Biting like the winter chill that brought the mercury down to -7 F here in Western Connecticut the other morning, Demographic Winter – the coming population collapse – is hitting Connecticut. We’ve written about this before (see post here) and we agree with those who say that the entire developed world is headed for disruptive declines in population. Of course, this runs counter to the expectations of those who were schooled in the 60’s and 70’s, who were inculcated with a strong belief in the threat of world overpopulation. However, factors such as the legalization of abortion, the popularization of homosexuality, and the delay of marriage have created a disastrous decline in the fertility rate. In many nations, women are bearing children at a rate which isn’t even sufficient to maintain the existing population, much less to increase it or create a “population explosion.”

As a little thought will suggest, this wave will hit the so-called “blue states” and thoroughly secularized nations first and hardest. So I was interested to see a frank discussion of this (hat tip: WoodstockTruth.com) from none other than the Connecticut State Data Center. In a remarkable document, it seems that the State Data Center has even adopted the rhetoric of those concerned about Demographic Winter, issuing a press release entitled “Where Have All the Children Gone?“  This document should be read and clearly understood by all. If the State school enrollement peaked last year and is going to decline 17% by 2020 – not so far away – what does this say about the viability of our State economy and institutions? In other words, if you think taxes will go up and services be cut this year, just wait!

The press release says:

Orlando Rodriguez, Demographer and Manager of CtSDC, states:

“We have been expecting this downward enrollment trend to begin. The leading edge of Baby Boomers are approaching retirement and the trailing edge of their children have aged beyond K to 12 schooling.”

In Connecticut, the public school population, grades 1 to 12, peaked at approximately 523,100 in the 2003/4 and 2004/5 school years. This population dropped to approximately 516,400 in the just completed 2007/8 school year. CtSDC projects that this population will continue to decline, reaching a low of approximately 432,300 in 2020. This is a loss of approximately 90,800, or 17%, from the highs of 2003/4 and 2004/5.

Low fertility rates are the root cause of this decline. The Boomer generation, now approaching retirement, had fewer children than their parents. Thus the size of the “Echo Boom” generation, the children of Boomers, is smaller than that of the Boomers. In effect, Boomers did not replace their own generation. Looking forward, Echo Boomers are expected to have lower fertility rates than their parents thereby exacerbating the projected decline. Each progressive generation is failing to replace itself.

It is unlikely that the enrollment peaks of 2003/4 and 2004/5 will return. Connecticut has some of the lowest fertility rates, across all ethnic groups, in the country. Foreign in-migration is too low to offset a long-persistent pattern of domestic out-migration. Indeed, Connecticut’s population is skirting negative growth with only foreign in-migrants keeping the population numbers afloat. (Emphasis in the original.)

This is alarming. The anti-life, anti-marriage, anti-fertility doctrines of the secular left do have consequences, consequences which we are only beginning to see but which will undoubtedly cause great hardship and something else, too: a diminution of the joy within society as we become ever more childless.

See a fuller report on enrollment projections here.