3 hours ago
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Elon Musk recently declared on X that “an immediate increase in the birth rate is needed”. It’s the kind of statement that sounds dramatic, urgent and vaguely civilisational, but it is also profoundly disconnected from reality. However, Musk is far from an isolated voice within the far right and among the world’s billionaires.
Low birthrates are not a mystery. They are not the result of moral decay, declining ambition or an excess of “woke politics”, but rather the predictable outcome of an economic system in which people are paid too little, work too much and are told to feel personally responsible for structural failures engineered far above their heads.
This disconnect is not limited to fertility. The same billionaires and CEOs who lament demographic decline also complain that people do not buy locally, that European industries are losing ground, and that “the West” is becoming economically fragile, with some even calling for bans on Chinese online platforms such as Temu or Shein. And yet, when it comes to solutions, they reliably converge on the same prescriptions: longer working hours, wage restraint, mass layoffs and deregulation.
In other words, even when their diagnosis occasionally overlaps with reality, their remedies systematically make the problem worse.
Start with wages. Across much of Europe, real wages have stagnated or fallen in recent years. Inflation has eaten into purchasing power, while salary increases have lagged behind the cost of housing, energy, food and childcare. The results are visible in the numbers: the EU’s average fertility rate has fallen to around 1.4 children per woman, well below replacement level. For millions of households, income is no longer a foundation for planning a future, but a constant exercise in damage control.
But better wages alone will not make a difference if the cost of living continues to rise. Young people simply cannot buy a home in most European countries and basic living costs have risen several times faster than wages.
All of this has direct consequences for fertility. Having children requires not just love or desire, but time, money and a sense of stability. When rent absorbs half your income, when childcare costs rival a second mortgage, and when job security is eroded by endless “restructurings”, choosing not to have children is not a cultural failure, but an economically rational decision.
Yet this reality is routinely ignored by those at the top. Musk, for instance, is famous not only for his concern about population decline, but also for championing extreme work cultures. Employees at companies he controls have been told to work “hardcore” hours or leave, and similar messages echo across corporate America and increasingly in Europe: work more, rest less, be grateful, and somehow also find time to have children and buy local products, which are often more expensive than those sold by Chinese online retailers.
The contradiction is obvious. You cannot demand longer working days, weekend availability and permanent precarity, and then act surprised when people do not have the time, energy or confidence to raise children. Biology may set limits but economics determines whether people feel safe enough to build families within them.
It is also true that falling birthrates in wealthy societies are a long-observed pattern shaped by structural conditions, not simply by “cultural decline” or a lack of desire for children.
This leads to a paradox. Wealthy societies tend to have fewer children, so it is often assumed that the problem cannot be economic. But this confuses national wealth with individual security. Rich countries can still be hostile places in which to raise families. What suppresses fertility is not prosperity, but precarity.
Where income is concentrated, time is scarce and risk is individualised, having children becomes a gamble rather than a choice. The question, then, is not why people in rich countries have fewer children, but why so many rich countries make family life economically irrational.
The same logic applies to consumption. European business leaders often complain that consumers are turning away from local products and towards cheap imports from China. This is framed as a failure of loyalty or taste, and as an imminent danger to Western economies, but the truth is far simpler.
People buy cheaply because they are paid poorly. When wages stagnate, price becomes the dominant factor in purchasing decisions, and supporting local producers becomes a luxury, accessible primarily to those insulated from the economic pressures shaping the debate, often the same actors who helped create them.
This is where the hypocrisy becomes clear. The same corporate actors who suppress wages through outsourcing, automation and relentless cost-cutting then complain that domestic demand is weak. They hollow out the middle class and then lament its disappearance.
None of this is accidental. Extreme inequality is not a side effect of modern economies, but a political choice, actively defended by those who benefit most from it. Millionaires, and especially billionaires, exercise outsized influence over public policy, labour markets and regulatory frameworks. Through lobbying, tax avoidance, media ownership and direct access to decision-makers, they shape economies in ways that concentrate wealth while externalising risk onto workers and families.
The result is a system in which insecurity is normalised for the many and optional for the few. When economic power translates so seamlessly into political power, policies that could restore balance, such as higher wages, shorter working hours, progressive taxation, robust public services and wealth taxation, are dismissed as unrealistic, even as the social consequences of inequality become impossible to ignore.
It is not uncommon for politicians aligned with economic elites to propose tax cuts for corporations, often through reductions in social contributions and labour protections, while shifting the burden onto the rest of the population under the claim that it will “create jobs”. In this sense, today’s fertility crisis is not a demographic mystery, but a governance failure rooted in the unchecked power of those who profit from scarcity while lamenting its effects.
History offers a simple lesson. Henry Ford famously understood that paying workers enough to buy the products they made was not charity, but sound economics. Today’s corporate elite appears to have forgotten that insight, even as it enjoys productivity gains and record profits unimaginable a century ago.
Instead, mass layoffs are presented as efficiency. Thousands of highly skilled workers are dismissed, even as executive compensation and shareholder payouts remain intact. Jobs are treated as expendable, families as optional and stability as a privilege rather than a baseline.
And when the social consequences become impossible to ignore, billionaires suddenly rediscover “society” and issue pronouncements about what ordinary people should do differently.
Despite the complexity of the situation, the core logic is simple. If people do not earn enough to live decently, they will not buy expensive goods, have children or plan long-term futures. If they are expected to be permanently available for work, they will not have the time or emotional capacity to care for families or communities.
If billionaires are genuinely concerned about demographic decline, the prescription is not cultural panic or reproductive moralising, or showcasing their own large families, but higher wages, stronger labour protections, affordable housing, accessible childcare and shorter working hours. Above all, reducing the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a few would be fundamental.
If they are concerned about the decline of local industries, the answer is not scolding consumers, but rebuilding purchasing power and economic security.
The uncomfortable truth is that many of today’s elites benefit from the very fragility they decry. Stability, by contrast, requires redistribution, limits and shared responsibility. If billionaires are truly concerned, they should accept heavy taxation on their wealth. Philanthropy and charitable giving, often used as tools for tax avoidance and reputational laundering, are no substitute for democratic accountability.
When billionaires demand more babies, more loyalty, more work and more sacrifice, the real question is not why ordinary people are failing to deliver, but why those with the most power refuse to acknowledge their own role in creating the conditions they now condemn. Addressing this crisis ultimately requires political choices that rebalance power towards workers, families and democratic institutions, rather than further entrenching the authority of those who profit from insecurity.
