[ozborn]

I agree with the gist of what you write, but I think your text below (although correct) is misleading.

"But that's not what's happening across the Western democracies."

Western democracies do indeed have poor social reproduction, but I do NOT believe "Western" or democracy is the driving factor. If anything, your statement understates the issue because below replacement fertility rates are rapidly expanding and by no means restricted to the West or to democracies. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

There are ~ 90 countries where fertility is below replacement including disparate non-Western countries like UAE, China, South Korea, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nepal, Lebanon, etc... including those that are not democratic.