DVD Review

Demographic Winter

“Never in history have we had economic prosperity accompanied by depopulation”

“There won’t be enough people to run the trains and pay the taxes.”

“Now we have forty years of evidence that the deterioration of marriage, the encouragement of sexuality outside of marriage is just not good for society, nor the children, nor men.”

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

I have just viewed the Demographic Winter DVD. The quotes above, all from highly qualified academic observers including a Nobel laureate, all of which you can hear for yourself by watching the trailer on the website, are soberingly supported by the whole presentation. It would appear that world depopulation trends are taking us toward difficult times.

“There’s not much quibble, there’s not much controversy, among people in the know.”

World population growth is leveling off. We are not birthing enough children to replace ourselves as we age and die. The health revolution hides this trend for now: increased lifespans mean that total population is not falling yet. It is aging instead. The social and economic results appear dangerous if not catastrophic.

“More imminent than global warming, and at least as severe.”

The NY Times Magazine, in an article published Sunday, concurs that there is a significant problem growing here.

Why is this happening? The researchers and producers involved in this film identify five primary factors:

• Inaccurate assumptions, especially in regard to the “population bomb” (Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book)
• Prosperity
• Women working
• The sexual revolution
• The divorce revolution

It almost looks like a list drawn from a Christian family foundation’s talking points (though prosperity in itself is hardly ever considered an evil, it is the self-focus that can often accompany it that contributes to this problem). Phil Longman, one of the researchers most featured in the film (who said “there’s not much quibble…”), emphasizes that he is not speaking from a faith perspective but a research perspective. Others insist that the researchers most in touch with the actual data on social and family trends are in near-total agreement that the family matters.

Could it be that James Dobson and Dennis Rainey have been right all along?

Order the DVD and decide for yourself.

Children, Ethics, Family Life, Population, Review 5 comments

From the conclusion of a paper out of the University of Virginia (emphasis added):

This brief provides an array of evidence indicating that religion is an answer to the male problematic—that is, the tendency of fathers to become detached, emotionally or physically, from their children and the mothers of their children. I find that fathers who are religious, and who have partners who are religious, are—on average—more likely to be happily married, to be engaged and affectionate parents, and to get and stay married to the mothers of their children. As a consequence, religious fathers and husbands are much less likely to fall prey to the male problematic of late modernity.

[Link: Center for Marriage and Families » Blog Archive » Is Religion an Answer? Marriage, Fatherhood, and the Male Problematic]

The “male problematic” was defined earlier in the paper:

One of the most important consequences of the family revolution of the last half-century—a revolution marked by dramatic increases in divorce, nonmarital childbearing, and cohabitation—is that ever larger numbers of men are becoming disconnected from family life. From New York to New Orleans, from San Francisco to Seattle, more and more men in the United States are living apart from the children they helped to bring into this world. This growing disconnect between men and families has been aptly called the “male problematic” by University of Chicago theologian Don Browning.

This entry joins others showing positive outcomes associated with faith. Please note the disclaimer there (at the end of the page) regarding how this information should be interpreted.

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