With Declining Birth Rates, Is There Nothing For the First World But ‘Unlimited Mass Migration’?

by Hugh Fitzgerald

First world countries are suffering from a steady decrease in their fertility rates, and hence their populations. Some “experts” claim the only solution is for limitless immigration from Africa. The story is here.

First world countries must respond to a “jaw-dropping” crash in fertility by totally opening their borders to unlimited mass migration, according to “experts” interviewed by the BBC.

Falling fertility rates are “a success story” because they mean more women are in work and are not having children, according to a report by the BBC published on Wednesday [July 19].

Why are falling fertility rates a “success story”? Why is the fact that women are not having children, or not having as many children as in the past, deemed by some a “success”? Is it not a vote of no confidence in the future? An expression of financial anxieties?

It is shocking, however, that lower fertility rates will result in 23 countries, including Spain and Japan, seeing their populations drop by more than half by 2100, Professor Christopher Murray told the state media organ.

“That’s a pretty big thing; most of the world is transitioning into natural population decline,” the researcher said, adding: “I think it’s incredibly hard to think this through and recognise how big a thing this is; it’s extraordinary, we’ll have to reorganise societies.”

“You might think this is great for the environment. A smaller population would reduce carbon emissions as well as deforestation for farmland,” says the BBC, which has been promoting a “child-free” life to British women for decades as “liberation” and as a means to “save the planet.”

But “who pays tax in a massively aged world?” the state broadcaster asks, going on to tell readers that there must be a massive population transfer from Africa to the first world to make up for a deficit of babies.

If there is to be a “massive population transfer,” why does the BBC insist it must it be from Africa? Why not, for example, have a “massive population transfer” of immigrants from Latin America, whose peoples are Christian, and who do not harbor religious or racial hostility to Europeans? Or Christian and Buddhist immigrants from Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines could form part of that “massive population transfer.”

“Countries, including the UK, have used migration to boost their population and compensate for falling fertility rates,” asserts the BBC, neglecting to mention that third world migration has been a huge net drain on the British treasury.

The UK has not “used migration to boost their population” – as if it were a deliberate policy — but has quite unnecessarily felt an obligation to accept migrants who have managed to make it, legally or illegally, to the U.K. Immigrants are not always and everywhere an unalloyed good; their costs to, and effects on, society, vary considerably. Muslims, in particular, bring with them, undeclared in their mental baggage, an inculcated hatred of Infidels. They arrive as economic migrants – though often claiming to be refugees – and are quick to take advantage of every conceivable benefit that the generous welfare states of Europe offer. Thus many Muslim immigrants receive free or greatly subsidized housing, free medical care, free education, unemployment benefits (even without ever having been employed in their new country), family allowances, and more. All of this is a huge expense. The unemployment rates for Muslims are much higher than those for any other immigrant groups. Some Muslims believe that the non-Muslims among whom they settle owe them a kind of proleptic jizyah, the tax that in Muslim polities Infidels are supposed to pay to the Muslim state as a kind of protection money, allowing them to practice their religion without being harmed. Similarly, the rates of criminality among Muslim immigrants far exceeds those for any other group, immigrant or indigenous, in all the European countries where they now live.

To support this argument [for the need of “a massive population transfer from Africa”], the broadcaster [BBC] speaks to mass migration enthusiast Professor Ibrahim Abubakar from University College London (UCL), who said: “If these predictions are even half accurate, migration will become a necessity for all nations and not an option.”

This last comment — “migration is a necessity for all nations” — makes no sense. If he means “immigration is a necessity for all nations,” then where will those needed immigrants come from? Surely he means that “immigration will become a necessity for all First World nations.”

“To be successful, we need a fundamental rethink of global politics. The distribution of working-age populations will be crucial to whether humanity prospers or withers.”

It’s unsurprising that someone named Ibrahim Abubakar is a “mass migration enthusiast.” But would he be such an enthusiast if the migrants Europe chose to take in were Christians from South America rather than Muslims from North Africa and the Middle East? Or would he deem such a sensible policy to be deeply “racist” and unacceptable?

This sentiment — that mass migration will be mandatory — was echoed in the article by Professor Murray, who told the BBC: “We will go from the period where it’s a choice to open borders, or not, to frank competition for migrants, as there won’t be enough.”

A bidding war for Third World “migrants”? Nonsense. They are desperate to be taken in; hundreds of millions will move heaven and earth to smuggle themselves into the West. And that is what must be prevented. This notion that the advanced nations of Europe and North America will be forced to “compete” for migrants, without being able to take into account the great differences among migrant populations, is absurd. We are able to compare the real costs, including unemployment rates and rates of criminality, of different immigrant groups, as well as the likelihood that real integration into the larger society can take place. By all of these criteria, Muslim immigrants are the most expensive to the state, the most disruptive to the social order, the most physically dangerous to the general population, and the least likely to integrate into the host society. Do we want the U.K. to look ever more like Pakistan, or France more like Algeria, or the Netherlands more like Morocco? Are we allowed to express our dismay at the very idea, or would that be enough to consign us to the outer darkness?

It is curious that both Ibrahim Abubakar and Professor Murray think there is nothing to be done to make up for declining populations other than mass migration, of a kind that would change forever the nature of the host societies, and likely destroy the wellbeing of their indigenous populations.

Noting projections that the population of sub-Saharan Africa is set to treble to over three billion people by the end of this century, he argued that “global recognition of the challenges around racism are going to be all the more critical” in the coming years, stating that large numbers of African migrants and their descendants will be present in “many more countries.”

The tone is one of fatalism: “large numbers of African migrants and their descendants will be present in many more countries” admits of no dissent. Apparently those living in those countries will have no say in the matter. But that future is not a given. It would have been better to have said that “migration [from places yet unspecified] may be useful if the native populations continue to decline in numbers.”

But there are so many other things to consider. For example, for many industrial processes, humans can be replaced by machines. And not just on the factory floor. Machines can replace warehouse workers (Amazon has more than 100,000 robots), farmers, drivers. Artificial intelligence and robotics are an ever-greater part of the advanced world’s economies. All this needs to be factored in when calculating the size of the population that may be needed to keep an economy going.

In addition, the BBC uses the article to stress that first world countries should not try to increase the fertility rate of their native populations, stating that “researchers warn against undoing the progress on women’s education and access to contraception.”

This is both absurd and infuriating. The people in “first world countries” are being told there is nothing they should do to increase their own populations. They are told, peremptorily, by these heedless enthusiasts for mass migration, to accept the replacement of the indigenous populations in the First World by migrants from Africa, and that attempting a pro-natalist policy would actually damage the position of women. We are supposed to believe that by having more children, women in the First World would no longer have access to contraception, or to higher education. They would all be left barefoot and pregnant. But that’s nonsense. No one in the First World will be denied access to contraception. That doesn’t mean it must be used, and indeed birth control should be encouraged, but only for women in the Third World, where women are producing far more children than they can support. It is their fertility rates that we should be worrying about.

As for the claim that an increase in women’s fertility in the First World could stymie the progress made in women’s education – how does this follow? Higher education in the advanced world leads to better economic prospects for women; their higher salaries makes it easier to feed and house larger families and, where necessary, to hire others to help with the children.

What is most maddening is the attempt to bully the West into believing there is nothing it can do, with its declining birth rates, except to throw up its hands and admit large numbers of immigrants from Africa, many or most of whom will be Muslims. Already the large-scale presence of Muslim immigrants in Western Europe has created a situation both for their indigenous hosts, and for other, non-Muslim immigrants, that is far more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous, than would be the case without that large-scale presence.

Many things, other than mass migration from Africa, can be done in the First World to deal with fertility rates falling below replacement levels. Let’s no longer pretend that all immigrants are equally to be welcomed. Muslims cost their host societies far more, in the benefits they require and receive, than do non-Muslim migrants. Muslims have larger families, which means they are entitled to larger dwellings, based on family size, that are either free or greatly subsidized by the state. Their medical costs are higher, too, because of the greater incidence of congenital illnesses, the predictable result of the great frequency of cousin-marriages among Muslims. Muslims exhibit much higher levels of unemployment than non-Muslims in Europe; many seem in no hurry to be gainfully employed, finding that unemployment — together with other benefits — can come close to what they would receive if employed. Consequently, the unemployment benefit systems in Europe are groaning under this new burden. Rates of criminality among Muslim immigrants are also much higher than for any other immigrant group. Think of the total cost to the state this entails, for more police, more detectives, more prosecutors, more court-appointed lawyers, more judges, more prison guards, more prisons. It all adds up.

There are alternative reservoirs of migrants on which the First World countries could rely. I have already mentioned one: the Christian peoples of Mexico, Central, and South America who, unlike Muslims, have not been inculcated with a hatred of European or American Infidels. And these migrants have shown themselves willing to work, and desirous of integrating into, rather than remaining aloof from, the First World countries where they have been allowed to live.

Another pool of migrants who might be given preferential treatment as migrants to Europe are found in the Philippines. Almost 200,000 Christian Filipinos are already working in Italy as care-givers (badante). The shared heritage of Catholicism makes it easier for them to fit into the larger society. Why not let in a great many more Filipino immigrants elsewhere in Europe? Other nationalities that are a possible source of desirable immigrants are refugees — Vietnamese (both Buddhists and Catholics) fleeing religious suppression in Communist Vietnam, and Christian (and Hindu) refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, fleeing persecution by Muslims.

But aside from being intelligently selective in the immigrants they allow in, the First World countries should not hesitate to adopt pro-natalist policies of the kind now being tried, with success, in Hungary. In that country, newly-married couples are given an interest-free loan of $36,000 which is cancelled when they have their third child. A woman who has four or more children is then exempt from paying income tax for her entire life. Outright grants – not loans — are given to families for housing; the more children in the family, the greater the size of the grant. Hungary, which had the second-lowest birthrate in the E.U., now has shown a remarkable increase in fertility rates. Between January 2019 and January 2020, the Hungarian birth rate (the number of births per 1,000 people) increased by 9.4 per cent. This increase was reflected in the total fertility rate (the number of babies a woman is expected to have over her lifetime) which increased from 1.4 to 1.6 children (the accepted replacement rate is 2.1). Finally, the number of marriages celebrated in the country has increased in only one year by 100%. The policy seems to be working. And similar pro-natalist policies are being implemented in Poland. Aside from Hungary and Poland, pro-natalist polices are also in effect in France, Greece, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, South Korea, and Japan. These policies need to be studied to find out what works and what doesn’t, and what can be tweaked, and how much the most promising policies cost.

That is the rational approach. The irrational approach is simply to throw up your hands, say that “nothing can be done” to alleviate the problem of declining populations in the First World, save for one thing – “massive migration from Africa.” But pro-natalist policies can work, if well-crafted and sufficiently funded. Along with those policies, First World countries have both a right and a duty to select those immigrants whom, the evidence suggests, will be the least burdensome on their societies, and the most likely to successfully integrate. From sad experience we know whom that excludes.

First published in Jihad Watch.