For years, it felt like PRI was the only organization warning about the coming demographic collapse. Our founder, Fr. Paul Marx, saw this crisis coming decades in advance:
“Today, most people have been brainwashed to think our worst problem is over-population. In many parts of the world, though, the real problem is underpopulation, despite today’s over-copulation.”
He knew that to keep a country functioning it is vital to keep the birth rate above replacement. As Fr. Marx stated in his autobiography, Faithful for Life, “If there is no replacement birth rate in a particular country and in the Church, country and Church obviously have no future.” PRI President Steven Mosher has continued to share this message since Fr. Marx’s retirement and passing (may he rest in peace). All the different parts of PRI’s mission come together to support pro-life and pro-family culture around the world, subsequently supporting a healthy fertility rate and birth rate.
In the past year, other leaders and organizations in the U.S. have started sounding the alarm as the nation’s birth rate continues to tank.[1] And now a new NGO is joining us in promoting pro-natal policies and beliefs in the global arena.
X·Y Worldwide is a pro-natal NGO recently founded to “to solv[e] the world’s collapsing Birth rates – the biggest threat to humanity of our time.” And the founders of this endeavor are familiar faces.
First up, we have Katalin Novák, who you may recall is the former president of Hungary. During her time as Hungary’s president, she played a key role in implementing comprehensive family support measures under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government.
A few examples of policies she pushed for and implemented, included:
- Major tax breaks: the more children a Hungarian couple has, the less income tax they have to pay. Mothers who have more than four children are given a lifelong exemption from personal income tax.
- Forgiven student loans: if a Hungarian couple has three children, their combined student debt is forgiven.
- Housing subsidies for newlyweds: young married couples are given subsidies to build or buy their own homes.
Now, she has devoted herself to being the CEO and co-founder of X·Y Worldwide.
Her co-founder is Stephen J. Shaw, who is most famously known as the producer of the 2023 documentary Birthgap: Childless World. In June of this year, Shaw also joined PRI President Steven Mosher on the International Reporters Roundtable as part of a panel discussing population collapse.
Novák and Shaw plan to use their NGO to combat depopulation, specifically the aspect that they see as the most important “Unplanned Childlessness.” As the X·Y Worldwide website points out, the average family size in many countries isn’t changing, but the number of people remaining childless their entire life is rapidly increasing. As cultures and societal norms rapidly change, childlessness levels have increased from below 10% to 30% or more. In a few countries, this figure has reached 40%, and in South Korea, it exceeds 50%.
The United States hasn’t avoided this trend. In 2022, the Institute for Family Studies projected that 1-in-4 U.S. women would remain childless their entire lives. And DINKs (Dual Income, No Kids) are on the rise. Earlier this year, a Business Insider report found that 34% of the nation’s population is made up of DINKs, with 5% of those cohabiting and the other 29% married.
To address this problem, Novák and Shaw are planning to travel around the world to “rais[e] awareness through youth and media education programs, as well as offering policy advice to local and national governments.” They have already visited South Korea and Japan on a “fact-finding mission,” since South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate and Japan isn’t far behind.
Recent reports have revealed that Novák and Shaw, along with Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, have had discussions with Elon Musk about Musk becoming a financial supporter of this new NGO. His involvement could change the game for this crusade against the fertility crisis, bringing critical financial backing to the NGO which represents a cause that Musk has been vocal about for years.
We at PRI know that we need all the help that we can get to counter the anti-people attitudes of major organizations, such as the United Nations, International Planned Parenthood Federation, Marie Stopes International, and more. To reverse the birth dearth, we not only need family friendly policies put in place around the world, but also need to continue to build a culture of life. We applaud the work of Novák and Shaw, and hope to see their efforts come to fruition, as we too continue to fight depopulation around the globe.
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[1] See PRI Review (Volume 34, Issue 6) Nov/Dec 2024, p. 7.
