About Birthgap Facts

Birthgap Facts: A Critique of the film Birthgap – Childless World

This website project is a fact-based critique of the three-part 2021 film Birthgap – Childless World and its unsubstantiated assertions that population collapse due to declining fertility rates is imminent, and that rising childlessness is behind this alleged crisis. Film producer Stephen Shaw seeks to “engineer” a solution to solve the crisis of “unplanned childlessness”. To validate his assertions, the film makes many claims that are not supported by evidence in demographic, anthropological, or ecological research. To start, all credible demographic projections do not point to any type of population collapse. Rather, the global population will continue to grow well beyond mid-century. Research also shows that fertility rates are declining because women are choosing to have fewer children due to greater reproductive autonomy.

A group of researchers, advocates, and scientists, endorsed by leading authorities on population studies, reproductive rights, and the environment, have fact checked the main assertions made in the film, and we present our work here.

To endorse this project, click here.

The Team

Authors

Lead Author: Nandita Bajaj, Executive Director, Population Balance; Lecturer, Antioch University

Co-Author: Robert Engelman, Senior Fellow, Population Institute

Contributors

  • Dr. Jennifer Watling Neal, Professor, Michigan State University; Co-author of paper Prevalence and characteristics of childfree adults in Michigan

  • Dr. Zachary Neal, Professor, Michigan State University; Co-author of paper Prevalence and characteristics of childfree adults in Michigan

  • Therese Shechter, Documentary Filmmaker; Founder, Trixie Films; Producer/Director of film My So-Called Selfish Life 

  • Christine Erickson, Founder, New Legacy Institute

  • Kirsten Stade, Communications Manager, Population Balance

  • Alan Ware, Researcher, Population Balance

  • Elisabeth Strunk, Software Engineer and Graphic Designer, Population Balance

  • Dr. Eileen Crist, Associate Professor Emerita, Virginia Tech; Author of book Abundant Earth: Toward an Ecological Civilization

  • Dr. Jane O’ Sullivan, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, The University of Queensland, Australia; Co-author of paper Aging Human Populations: Good for Us, Good for the Earth

  • Dr. Robert Jensen, Emeritus Professor, University of Texas at Austin; Co-author of book An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity

  • Alistair Currie, Head of Campaigns, Population Matters

  • Laura Carroll, MS, Author of and contributor to six books on childfree-related, pronatalism and overpopulation topics, including The Baby Matrix: Why Freeing Our Minds From Outmoded Thinking About Parenthood & Reproduction Will Create a Better World 

  • Dr. Isabel Fassbender, Assistant Professor, Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts; Author of book Active Pursuit of Pregnancy: Neoliberalism, Postfeminism and the Politics of Reproduction in Contemporary Japan

Endorsers

  • Dr. Phoebe Barnard, CEO, Stable Planet Alliance; Lead author of World scientists’ warnings into action, local to global 

  • Dr. Sarah M. Bexell, Clinical Associate Professor; Director of Humane Education, Institute for Human-Animal Connection; Lead, Ecological Justice Concentration, University of Denver

  • Dr. Amy Blackstone, Professor, University of Maine; Author of Childfree by Choice: The Movement Redefining Family and Creating a New Age of Independence

  • Dr. Kristyn Brandi, OBGYN Physician and Complex Family Planning Subspecialist

  • Dr. Orna Donath, Sociologist, Tel-Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; Author of Regretting Motherhood: A Study

  • Joan Eisenstodt, Principal, Eisenstodt Associates, LLC

  • Dr. Hope Ferdowsian, Professor, University of New Mexico School of Medicine; President, Phoenix Zones Initiative

  • Florence Hedeen, League of Women Voters

  • Dr. Helen Kopnina, Assistant Professor, Newcastle Business School, UK; Author of Culture and Conservation: Beyond Anthropocentrism

  • Joseph Merz, Chairman, Merz Institute, New Zealand; Lead Author of World scientists’ warning: The behavioural crisis driving ecological overshoot

  • Dr Amrita Nandy, Visiting Faculty,  National Law School of India University; Author of Motherhood and Choice: Uncommon Mothers, Childfree Women

  • Dr. Sofia Pineda Ochoa, Physician, University of Texas Medical Branch, US; Director of Endgame 2050

  • Dr Nkechi S. Owoo, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Ghana

  • Nathan Poirier, Adjunct Instructor, Lansing Community College

  • Dr. Robert N. Proctor, Professor of the History of Science and Professor by courtesy, Pulmonary Medicine, Stanford University; Author of book Racial Hygiene:  Medicine Under the Nazis

  • Dr. William E Rees, FRSC; Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Applied Science, University of British Columbia/SCARP; Co-author of book Our Ecological Footprint

  • Bill Ryerson, Founder and President of Population Media Center

  • Dr. Carl Safina, Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity, University of New York at Stony Brook

  • Dr. Paul Sutton, Professor of Geography and the Environment, University of Denver

  • Dr. Émile P. Torres, Author of Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation

  • Maxine Trump, Documentary Filmmaker; Director of film To Kid or Not to Kid

  • Dr. Christopher Tucker, Author of A Planet of 3 Billion: Mapping Humanity's Long History of Ecological Destruction and Finding Our Way to a Resilient Future - A Global Citizen's Guide to Saving the Planet

  • Donna Ward, Author She I Dare Not Name: A spinster’s meditations on life

  • Zoe Weil, Humane Educator and Author of The World Becomes What We Teach