In a world in which women work more than ever before and contraception remains readily available, it is hard to find somebody who thinks that someday soon large families will make a comeback. I'm an only child and, if I could, I'd have more than one child. But most couples I know wait until their 30s to have children. When you see life in these terms, children are an impediment. There has long been an assumption that low birthrates were better than high ones.
Fewer people put less strain on the resources of the planet.
And as a country becomes richer, its people always have fewer children. But Europe, unlike the United States, has been resistant to immigration. This is terra incognita. If these trends continue, in a generation or two there may be countries where most people's only blood relatives will be their parents. Perhaps no country has tried harder to change its future than Sweden.