Climate Change Anxiety Is A Cause For The Decline In The Birth Rate

Last year was the hottest year on record for the world. The U.S. is warming up at a faster rate than the global average, and many are feeling the effects of global warming this year. There are many consequences of high temps, ranging from wilting gardens to major health risks, but one of the most often overlooked corollaries is a rise in communal anger and aggression. What’s more, a very unexpected target for this anger is large families. 

The Guardian columnist Eva Wiseman shared, “An academic study into how young people factor climate change into their reproductive choices makes for dark reading, with 96% ‘very or extremely’ concerned about their potential children in a climate-changed world.”

For some, their concern about having children in today’s climate is so severe that they’ve decided not to have children at all. 

Wiseman shares an even more harrowing statistic, claiming that 6% of parents confessed to feeling remorse about having children. 

So what’s their reaction toward families with multiple children? Short answer: not good.

What’s Climate Change Anxiety?

Mental health clinicians are seeing more patients come in with symptoms of climate change anxiety, which is supposedly the root of many activists’ anger when it comes to large families. Also referred to as eco-anxiety, eco-grief, or climate doom, the term “climate change anxiety” soared by 565% in 2021, and can be defined as distress about climate change and its impact on both Earth and on the humans who live here.

Okay, you probably could have guessed that, but let’s dig further. 

There’s a difference between being worried about our climate (as 64% of us apparently are) and anxious, which can be debilitating. (And interestingly enough, an overwhelmingly white person phenomenon, even though the communities that suffer most from climate change are disproportionately black, Indigenous, and people of color.) 

I can attest that when an anxious and overheated person is in the thick of it (hey, July), it’s easy to lash out. My anger is usually quelled by a snack and A/C, but for many who are “experiencing” climate change anxiety, it’s usually directed at a scapegoat: large families.

The Bradys on Trial

Let’s talk numbers: Around seven billion people are alive today. The United Nations estimates that by the end of the century we could number as many as 15.8 billion. Biologists have calculated that the ideal population – the number at which everyone could live at a first-world level of consumption, without destroying the planet – would be 1.5 billion. How they got that number is beyond me. Which means, essentially, one way to eliminate climate change is to have fewer children.

The reality is the global fertility rate has actually declined every year since 1965, from nearly five births per woman to 2.4. The problem is that anything above 2.33 – the rate at which births equal deaths, when child mortality is ­factored in – will yield a population expansion. To help visualize this, each year the world metaphorically adds the equivalent of another Germany or Egypt.

But here’s the issue: This is only a small, tiny, minuscule fraction of the picture. Saying large families impact climate change is like saying being introduced to fruit at the age of one versus two can have massive repercussions at the end of your life. 

Despite this, there is a “jaw-dropping” global crash in children being born. Japan’s fertility rate is so low (1.4 children per female) that the population has been in decline since 2006. So picture this: too many aging people and not enough young ones to take care of them. Already Japan has a shortage of geriatric nurses. Twenty-two other nations are expected to see their populations halve by 2100.

So which is it: Are we facing an overpopulation or underpopulation crisis? It depends on who you ask. But when it comes to its effects on climate change specifically, calling families with multiple kids “selfish” or claiming they hate the environment is way off base.

If We’re Pointing Blame, Point It Here

I know big families: My grandmother was one of twenty (yes, you read that right). The authors of the infamous 2009 study that claimed that people are responsible for their descendant’s carbon emissions would have balked at this, claiming that not just my family but my great-grandparents in particular are responsible for adding hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide to the planet. (This equates to more than five times their own lifetime carbon emissions.)

But this study was totally contingent on the assumption that all future generations will indefinitely emit at 2005 levels, an assumption that is now wide of the mark. Why? Because, to be overly simple, times are changing. Climate policy will continue to get stricter, so our descendants’ carbon footprints will undoubtedly be smaller than the projected 2009 study suggests. 

The reality is a small minority of wealthy people actually produce the majority of global greenhouse gas emissions. Their consumption habits have a way bigger impact than overall population numbers. New Oxfam research found that the richest among us were responsible for more carbon emissions than 5 billion people – the equivalent of 66% of humanity – in 2019.

Years ago, it was the wealthy who had large families. In Tudor, England, women hired wet-nurses for their newborns because they wanted to get pregnant as frequently as they could. Today, despite having access to better care and living standards, wealthier people are having fewer children than lower income households.

It’s not the large families we should be looking at.

Moving Forward with Large Families 

Philosopher Quill Kukla has warned of the danger of stigmatisation on this issue. Affirming a duty to have fewer children might suggest that certain groups, which have or are perceived to have more children than average, are to blame for climate change. 

Not only are these groups usually ethnic minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged people, but Kukla also warned that if we start talking about taxing children or even outlawing them like China once did, this burden is going to fall disproportionately on women.

As we’ve seen time and again, women are already under immense social pressure about their biological decisions when it comes to family planning, ranging from reproductive health issues to sexual violence, a dilemma that begins even before birth for many.

Having more children actually has a lot of benefits for the climate and economy. A 2008 American Planning Association (APA) survey of practicing planners found that 97% of responding planners agree that families with children are important to community growth, sustainability, and diversity, and 90% agree that communities that keep residents for the whole life cycle are more vibrant.

Having large families also teaches indispensable skills and instills values in children from a young age, including healthy relationship building among a wide age range, having a sense of belonging to a community outside your own individual self, communicating amid conflict and chaos, and a decreased risk of mental health issues. Not to mention the family is the total bedrock of society. 

If someone experiencing climate change anxiety decides not to have children, that’s their prerogative, but they should know this decision will likely have little impact on saving our planet. Meanwhile, leave large families in peace. They experience enough chaos at dinnertime. 

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