Expert warns world needs to move ‘rapidly’ toward ‘population shrinkage’

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. The single best predictor of a nation's population growth is the

educational level of its women. In countries where the average woman has at least the equivalent of a high school education, the population growth is at or below replacement level. (That includes pretty much all of Europe and most of East Asia.) The U.S. would be there if it weren't for the "quiverfull" loons and immigrants who come here from countries with high birth rates (although the second generation tends to have smaller numbers of children).

Some of the world's highest birth rates are in countries where most of the women are illiterate.

I read an article in either Scientific American or Discovery a few years ago in which a woman anthropologist was studying attitudes toward childbearing across cultures. She found that even in the countries with the highest birthrates, most of the women she interviewed thought that it was best to have four or fewer children. This was true even if these women had a dozen children themselves. The problem was that they didn't know how to access birth control, couldn't afford it, or had a husband who wouldn't allow it.

If you want to slow the world's population growth, the simplest answer is educational programs for girls and women.