- Reaction score
- 33
- Points
- 560
The incongruous said:
Canada is at a below replacement birthrate (1.48 children per couple is our national average), so by the mid century, Canada's population will be falling at a pretty drastic rate. Note too that Russia and many EU nations are at even lower fertility rates, so their populations will fall even faster.
Various reasons have been postulated as to why this is happening, but the big part of the problem is not only the increasing stresses on governmental structures (such as social welfare programs having fewer and fewer working age taxpayers to actually fund them), but also the fact that no one knows if reversal is even possible!
Assuming for the moment that it is possible to reverse the trend, there is also the time lag problem. The babies of today will need at least 16 years before they can potentially contribute to the population base, and since they are starting at a lower number than the "boomer generation", it could take two or three generations to get back to where we would like to be (assuming they are or can be induced to have an average of more than 2.1 children per couple).
The United States is currently at a bit above the replacement demographic (2.2 children per couple), so an empty Canada with infrastructure and resources available would be an appealing place to settle in and make your mark. Canadians will be desperate for working age people by then, so there will be inducements from both sides of the border. Society will be quite different then, while the average fertility rate in the US is 2.2, the reality is "Red States", Evangelical Protestants, Mormons and Hispanics have a much higher fertility rate, while so called "Progressives" are far below the replacement fertility rate: they are breeding themselves out of existence!
Frankly, the sort of stresses on the United States today are not anywhere near as strong as the Civil War, the Great Depression, WW II or the height of the Cold War in the late 1950's or early '60's, or the internal unrest during the mid to late 1960's. America survived then, and it will evolve and continue to survive into the future. One thing is for certain, there will defiantly be Americans around in the future!
