not about money. Here is the real cause.

Hi, I'm Jim Penman. I'm a businessman who's funded a research institute into, amongst other things, the birth rate crisis. Why are birth rates dropping? I've written previous books including Epigenetics and Character and Biohistory, about to release Birth Rate Crisis. In the video here, what we're looking at is the declining birth rates throughout the world. Basically, the— it's dropping in every country. The only country that's seen a slight upturn recently is Israel, and they're just above replacement. But all the other OECD countries are below. Now in this chart, what you'll see is projections which carry on, and it sort of seems to suggest that the birth rate crisis will alone even out. Let me tell you, that is not what's going to happen because the reason the birth rates are dropping is because of people's attitudes—not wanting children, not wanting families. And what you see in looking at opinion polls is that the youngest generation is a lot more anti-children. Anti-birth rate. So the birth rate is not going to sort of level out. They're going to keep on declining unless we do something about it. What we see here is a chart of the number of births, which has risen and it's reached a plateau about 140 million, and it's just starting to come off. And the projections are that it's going to decline very slightly. Let me tell you, this is completely wrong. You're not going to tell leveling off. What you're going to see is a decline, and we know that because it depends on attitude. It's not money, it's attitude. People are having less children because they don't want children as much as they used to. The younger generation, the youngest generation, is more anti-children, anti-family by far than their elders. So what you're going to see is a continued rapid decline. Most countries in the world are going to go way, way below replacement level. These are the reasons why people are not having children. Now, the interesting thing is people mostly say it's about economics, but when you ask them, there's quite different things. Environmental concerns come up, but they're one of the least ones. I believe it's just a rationalization. Can't afford to raise a child, 36%. Yeah, okay, that is the reason people often say. Concerns about the state of the world, yes, I think it's a rationalization because the world's always been insecure. Want to focus on other things, yes, very, very much so. People have much higher priority these days to things like travel, career expenditure, those kind of things. And Just do not want to. And that's really the core of the reason. Most of the rest of it's just a rationalization. People have children because they want to have children, not because of anything about the state of the world or anything else. You have kids because you want them. I've got 10 kids because I love kids. Why do younger adults not want children? Basically, the biggest, biggest change is the focus on other things. And what's really striking is it's so much more the case with younger adults. It's almost twice as important in terms of the reason. And that indicates the real problem. People look at the birth rate crisis as something that's happened. We haven't seen the worst of it. You're going to see the birth rate drop further and further and further. And if you look back in the past, you'll always see projections, no matter where it was, oh, it's gone down, but it's going to level out. But it keeps on going down. Let me tell you, it will keep on going down because the basic reason is getting worse and worse. My own country, Australia, has been trying a number of things: 26 weeks paid parental leave, 3-day childcare guarantee, Family Tax Benefit, superannuation on leave pay, childcare subsidy, newborn payments. Tried this stuff, doesn't work, any of it. No appreciable effect on the birth rate in Australia. South Korea is trying a whole lot of different things. Higher parental leave pay, more time for fathers, newborn housing support, leave time for both parents, shorter working hours, help for employers. Okay, they're trying all these things. People say it's money, it's this and this and this. What's really interesting is that none of them are working. They are not working at all. And it won't work for South Korea, it won't work for anywhere else. China's trying national childcare subsidy, maternity and parental leave, housing support, more affordable childcare, tax relief, broader maternity benefits. Adding to that, you've got government pressure. The government's now saying you've got to have children. They're getting rid of propaganda against having children. They're actually controlling the media to push it. It's not working. And what's really interesting about China is that China's had a change of policy from the strict one-child policy to allowing 2 children. Birth rate went down. Then they said they went from allowing people to have 2 children to encouraging them to have more than 3 children, and the birth rate went down. What it shows is what the government does is irrelevant. It's trivial. They can't fix the problem. Japan's trying expanded childcare allowance. Near full-time income replacement, housing support, half a million yen in childcare payment, short-term work benefits, more childcare and education help. It's not working. None of it's working. The birth rate isn't even budging the slightest bit. Money isn't the issue. Singapore is trying baby bonus cash, 30 weeks paid leave, newborn healthcare funding, child development account, large families scheme, housing, childcare, and tax support. And yet the birth rate continues to go down and it will keep on going down. 'Cause this is not solving your basic problem. Israel's a country which has overall very high birth rate. It's the highest by far in the OECD. But within Israel, there's some very important differences. The Haredi Jews, for example, the ultra-Orthodox, got a very, very high birth rate. They're having like 6 children, more than 6 children per woman. Then you've got religious Jews in general, which have also got above average, but they're about 4. And then you've got the secular Jews, which are down there about 2. And Christians, very similar. So the more religious, the more strict religious, the more children. There is a reason for this. The basic reason that people have— want large families is because they have got very sensitive dopamine reaction systems. Which means if you're very sensitive to dopamine, family, children, work are very attractive. It gives you all the dopamine you really need, just these little trickles of dopamine. If you are insensitive to dopamine, then you need excitement, you need travel, you need career, you need all the enthusiasm, engagement with the wider society, gambling, all these things become very, very attractive. So what we need to have children is a sensitive dopamine system. Now what religion does, and particularly the strictest form of religion, is that it has all kinds of practices that make us more sensitive, make people more sensitive to dopamine. And one of them is very strictly controlling sexual activity because sexual activity causes a big burst of dopamine, especially with strangers, with different people, and therefore desensitizes the brain. So what we've got to do, what these faiths do, is they very strictly limit the dopamine surges that are causing the problems. And that's why these people have a character that makes them want to have more children, that want to get married early. Amish population is growing very rapidly. The estimated total fertility is 6.1, having 3 times as many children as they need to replace themselves. But 85% of the people, of the young people, actually stay with the community and leave, which is interesting because it's a very tough lifestyle. You've got to avoid modern technology, but 85% do, and they seem to find it worthwhile. Median age of marriage for women is 20.9. It's very young, when people are fertile. Now, there's a reason for this, and it's to do with the actual way that the community is set up. The Amish have certain kinds of customs that have this effect of making people more sensitive to dopamine. They discourage very actively sex outside of marriage, particularly before marriage. That is a thing that actually tends to make these the dopamine system more reactive. And then you have strong community, strong religious orientation, all have the same kinds of effects. A sense of being part of a community, not putting yourself above others, these all have the effects of making people more sensitive to dopamine. Let's talk about dopamine. There is a problem in the modern world, and it's— what the problem is, is that people have become less sensitive to dopamine. And this is a reaction to prosperity and other things like that, things like drugs and alcohol and even competition and the falling of faith. They can all have these effects. What they actually do is make people less sensitive to dopamine. What that means is that the activities like family and children are becoming less attractive because our brains need lots and lots of dopamine surges to be satisfied. So something like drugs, alcohol, excitement, gambling. travel, adventure, all these things give you— give dopamine surges and they satisfy the brain. Whereas the family, children, community, these things only produce a little trickle of dopamine. So if your brain is insensitive to dopamine, you don't tend to want children and family, you want these other things. If it's more sensitive, then you want children and family. The key, what we've got to do is to work out how to make people's brains more sensitive to dopamine, to reverse the character change that's been destroying our birth rate. Now, let's talk about cocaine, because understanding the way that cocaine works is a good way to comprehend the reasons for the birth rate crisis. Now, what cocaine or other addictive drugs do is they give very, very powerful bolts of— surges of dopamine to the brain, which feels in the short term very good. But the reason they don't work long term is because when you continually besiege the brain, you charge it with these surges of dopamine, the brain becomes less and less sensitive. And therefore, to cocaine, and therefore you need more and more of the drug just to feel okay. And activities like family and children and stuff, they're just too boring. They need the excitement, they need the stimulation of these vast dopamine surges. Now, in a sense, that's what's happening to our entire society. Because what we're doing is the influence of society, including things like social media, including things like plentiful food, including things like competition, like gambling, like travel, like all the exciting different stuff, they are acting like a mini sort of cocaine habit. They're hitting our brains with lots and lots of dopamine surges and our brains are becoming less sensitive. And the result of that Things like children and family become less interesting. So the solution is actually quite simple. What we need to do is to resensitize our brains to dopamine, which incidentally should be a very, very good way of dealing with problems of drug addiction, but also with problems of depression, of mental illness, and the birth rate crisis itself. Baby boom. Very interesting topic because there was a period when the declining birth rate actually reversed itself in America and in much of the rest of the world to the extent that birth rates were very low in the 1930s and rose to a peak in the '50s. So birth rates were very much higher in the '50s. The question is why? Because if we're interested in understanding what happened to— why the birth rates are collapsing all over the world, we need to look at what happened when they actually rose for a while. Now people have all sorts of explanations for what happened in the '50s. And one of the most common explanations is that it was the result of the Second World War. Now, what's wrong with that is that typically big wars tend to cause the birth rates to drop. That happened after the 1914-18 War. It happened after the Napoleonic Wars. It happened after the Civil War in the US. So generally speaking, wars cause populations to drop. But there is something that causes birth rates to rise, and that is economic recessions. And what causes birth rates to rise is when you have a depression, a severe depression with high unemployment and a lot of economic misery, children who grow up, who pass their second 6 years of life, approximately between the ages of 6 and 12, tend to have more children. There's multiple occasions. Great Depression is one, but also the recession of '75-'85. The kids that grew up then, past their late childhood then, tend to have a little bit of a baby boomlet. But you can go back to the 19th century in England. The kids that grew up in the Hungry Forties, which was a really bad time, as they grew into adults, they had more children. So economic recession is a good thing. at the crucial stage of life is what caused the birth rate to grow. And that's because it has an effect, an epigenetic effect on character. Now, we don't want to have a massive recession to cause the birth rates to rise, but what if there was a way of achieving the same results without the economic misery? We believe there is, and that's the solution to the birth rate crisis. We should spend money on scientific research, basic neuroscience research. There is a reason people are not having children. It's to do with the change of character, which is a reaction to our ultra-competitive society, to prosperity, to all these things. It's solvable. It needs neuroscience. We need science. And there are actual potential treatments around, which is the GLP agonists, the weight loss treatments. There's actually some of the effects in those we think have some of the right effects. If they were tweaked and followed up, we could solve this crisis. We're not talking about a big program. We're not talking about the trillions of dollars being spent. We're talking about a few hundred million dollars just to do the basic research to find out what the The problem is we can fix it.