Let's Talk About Demographics and Fertility Rates

Ramaswamy Needs to See Himself Off the National Stage After Promoting a Racist Conspiracy Theory

Vivek Ramaswamy has the tenacity of a used car salesman and the personality of a retread game show host. His poll numbers have been in decline. His abrasive, combative, and outlandish demeanor in the Republican presidential debates has clearly turned off Republican voters. Clearly, Ramaswamy is, at this point campaigning for a pundit gig on Newsmax or Russia Today more than he’s trying to win the Republican presidential nomination.

Unfortunately, Ramaswamy hasn’t ended his campaign, which means that those of us who endure watching the Republican presidential debates or indulge in the noise that is cable news have to hear what he says. During the most recent debate, Ramaswamy made it a point to promote every conspiracy theory that could possibly appeal to the lowest IQ conservative voters, including the racially charged “great replacement theory” that was dug from the depths of white supremacist websites and put into primetime on Fox News and into the mainstream because of its former fascist golden boy.

Subscribers to this conspiracy theory believe that white people are being replaced by immigrants in the sense that immigration policies are designed to reduce the influence of white people. Some iterations of this conspiracy theory are antisemitic. If you’ll recall, the mouth-breathing white nationalists and fascists at the “Unite the Right” gathering of incels shouted “Jews will not replace us” while carrying their tiki torches. Hey, even racists want to keep mosquitos away. Jokes aside, the conspiracy theory has been cited by those who have committed violent hate crimes, including mass shootings. So, let’s be clear. Any promotion of this conspiracy theory is to promote hate.

There’s no denying that there are demographic changes happening in the United States. Our society is getting older and more racially diverse. Our views on religion are changing because of the growth of different religions, religious nones, and nonbelievers. It’s a jolt to the status quo that many didn’t realize was happening because, put simply, they weren’t watching the world around them. Racial diversity is a good thing, although the overall age of our society is a serious problem for budgetary and economic reasons.

Yes, nonwhite populations are growing, but that’s not happening because white people are being replaced; it’s because white people aren’t having children at the same rates as individuals of other races. Other races, too, have seen declines in birth rates. At the same time, population growth in the United States has slowed. Also, whites, who were 75.1 percent of the population in 2000, have gotten older and are roughly 59 percent of the population as of 2020. That’s a big change in 20 years.

The white population actually declined by 1.2 million between 2010 and 2022 while the population of all other races grew by more than 24 million. This isn’t a result of “replacement” as the conspiracy theory suggests. The simple explanation is the decline in birth rates among whites.

Writing recently for my second gig, I noted that current population projections from the Congressional Budget Office show that deaths in the United States will outpace births in 2042. The only population growth will come from net immigration. This is a direct result of the fact that we’re not replacing ourselves.

I’ve noted before that the rate needed just for the population to replace itself is 2.1 children per woman. A quick search shows that the disparity in replacement rates (or fertility rates)—by which I mean that the rates for whites were lower than other races—between races was noted as far back as 2012.  

I’ve always been a big believer in immigration, which has always been a necessity for the United States. It’s even more of a necessity now because of the decline in birth rates. Under the baseline estimate from the Census Bureau, the population of the United States would begin to decline in 2081. Under reduced immigration levels, the decline would begin in 2044. If immigration were ended completely, the population of the United States would begin to decline in 2025. Under high immigration levels, the population would grow, but growth would eventually slow, although it won’t decline.

What explains the decline in fertility and birth rates? There are several reasons. Women are waiting until later to have children. They’ve gone to college and opted for careers. Economic conditions have also had an impact. Some national conservatives have complained about women in the workforce. It seems they generally believe that women should remain at home and raise a family. Here I thought that, as a society, we’d moved away from the notion that women are baby factories. Good luck going back to those days. That ain’t happening, nor should it.

Declining birth rates will have significant impacts on the federal budget, international competitiveness, and the broader economy. It’s a serious issue, and virtually every developed nation is experiencing this problem. It has nothing to do with an exceedingly dumb conspiracy theory and everything to do with the fact that we, as a society, have made a decision to have fewer kids.