SEATTLE, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers predict the people around the world will have fewer babies as energy use goes up and oil and gas reserves dwindle.
Virginia Abernethy, professor emerita of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, plans to tell a symposium in Seattle Friday the availability of energy "has been a major factor in population growth."
"In the modern context, energy use per capita affects economic activity. So a prolonged decline in energy use per capita will tend to depress the economy which, in turn, will cause a decline in the fertility rate," she says in remarks prepared for delivery at the the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Abernethy says lower fuel stock will mean higher prices, which in turn will likely lead to recession. She predicts farmers will move to more sustainable agriculture practices but that will mean smaller crops and, in turn, higher prices for food.
She notes that whenever recession sets in, birth rates go down.
"The improving standard of living to which many societies have become accustomed will be difficult to maintain in the face of rapidly rising prices for energy. In these circumstances, fertility rates are unlikely to rise. Indeed, a future marked by declining energy use per capita may be the ultimate driver of worldwide declines in fertility," she wrote.
