Wednesday Morning Rant

No, not some WEF scheme or diabolical plan from the rest of the global elite. They want depopulation, of course, but they are not the architects of reality. As usual with the plans of our betters, it won't pan out the way they envision. We are getting depopulation right now, with no end in sight and it isn't unfolding according to some grand plan. It is now so obvious, however, and such a huge topic of worry that places further along the curve than we are have "Depopulation" as a coverage category in the newspaper.

That example from Japan (from the English-language "Japan Times" paper) is focused on Japan, of course, but includes coverage about population declines from across Asia. A few articles a week usually pop up under the "Depopulation" tag. Demographic trends. Similar issues in other countries. The continuing decline in rural population. What to do with abandoned houses. What can be done to reverse the baby bust. What are foreigners doing about it?

One big part of this is the "what can we do about it" aspect of the population crisis (and I do think it is a crisis, albeit the opposite of the crisis that's usually discussed by elites who aren't named "Elon Musk"). As the West's demography continues to falter and follows what we're seeing in Asia, it is worth paying attention to what they're trying to do about it and whether it's working. The government plans usually boil down to two things:
1. Financial incentives
2. Mating-promotion activities

The first is fairly straightforward: cash for kids and sometimes a lot of it. The Republic of Korea - home to the world's lowest fertility rate - has hurled hundreds of billions of dollars at the problem in the form of incentives, bonuses, tax exemptions, education offsets, housing assistance, etc. Backed by tax incentives, even Korean mega-corporations are getting in on it, offering company-paid incentives to employees who have children, some up to around $75,000 or so. The country's fertility rate continues to fall.

Japan's policies, subsidy schemes and incentives are similarly numerous. Japan and Korea, being the worst off, are trying the most options and spending the most money. They are not alone. There are similar government-backed cash incentive programs throughout Asia. Singapore and Taiwan have incentive programs, too. Red China scrapped its "One Child Policy" years ago and it's now the "Three Child Policy" and Party members are instructed to go have kids. The fertility rate trend in all of these countries do not indicate that these schemes are successful.

Which leads to the second part. Marriage is both down and, when it still happens, occurs later in life in all of these countries - and in our own. People date less and marry less. Fewer people reproduce and those who do reproduce do so at lower rates. To try to tackle this, the governments are encouraging dating-for-marriage and providing venues for dating and to help people find dates. Megalopolises like Seoul, Korea host blind date events to help young singles meet each other and hopefully get married. Korea, Japan and Red China (at least) all have government-sponsored "meet markets" for singles to try to get them to meet each other, get married and have children - with promises of financial incentives if they follow through. In Japan, Tokyo is developing its own marriage-oriented dating app with identity, income, marital status and age verification to try to overcome the "everyone lies about everything and just want to hook up" problem with online dating. Like Tokyo's new effort, Red China also has marriage-focused dating apps sponsored by the government.

The latter approaches - the approaches other than "throw money at the problem" - are relatively new. Will these government shadchonus programs work where money has failed? It's too soon to tell, but if past is prologue, then probably not. But with fertility rates peaking or actively declining essentially everywhere in the developed and developing world, it is worth paying attention to what others are doing - both to avoid going down well-traveled but dead-end roads, and to see what if anything works. I don't know what's next, but I suspect it will be legal, social or religious in nature rather than financial. It is arguable that these state-sponsored matchmaking practices are the first major foray into the social side of things in search of a solution.

Dreams of the global elite aside, depopulation is a nightmare scenario for cultures, nations, economies and possibly even the species - and various countries are trying more and more things to try to arrest it.

posted by Joe Mannix at 11:00 AM

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