race suicide

noun

1. the extinction of a racial or ethnic population that tends to result when, through the unwillingness or forbearance of its members to have children, the birthrate falls below the death rate.

Word History and Origins

Origin of race suicide¹

An Americanism dating back to 1900–05

Example Sentences

In the early 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt was giving speeches about “race suicide,” which was a eugenics-linked theory.

From Slate

And he spoke of the responsibility of white people to marry and then have lots of children, because otherwise, this thinking went, they were committing “race suicide.”

From Slate

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the movement mainly included white supremacists who, pointing to declining white birth rates, believed that legalized abortion would mean “race suicide” for white Protestants.

From Slate

As the Pine Bluff News reported then, another nearby school district had also failed “on account of too much ‘race suicide’ in the vicinity,” which presumably meant a low birth rate among whites.

From Los Angeles Times

Speaking to the National Congress of Mothers in 1905, he warned of "race suicide" and implored women deemed white to have as many babies as possible.

From Salon