June 7, 2024

The Cultural Roots of Our Demographic Ennui

Choosing to do hard things—to start a family, have kids, invest in local institutions, and put others before ourselves—requires a formation in values that lie outside the market.

Patrick T. Brown, Public Discourse

At times, it may feel like we’re living in P. D. James’s The Children of Men, but the Right Honorable Baroness might have gotten one thing wrong. Her story of a global epidemic of infertility finds the world caught in paroxysms of terrorism, xenophobia, and violent authoritarianism. But the soundtrack of a world without a future may turn out to be less the explosion of a pipe bomb in downtown London than the cool hiss of a suicide pod.


The rest of this century will feature every major nation seeking to manage population decline—a recipe for aversion to wasting precious warm bodies on the field of battle. Revolution and violence have a certain appeal to the young and dispossessed, but an older society with money in the bank has more to lose. Aging comfortably, rather than exerting power, will be the order of the day. And the back half of the twenty-first century may resemble less a rage against the dying of the light than an emotionless flip of the switch.

EPPC Is Hiring

We seek a full-time Director of Communications to ensure that our scholars become and remain well-prepared, sought-after experts who appear across the full range of media channels. The position may be located either in EPPC’s Washington, DC, office or remotely with regular visits to Washington. Talent Market is managing the search.

EPPC Scholars Address Graduates

Erika Bachiochi gave a lecture to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute Student Summit exploring the unique role and dignity of women within our culture.

EPPC Board Member Robert P. George will lead an online discussion featuring Ryan T. Anderson about how to restore unity and heal division through a return to fidelity to God, our spouses and families, our communities, and country. 

Richard John Neuhaus Fellowship

Applications are now open for the 2024–2025 Richard John Neuhaus Fellowship, a graduate-level program in Washington, D.C., for those working in government, journalism, think tanks, or other policy-relevant institutions, which explores the Judeo-Christian tradition and its role in shaping public policy and the mediating institutions of civil society.

The Ethics and Public Policy Center is excited to present our 2023 annual report. As you’ll see, EPPC is flourishing, and our efforts to bring about renewal in American public life are bearing good fruit.