Do You Know... (4)

...that in order for a culture to maintain itself for more than 25 years, the required fertility rate is 2.11 children per family? Anything less and the culture will decline.

(That's just a nice way to say the culture is on its way to extinction.)

I found that piece of info here and the video goes on to warn that:

• No culture ever reversed itself when fertility rate fell to 1.9

• It is impossible to reverse (i.e. extinction is guaranteed) when fertility rate drops to 1.3. This is because it'll take 80-100 years for the culture to correct itself and there is no economic model which is able to sustain that culture during that time.

• As population shrink so does a culture
  

Based on that bit of info, the trend among Chinese married couples to have only one child or max two does not bode well for the Chinese culture. Of course China made the biggest boo boo of all with its one child policy.

I have always believed that there should be a minimum of three children in each family: two to replace the parents and one extra to replace one of the unmarried people out there. Unfortunately I have failed miserably on this mission because we only managed, by the grace of God, to have one child. A most wonderful daughter, if I may say so, who made up in quality what we lacked in quantity.

As if lower fertility rates are not bad enough, the problem is compounded by a rise in homosexuality that is pushing fertility rate even lower and driving the whole human race to extinction! That, I think, is even more reason for normal couples to have more children.

Ok, maybe I'm over reacting but, for the sake of our culture I would strongly encourage young married couples to have more children. Four per family would be just nice: two to replace the parents, one to replace someone unmarried and another to replace someone homosexual (but don't end up homosexual la).

So easy to say, not so easy to do but last night I was encouraged to see a Singaporean couple in their late twenties or early thirties with three kids and another on the way.

Ah! There is still hope for us.