He had a few to many claims that the issue is "excess" sons, and NOT economic conditions. That is a red flag IMO. "Excess" sons can only be defined in terms of economic conditions. If an economy is growing strongly, why would any son be "excess"?
You can see the same lack of rigor when he defines demographic capitulation (looking at 40-44 vs 0-4). On the one hand he talks about a youth bulge when a similar ratio is high, but thinks things will collapse when it is below one. He needs to consider that it might well oscillate. If he stuck his neck out a little, he could try to define the optimal growth rate, but that only makes sense if you tie it to economic conditions. I can't think of any way to write an equation for "excess" sons that does not have a dominant term based on economic conditions. For many reasons, population growth and economic conditions are not always synchronous. So by any realistic definition, you at times have "excess" population growth, whereas other times you might need to import "excess" sons from south of the border.
I do think he has some good points, just not sure that his research is of superb quality. Still, this was an interview, not a research paper.
IMO, your neighbor's reproductive habits are in fact of great importance to you (and of course, the other way around) but to my knowledge very little in high quality thought has been given to addressing the issue in politics. It clearly is the prime directive of any individual to reproduce, so this should be a very sacred (the most?) right, but over reproducing is equally the worst sin. The history of human endeavors so far in this field (think Nazi's or even China today) is not great.
I'm pretty sure given the demographics in europe as well as N. America, that many people who firmly oppose Planned Parenthood today, will be voting for laws 25 years from now that would shock many people now. I think that it can be done well, but it will require one or more generations of education on the issues, and a willingness to understand that humans are in fact biological creatures, and not some magical beings exempt from biology. |
