Whilst the issue is certainly treated in that overly dramatic way beloved of all "prophetic/lone voice of reason documentary makers", it is undeniable that failure to meet birth replacement levels is both a serious and worsening problem in many developed countries. Don't let "taint of association" cloud your judgement; this is a real, largely European phenomena (Spain, Italy, France, Russia e.t.c), although Japan is also a notably severe case.

However, I don't at all agree with the proposed solutions of trampling on women's and gay rights. (Is anybody else creepily reminded of The Handmaid's Tale?) In any case, it's even argued that lack of equality is one of the driving factors in Japan's demographic decline (i.e. very rigid gender roles with women expected to do all care giving and housework on top of salaried work).

Carefully managed economic migration is the only feasible answer, however I don't see it being either sustainable or welcomed by the majority of host populations.

The frightening thing here for me really is the reality that this idea (which is a frightening enough one as it is) is being coupled with the documentary film medium. The academic research on this topic is not being read widely by the public yet place it within the medium of a film, and notably a documentary film, and it could see much more widespread attention.

With regard to the content of the actual trailer, it seems the limited arguments or notes of histories that were added to movements noted as stemming from a “1970’s era preoccupation with the so-called population bomb” relate little and offer nothing concise as an argument for traditional family values. It would be interesting to see how they rationalise any undermining of human rights in order to preserve the deemed-sustainable demographics.

As a final note, I find it… sad yet almost predictably funny that after the widely-proclaimed failure of the Copenhagen climate change summit that a documentary trailer comes out previewing a film which concerns itself with upholding sustainable population levels in the west… meanwhile our carbon footprints et al. seem to remain far above sustainable levels given our current population size.

So we should be concerned about the lack of the "right" people (read white) to run trains, and care for the elderly??

Maybe these people should spent less time wringing their hands and wondering how to force women to have more babies and spend more time wondering WHY less women want babies. Could it maybe be because women, who are already less than in our society, become even more less than with children? Having a harder time finding jobs or a harder time getting a higher education when they have children or are going to have children? That there is very little support for women who have children ESPECIALLY when single mothers and their children are far more likely to live in poverty? That maybe in this sexist and patriarchal world when women are given a choice whether to have children or not the better option is to NOT have children?

Maybe if these people worked harder to have better schools for these children, better support systems and welfare for children, more support for mothers and maternity care, more encouragement and expectations for men to take responsibility for children and household chores, then MAYBE so many women wouldn't forgo motherhood. You know, just maybe.

But hey, hand wringing is totally more fun than actually, I dunno, DOING something about this.

The point they forget to make when they say that results of all their social science (an oxymoron in itself) studies indicate that family values make society stronger is that family values make society stronger _in societies that have economies that reinforce family values._

I wonder if the comments here would be so dismissive if the 'documentary' were claiming that certain minority populations were decreasing. If, for example, studies showed that the African American population was decreasing in a way to suggest it would disappear, would the standard comment be, "good, the world is over-populated anyway."

Also, what does the claim that social science is an 'oxymoron' say about this website?

"On every measure, ever measured by the social sciences, the intact married family is the strongest on every outcome ever measured."

Hahahaha. Strongest in what? Oh that's right, EVERY MEASURE EVER MEASURED.

Strongest in life expectancy? Quite possible and probably true.
Strongest in emigration rates? Umm, alright, I guess?
Strongest in suicide rates? Lol he's the "expert", so he must be right!

I hate how grave the tone is. Quite annoying. The first guy in it is like so tense, it's like this thing is happening tomorrow or something.
I have to say I would hate it if there were no french people in the world, I really wouldn't like that. I don't mean it sarcastically. Cuz with the french one needs to make that quite clear, since normally they're supposed to be hated. I really like France, though. Just imagine: the world, no pain au chocolat... What's the point of that, really?

Oh my, my ladybrain had the situation all mixed up! I should quit school and become a Quiverfull or our decadent, overbearing society will vanish! Or change!

What do these people expect to happen if the population simply continues increasing forever? My dad always states, "In the Bible it says, 'God will provide!'" but Dad's never read the Bible. Will the world's diameter be magically increased? Maybe that's what all these earthquakes are about - some omnipotent force wants to enlarge the world so we can keep our population and consumption growing at exponential rates! Why didn't we realize this before?

The more comments I read, the more annoyed I am. The original post and some reactions seem totally unaware of European realities and very US-centric.

Here some fertility rates (2008 figures):

Bulgaria 1.48
Czech Republic 1.50
Germany 1.37
Greece 1.45
Spain 1.46
Italy 1.41
Latvia 1.45
Lithuania 1.47
Hungary 1.35
Malta 1.43
Austria 1.41
Poland 1.23
Portugal 1.37
Romania 1.35
Slovenia 1.46
Slovakia 1.33
Albania 1.40
Armenia 1.42
Bosnia and Herzegovina 1.18
Moldova 1.28

France (the example given in the video) is a very racist example, since that country has one of the highest birth rates in Europe and is absolutely maintaining its population.

I could be wrong about this, but I thought that at least some of those countries had a relatively low work participation of women, thus again there would have to be other factors as well.

I remember a few years ago, my mom was listening to a radio pundit who was worried about more or less the same thing, except he also focused on replacement-birth for ideologies. He proudly claimed that he was doing good for right wing politics by having (and adopting) many children with his wife, and postured that because liberals 'don't like to have kids', that's why they have to 'indoctrinate' college-age kids into their lifestyle.

On the population and economic front, I'm suspicious of anyone who thinks infinite growth (physically speaking) is a good thing for humanity.

Demographic Winter and Demographic Bomb may well present accurate information about demographic patterns. But that's like saying that Pat Robertson would readily praise the blue skies if the day was bright and sunny. Even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day.

These productions are emissions of Allan Carlson and like minded moral entrepreneurs on the far right who have a deep and abiding appreciation of science but only so long as it is marinated long and well in white racialist Christian morality.

For those intrigued by these documentaries, you might want to do a little research on the people behind the premise of the documentary. They, the premise, and the documentary create a poor context to debate demography.

And our comment thread wit who married oxymoron to social science study is probably in about as good a place to discuss demography as Allan Carlson since neither believe social science is in any way superior to the fetid sources they traffic in.

Allan Carlson may be superficially aligned with the theoretical argument about the unlimited virtues of unfettered population growth but even that body of thought is far too rational and secular. Carlson takes a position that secular self-interest and individualism, in other words, selfishness and it's centrality to modern feminism and identity politics are among the most important bogeymen responsible for the Decline of the West. The antidote starts with Christian renewal. Welcome to Jurassic politics.

South Korea's low birth rate and unwed mothers

Four years ago, when she found that she was pregnant by her former boyfriend, Choi Hyong-sook considered abortion. But after she saw the little blip of her baby’s heartbeat on ultrasound images, she could not go through with it.
As her pregnancy advanced, she confided in her elder brother. His reaction would sound familiar to unwed mothers in South Korea. She said he tried to drag her to an abortion clinic. Later, she said, he pressed her to give the child up for adoption.
“My brother said: ‘How can you be so selfish? You can’t do this to our parents,’ ” said Ms. Choi, 37, a hairdresser in Seoul. “But when the adoption agency took my baby away, I felt as if I had thrown him into the trash. It felt as if the earth had stopped turning. I persuaded them to let me reclaim my baby after five days.”

Now, Ms. Choi and other women in her situation are trying to set up the country’s first unwed mothers association to defend their right to raise their own children. It is a small but unusual first step in a society that ostracizes unmarried mothers to such an extent that Koreans often describe things as outrageous by comparing them to “an unmarried woman seeking an excuse to give birth.”

The fledgling group of women — only 40 are involved so far — is striking at one of the great ironies of South Korea. The government and commentators fret over the country’s birthrate, one of the world’s lowest, and deplore South Korea’s international reputation as a baby exporter for foreign adoptions.

Yet each year, social pressure drives thousands of unmarried women to choose between abortion, which is illegal but rampant, and adoption, which is considered socially shameful but is encouraged by the government. The few women who decide to raise a child alone risk a life of poverty and disgrace.

Nearly 90% of the 1,250 South Korean children adopted abroad last year, most of them by American couples, were born to unmarried women, according to the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs.[...]

In 2007, 7,774 babies were born out of wedlock in South Korea, 1.6% of all births. (In the United States, nearly 40 percent of babies born in 2007 had unmarried mothers, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.) Nearly 96% of unwed pregnant women in South Korea choose abortion, according to the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs.

Of unmarried women who give birth, about 70% are believed to give up their babies for adoption, according to a government-financed survey. In the United States, the figure is 1%, the Health and Human Services Department reports.

For years, the South Korean government has worked to reduce overseas adoptions, which peaked at 8,837 in 1985. To increase adoptions at home, it provides subsidies and extra health care benefits for families that adopt, and it designated May 11 as Adoption Day.

It also spends billions of dollars a year to try to reverse the declining birthrate, subsidizing fertility treatments for married couples, for example.

“But we don’t see a campaign for unmarried mothers to raise our own children,” said Lee Mee-kyong, a 33-year-old unwed mother. “Once you become an unwed mom, you’re branded as immoral and a failure. People treat you as if you had committed a crime. You fall to the bottom rung of society.”

The government pays a monthly allowance of $85 per child to those who adopt children. It offers half that for single mothers of dependent children.

The government is trying to increase payments to help unwed mothers and to add more facilities to provide care for unmarried pregnant women, said Baek Su-hyun, an official at the Health Ministry. But the social stigma discourages women from coming forward.

Chang Ji-young, 27, who gave birth to a boy last month, said: “My former boyfriend’s sister screamed at me over the phone demanding that I get an abortion. His mother and sister said it was up to them to decide what to do with my baby because it was their family’s seed.”

Families whose unmarried daughters become pregnant sometimes move to conceal the pregnancy. Unwed mothers often lie about their marital status for fear they will be evicted by landlords and their children ostracized at school. Only about a quarter of South Koreans are willing to have a close relationship with an unwed mother as a coworker or neighbor, according to a recent survey by the government-financed Korean Women’s Development Institute.

“I was turned down eight times in job applications,” Ms. Lee said. “Each time a company learned that I was an unwed mom, it accused me of dishonesty.”

Ms. Choi, the hairdresser, said her family changed its phone number to avoid contact with her. When her father was hospitalized and she went to see him with her baby, she said, her sister blocked them from entering his room. When she wrote to him, she said, her father burned the letters. Last year, about three years after the birth, he finally accepted Ms. Choi back into his home.

“That day, I saw him in the bathroom, crying over one of my letters,” she said. “I realized how hard it must have been for him as well.”

Even though it might be really late to ad my opinion in this (maybe I´m excused by saying that I just stumbeld in here...) I just have to say I noticed one thing in this trailer - the same thing I notice in every new discussion about the demography problems : The herefrom developing economy problems seem to be an even bigger problem in the eyes of the so called experts (I live in Germany and the issue is quite big here, I guess that´s why Kat got so into it. Though I don´t know about the situation in the U.S.). So the answer to this nonsense documentary is right there at 1:21!

I believe the accusations above - that this film just reflects the worries of the traditionell "white" population to extinct, while the "wrong" peoples number increases, don´t quite get to the real problem. The Problem is real after all - just the solutions presented in this film are almost comical (if you have a really weird sense of humor)

Like someone already stated: The population can´t increase forever (duh)! Aside from that: even if the earth could handle some more people (say 2, 3 or some more billions?), we could live a lot more comfortable without them. Think about it: many scientists see the REAL problems in form of wars for ressources just coming for us.

The way I see it, we have to find a way how to reconcile solutions for the demography problems to the economy problems that are caused by this change. The solution shouldn´t be based on the economical problem, by just "generating" more of the soon to be missing "consumers" for the suffering economy by FORCE as it´s proposed by the "experts" in this film.
This concept just seems so alien to me!
Oh and by the way: meddling with peoples familyplanning, reminds me of a certain political agenda... weren´t those guys socialists...?

Funny fact aside (relating to the beginning of the trailer): My former teacher in 6th grade used to tell us that the roman empire ultimately went down because of its citizens hedonistic lifestyle. Or as he said: "Der Wein ruinierte das Römische Emperium!" (wine ruined the roman empire) because they used a toxic sweetener for it...
(Abandonment of unwanted children instead was quite common...)

This trailer should've been prefaced with, "In a world where absolutely no technology exists," right? Population decline (which is only projected, and no fewer than 50 years off, if it happens at all) is only a problem if we're thinking of the world in 19th century terms, where it takes dozens of people to run a small farm, thousands to run a factory, etc. With increasingly sophisticated and intelligent machinery, a farm can now be run by one technologically-skilled individual (maybe even a woman!), that just maintains and oversees the operation of robotic farm equipment. This will become the norm as such technology becomes less expensive and more available. In other words, it will take fewer workers to maintain a population, and the standard of living will still increase. That is, if we keep technophobes from interfering and spreading lies about doomsday scenarios. Importantly, we have to keep women (who are perhaps better adept at technological work than men are) out of the kitchen.