Our Civilization’s Death Wish, by Phil Lawler

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture, Aug 13, 2025

Phil Lawler has been a Catholic journalist for more than 30 years. He has edited several Catholic magazines and written eight books. Founder of Catholic World News, he is the news director and lead analyst at CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.

As the world’s fertility rate plunges toward the replacement level, with every indication that they continue dropping, the mainstream media have belatedly noticed the danger that lies behind that trend. It’s bad for the economy.

As we grow older, the workforce will shrink, since there won’t be enough younger people replacing those who retire. That in turn means a shortage of active wage-earners paying into the Social Security system to support the payments to their elders. More ominously, as we older people decline in health, and need more care, there won’t be enough young doctors and nurses to serve us.

None of these problems should come as a surprise. In his 1987 book The Birth Dearth, Ben Wattenberg predicted all of them. But in the US, at least, the crisis has been camouflaged by the arrival of immigrants in unprecedented numbers, providing a stop-gap solution to the economic problem. …

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