
The global fertility rate is falling - jelliclesfarm
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
======
creato
It is disturbing that people take for granted that this is an economic
problem. This thread is full of people lamenting the fact that we could
support X times as many people as we do now if we all just sacrifice Y.

When I look around the world today, I think the biggest resource that is
lacking is economic opportunity. Huge swathes of people are desperate, angry,
and depressed, I think because there is no opportunity for them. The best case
scenario for huge numbers of people is stagnation.

A shrinking, aging population would fix this problem. The demand for labor
will go up, the supply will go down. Bad for the investor class looking for
profits, good for reducing economic inequality. People will be able to profit
from labor again.

The techno utopian solution of allocating everyone a 20 m^2 apartment, a vr
headset, and 1500 calories of soylent per day is going to be a disaster unless
you also allocate everyone some future drugs to keep them sedated.

~~~
fiblye
> The demand for labor will go up, the supply will go down. Bad for the
> investor class looking for profits, good for reducing economic inequality.
> People will be able to profit from labor again.

I'm not so sure about that.

Loads of wealth is consolidated at the top, both in terms of economic class
and age. People who got their jobs and attained management positions after
barely graduating high school are demanding bachelor's or master's degrees for
jobs that will barely pay rent. Landowners bought up when it was cheap and
refuse to lower prices or sell for below what they think it's worth, even
going as far as evicting people during a pandemic, knowing full well those
units might not be filled in months or years, if ever. Some young people will
get to a point where they can buy stuff up and work their way up the ladder,
but there will be plenty more people who have it all given to them by those
who established themselves when it was easier. I don't expect the next
generation to be any more compassionate.

There are already endless reports of there being insufficient workers for
agricultural jobs, nursing, teachers, etc. Wages haven't risen to meet the
demand. They've remained stagnant or dropped in the long term. Meanwhile,
those at the top are richer than ever.

Wealth at the top is often created by rent seeking. Just extracting money
without actually making anything. I'm pretty confident that if the number of
workers dropped and demand for labor increased, they'd just squeeze harder.
Shut out the ones who didn't make it and terrify the ones who've managed to
hold a job about the possibilities of what'll happen should they quit.

People are already getting paid more being _unemployed_. Employers are trying
to get people to work for them again while offering them _less_ than
unemployment pays. They're not even trying to compete because they know people
are going to come desperately crawling back.

~~~
pharke
I think we need to ask ourselves why some of those things are the case.

Why are the same jobs requiring higher levels of education now than they did
in the past? If you've worked these jobs you know they don't require anything
past a highschool education.

Why is housing seen as something that must constantly increase in value? It
doesn't, we've been through housing bubbles but people still cling to this
belief and continue to pump air into the bubbles with speculation based on it.
If you've owned a home you know that it is a constant sink for money just to
maintain its existing state let alone what it costs to upgrade it to modern
standards as it ages.

What is driving people away from the sectors you mentioned? Is it only lack of
pay? Why are we not funding these sectors when they are so essential to the
functioning of our society? Where is the existing funding going, specifically
whose pockets does it wind up in?

Why don't employers offer higher wages? Are they really being greedy or are
their profits going to something else like rent or other business costs?

I don't think this is entirely to be laid at the feet of the richest members
of society. Yes they protect their own interests but all of us are responsible
for ensuring that our communities continue to function and improve. We've
neglected that responsibility, we've all collectively failed. We all have to
work together to fix this, blaming one group or the other will solve nothing.

~~~
banannaise
"Why are we not funding these sectors when they are so essential to the
functioning of our society? Where is the existing funding going, specifically
whose pockets does it wind up in?"

Because there is no capitalist imperative to keep people alive. If investors
and landowners can't make any money producing food, then no food will be
produced beyond that which is needed to feed the investors and landowners.

------
corysama
This article is quite exasperated, but doesn't say much. I'm far from an
expert in this area, but here's what I've read elsewhere:

We're quickly moving from the population explosion problem to the population
implosion problem. No one planned it or made it happen. But, it looks like
we're not actually going to overflow the planet with people standing shoulder
to shoulder. Instead, the problem we're facing moving forward is a combination
of longer lifespans and less children shifting the elderly support structure
from a pyramid to a column.

A big driver of this is people moving up in job prospects around the world.
Clearly in rich nations like the US, Japan and UK couples are working more and
putting off having kids. But, also in the poorer nations people are moving to
the cities because that's where the jobs are. Once there, the combination of
high rent and great reductions in child mortality means it doesn't make sense
any more to have lots of kids hoping that a few survive long enough to work at
a young age. Instead of having babies rapidly, women around the world are
going to work to bring in that second income needed to pay the bills in the
city.

It's great news, really. It's just really scary really great news because we
don't know how to set up a society where there aren't enough young people to
support the elderly.

~~~
snowwrestler
Here are two scary storylines that get discussed pretty regularly here on HN:

a) AI and machine learning will raise productivity so much that they will
steal millions of jobs from people.

b) Global population will eventually go into decline, which will crash the
economy by killing growth.

But, these two stories look far less scary when considered together. In fact
they seem directly complementary, although the timing is not likely to work
out perfectly, so it won't necessarily be smooth sailing along the way.

~~~
tingletech
now if we could just get the robots to pay social security

~~~
qubex
You jest, but the economic effects of all of this are severe. A total
regression in the real-estate market (because stagnant demographics means the
existing housing stock will roughly suffice or even exceed demand) will have
severe effects.

Basically the end to growing demand, and thus essentially an end to growth-
orientated capitalism.

~~~
jb775
My long term prediction is that once the boomers start dying off in droves,
we'll face a real estate crisis as their houses flood the market...and many
less desirable neighborhoods throughout suburbia will turn into mini ghost
towns.

~~~
qubex
I come from northern Italy and during my relatively brief lifetime (
_length(life.qubex) >40_) I’ve seen this happen to formerly exclusive “Beverly
Hills”-type affluent residential areas (and un/gated communities). Enormous,
cavernous hangar-sized homes that used to be worth millions of euros now
struggling to sell for a couple hundred thousand.

------
gregfjohnson
The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical.

So - this may be out of place, but here goes.

When making decisions about whether or not to have children, we operate in a
state of partial information. (This is of course true of all decisions.)

I would like to contribute a bit of information.

I'm 66, and have three children and four grandchildren. My adult children are
the most wonderful people I know, and it is comforting to be aware that we
will be part of each others' lives forever. I spent a lot of time in assisted
living facilities with my mother as her health failed, and I saw a lot of old
people in those facilities with no one to visit them. It is comforting to know
that I will not spend my final years in loneliness and isolation.

Our grandchildren are an unalloyed joy. We have two 3-year-old identical twin
grand-daughters, and they are working their way through the nuances and finer
points of grammar. It is indescribably adorable to see their efforts at
expressing their detailed and elaborate thoughts. My grandsons are seriously
into aviation, and I've become the go-to aerodynamics consultant. Our four-
year-old asked me with great seriousness, "Grand-dad, why is the horizontal
stabilizer always shorter than the wings?" Another time, the family was at the
beach. He, his dad, and I were looking out at the ocean. He asked, "What are
waves?" Darn good questions!

No rose-colored glasses fantasy here: I've found that your children can break
your heart and devastate you just as well as bring you unfathomable joy. My
daughter (a black-belt IP lawyer now), when she was about four, wandered off
in a crowded video game arcade, and we searched through the crowds for her for
about ten minutes, with growing panic and horror. We found her and all was
fine. Fact is, if you love someone as much as you end up loving your children
and grandchildren, their decisions and choices will have profound effects on
you. My therapist observes that you are only as happy as your least happy
child.

So, the decision about whether to start trying to have a family is a BIG-ASS
decision, with life-long consequences. I highly recommend it.

~~~
nostromo
This is a bit like hearing a successful startup founder speak about the joys
of success. It’s absolutely correct, but it’s also just one data point.

Keep in mind, most of the lonely old people you see have children. And I’m not
sure it’s a good, caring thing to tell childless people that they will be
lonely in old age, because it need not be true.

~~~
bananaface
Only on Hacker News would someone post a response this patronising and
argumentative. I think the point he made was fine, and I'm way glad to have
heard his story. It was lovely.

~~~
drukenemo
I disagree and I think the comment is valid. I know many cases in which
children and parents are not close emotionally or physically (live away). As
they say, your mileage may vary.

~~~
Apocryphon
It might be logically valid, but it's pretty emotionally tone-deaf to blithely
dismiss a long heartfelt personal account by saying "Survivor bias. Caveat
emptor." Read the room, as they say.

~~~
bananaface
I don't even think it's logically valid. I think if you raise your children
_well,_ the chance that they'll be there for you in old age is very high. If
you don't have kids, the chance you will have friends that loyal is low. Blood
is thicker than water, people should be realistic.

How do you measure that statistically? All you have are personal experiences.
Saying, "not statistics, isn't valid" is obtuse, it leaves you unable to
understand anything that is difficult to measure at scale.

~~~
evgen
> Blood is thicker than water, people should be realistic.

Somewhat off-tangent here, but this is a frequent misunderstanding of this
particular quote. The actual quote is: “the blood of the covenant is thicker
than the water of the womb” and it means the exact opposite of what we now use
it for. The intended meaning is that relationships entered into as adults are
much stronger and deeper than those we are forced into through accident of
birth simply because they are intentional. While I hope my children will be
there for me in old age, I know that I will be there for my wife and closest
friends even though we are not bound by any particular genetic imperative.

~~~
bananaface
I think the reason the meaning shifted is that the original meaning is not
particularly accurate. Although that said, I'm looking into it and it doesn't
seem settled that that _is_ the etymylogical root. That root also specifically
refers to blood shed _in battle_. My guess is it was war propaganda.

~~~
depr
I think the reason is the shorter version is easier to remember, and people
love to attribute genuine wisdom to these kinds of statements. Because the
shorter version is easier to remember it is near at hand and got used more.

~~~
bananaface
I don't think people are that dumb tbh.

~~~
ryder9
then you haven't been paying very much attention have you

------
manquer
One aspect this article does not address at all is the _massive_ sex ratio
imbalance in India and China (for different reasons) at around 1,100 men for
every 1000 women.

This means there are 100 million girls less today in these countries alone,
finding a suitable partner becomes harder and there are lesser number of
couples will be there in the first place who _can_ have kids

The 2.1 replacement is perhaps not adequate at all. The models are outdated
and largely considers IFMR and few other factors, it does not factor really in
issues such as the gender imbalance, hikikomori, much later age pregnancies (
higher chances of miscarriages etc?) and slightly more controversially also
same sex relationships / marriages .

I do not mean to imply same sex relationships are bad or anything like that,
What I mean to say is that everyone needs to have more kids as it is harder
for same sex couples to have _biological_ children ( while adoption is great
and purest expression of parenthood it does not increase the population)

~~~
ggggtez
Miscarriages are not births. If the birth rate remains at 2.1 you can have as
many miscarriages as you want, and the population will still increase.

The same with Hikkikomori, and gay people. As long as there is 2.1 children
born for every woman, then the population will increase.

The only factor which you mention that is correct is that in a society that
murders female babies, then yes, you will need more than a 2.1 birthrate. And
as the article mentions, India is expected to grow over the next 80 years. So
they clearly have a fertility rate that exceeds whatever number they need.

I think you are confusing the fertility rate, with how many children a family
_with children_ would have. The denominator is different, and that's a
completely different issue, but perhaps one that is worth thinking about.

~~~
tomerico
You are failing to account for the gender imbalance. Consider an extreme
gender ratio where for the 2.1 born for an average woman, there are 2 males
and 0.1 females. This means that every generation will have 10X less women.

~~~
nikitaga
As they said, "in a society that murders female babies, then yes, you will
need more than a 2.1 birthrate."

Murder or not (I'm not sure what the illegal "sex-selective technologies"
actually are), the gender imbalance is not a natural phenomenon thankfully.

------
mchusma
I hope Humanity grows many orders of magnitude larger and expands across the
galaxy. The universe will be a more interesting place. Some people here are
saying this is good for the environment. Having 20% fewer people won't do
that. Clean energy and other technology will.

You can easily fit 100B humans on earth, with more of the earth dedicated to
nature preserves. (Maybe a trillion people
[https://youtu.be/8lJJ_QqIVnc](https://youtu.be/8lJJ_QqIVnc)) Macau has over
21,000 people per square km. There are 510M sq km of landmass on earth. This
means on 1% of the landmass you could fit 100B people.

You can fit quadrillions in ONeil cylinders just in our own solar system.

We shouldn't shrink into extinction, we should ride to the stars and populate
the galaxy with consciousness.

~~~
AlexandrB
> Macau has over 21,000 people per square km. There are 510M sq km of landmass
> on earth. This means on 1% of the landmass you could fit 100B people.

Yes, because the earth's carrying capacity is about square footage and not the
resources necessary to keep those people alive, healthy, and happy for 80+
years. How many square km of farmland do you think is necessary to feed Macau?

~~~
csomar
The sea is full of resources. No wonder coastal cities eats lots of fish.

~~~
adrianN
Fish population is crashing hard worldwide. If we continue fishing as much as
we do now, the oceans will be pretty much empty in a generation or two.

------
legostormtroopr
Its concerning that this article closes with the idea that "migration will
become a necessity for all nations and not an option."

There are multiple factors that limit population density, most important of
which is access to space and clean water. The fact that a professor from
London, with a population density of over 10,000 people per square kilometer
[1] is advocating for continued growth is odd.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_districts_by_p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_districts_by_population_density)

~~~
Leherenn
The sentence is a bit weird as well, if every one is having a population
decline, then migration cannot be the solution, at least not globally.

Maybe he meant every one will compete for migrants, but some of them will lose
the game. (Probably the poor and climate change hit countries.)

------
ChuckMcM
Well that is a particularly click baitey article.

My index is failing me here but I recall a paper that had looked into falling
birth rates as standards of living increased and found that birth rate
correlated strongly with the "cost" of children. The supposition (it really
wasn't a theory or even a solid hypothesis) was that as parents became more
educated and society's measure of success became more material, the parental
effort to provide the "best" for their kids went up.

It worked kind of like this, you have kids, you want them to have as good or
better life than you have. If you've defined "better" here as wealth and
social status, then you want them to have more opportunities.

Getting them those opportunities (which you may have missed out on) costs
money (wealth). Examples, good schools, good nutrition, good after school
programs, Etc.

Also, the developing society is putting more social status points on
"successful" people (at least outwardly so by their display of wealth) which
incentivizes couples to both continue their careers and "success
trajectories." That path costs still more because now you have to add day care
and possibly a nanny or two to the mix.

Here in the U.S. there is actually an interesting empirical example that
supports this, its called foster care fraud. When the state offers to pay
money to someone as a foster parent, a small number of people will exploit
this by becoming foster parents for many many children to accrue the state
benefit for "caring" for them. As an example, it suggests to me that if the
state provided support to people with larger families that offset their costs
significantly, the result would be larger families.

I would not argue that this "proves" the supposition that child care costs
drive down the size of families, but to me it argues that it is likely a large
factor in the decision.

~~~
dragonwriter
> My index is failing me here but I recall a paper that had looked into
> falling birth rates as standards of living increased and found that birth
> rate correlated strongly with the "cost" of children. The supposition (it
> really wasn't a theory or even a solid hypothesis) was that as parents
> became more educated and society's measure of success became more material,
> the parental effort to provide the "best" for their kids went up.

I think it is pretty clear that humans (like animals generally) are more
likely to adopt K strategy (smaller numbers of offspring with higher
investment in each) rather than r strategy (larger numbers of offspring with
smaller investment in each) in a stable, secure environment, and that this is
structurally favored by the environment.

I wouldn't put much weight on the suggestion that either the number or
investment piece drives the other, though.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I don't disagree (someone does though :-)) The argument is that given an
expected pool of available wealth K to a couple, and a predicted cost p per
offspring. Is O = K / p variable? or constant?

More simply, if you change one and not the other, does the value of O go up
and down? The article was trying to look at that question by evaluating K and
p and comparing O for different values.

------
jb775
I think people are putting too much emphasis on the financial costs, you
figure it out as you go.

I have a 1.5 year old and it's hard to explain the simple joys I get from just
running around the house with him goofing off. It's nice to forget about the
real world for a while and build a pillow fort. He's also brought much joy to
other family members (grandparents, cousins), and my extended family is closer
as a result.

~~~
mjburgess
People who think about social policy on the scale of nations need to worry
about costs.

This isn't something that you "figure out as you go", it's something that
causes wars and societal breakdown. We're already in a democratic world where
the key voting fault lines are young-vs-old.

------
cbsks
My wife’s theory is that there will be a lot of babies born in about 6 months
(9 months after the quarantine started), but only for first time parents.
Being quarantined with a child is the absolute best birth control.

~~~
durnygbur
For this a childless couple has to live together. Not separately in one person
household, not with parents, not sharing the place with flatmates.

~~~
fastball
How does that change the point?

~~~
durnygbur
In Europe at least even until the age of 35 most people belong to one of the
three latter groups.

~~~
fastball
Do you have these stats on that?

It seems like a lot of unmarried couples live together these days.
Anecdotally, I know more unmarried couples that live together than I do
unmarried couples that live separately, at least if we're talking about the
kind of relationship that is anywhere close to "making babies".

~~~
durnygbur
I'd say it's common knowledge in Europe.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8whym9/rising_propo...](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/8whym9/rising_proportion_of_single_person_households_in/)

[https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/bbimot/share_of_you...](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/bbimot/share_of_youth_not_in_employment_education_or/)

[https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ct33wa/neet_rate_in...](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ct33wa/neet_rate_in_europe_2017/)

[https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8vriuq/share_of_pe...](https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8vriuq/share_of_people_aged_2534_living_with_parents_in/)

[https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/gplbtg/share_of_yo...](https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/gplbtg/share_of_young_people_aged_2534_living_with/)

------
zelphirkalt
Thank goodness! I hope this is true. Please let it be true, that the
population will decrease in the example countries and elsewhere.

Seems to be about the only thing, that can protect us from further
overpopulating the planet with more humans. Even better, if it is caused by
more education and more similar or equal opportunity for women. We should
start celebrating women, who choose not to get children or at least not more
than 1 child as climate saviors too.

~~~
spodek
Agreed!

A great resource on the subject is _Countdown_ by Alan Weisman.

I did a few podcast episodes on my Leadership and the Environment podcast on
population:

[https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-
environment/episo...](https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-
environment/episodes/310-the-start-and-end-of-any-serious-conversation-on-the-
env)

[https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-
environment/episo...](https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-
environment/episodes/294-population-how-much-is-too-much)

[https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-
environment/episo...](https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-
environment/episodes/250-why-talk-about-birthrate-and-population-so-much)

[https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-
environment/episo...](https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-
environment/episodes/248-countdown-a-book-i-recommend-by-alan-weisman)

[https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-
environment/episo...](https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-
environment/episodes/251-lets-make-birth-control-only-a-finance-issue)

[http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/alan-
weisman](http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/alan-weisman)

For those who think we can grow forever, Tom Murphy's Do The Math blog covers
it in his post Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist:
[https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-
physicist](https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist)

------
jl2718
I fail to see the problem. Lower population means an age of abundance: high
supply, low demand, safe environment, automation, freedom, leisure, invention.
Think dark ages, plague, Renaissance. Pensions can either deflate with price
level, or governments can inflate with basic income. It’s only bad for an
elite class of people that benefits from increasing consumption, but doesn’t
pay the social cost of it. And if you pay more than 0.1% of your net worth in
taxes, that’s not you. The elites have become brazen in their assumption of
our stupidity.

------
thehappypm
Give it a few generations.

In the past, having a family was status quo and basically required.

Now, it’s a choice.

Natural selection will heavily favor those with the “I want kids!” gene.

~~~
raziel2p
I think the point here is that the people who don't want kids are still a
useful part of our gene pool, and we should look critically at what factors in
to the decision not to have any kids - I don't think it's genetic at all.

It's impossible for me not to think of Idiocracy while writing this - which
was extremely exaggerated, but still...

~~~
scollet
Are you thinking of memetics?

------
Spearchucker
So, massive article on how terrible a declining population is, but only four
(supposedly, maybe) negative effects listed?

\- Who pays tax in a massively aged world?

\- Who pays for healthcare for the elderly?

\- Who looks after the elderly?

\- Will people still be able to retire from work?

I welcome a declining population. Because the climate will benefit and the
poor will be less so, and the threat of war would diminish. I would hope this,
at least, because I'd like to believe that fewer lives would place more value
on the lives of others.

~~~
raziel2p
Why do you think the climate will benefit? Smaller but richer populations have
polluted more than large but poor populations in the past. Due to global trade
and wealth accumulation, a declining population could easily just lead to more
concentrated wealth and more luxury goods consumption (think private jet
flights, yacht construction...) which leads to pollution not decreasing.

Similar with war - tons of wars are fought for wealth and resources, which
seems unrelated to population, and even with a small population, drone
attacks, assassinations and proxy wars are still entirely possible.

~~~
Spearchucker
You're probably right. My thinking is that with time and with a reduced
population the world might become more enlightened. Also if there is an
agricultural surplus that it might be put to use feeding the poor. I'm an
optimist, and hope the world might one day become an egalitarian matriarchy
that learns a thing or two from the past.

------
_bxg1
There's a short-term problem of society becoming "top-heavy", where there
might not be enough young to pay for the continued care of the old. But in the
long run this seems like a win. I wonder what impact it might have on climate
projections.

~~~
young_unixer
A big part of that problem is that most nations have a pension system where
the active work force pays for the pension of the elder instead of each person
paying their own pension by saving/investing troughout their lives.

~~~
snowwrestler
Government and private retirement strategies both rely on cash transfers from
younger workers. In a government system, the younger workers pay taxes which
are transferred to retirees. In a private retirement system, younger workers
are the purchasing counterparties as retirees sell off their investments.

Retirement financing in general relies on future economic growth for future
cashflow. That said, you don't necessarily need a growing population to make
it work. If the population declines 15%, but the average worker's productivity
goes up 20% during that time, you still come out ahead.

~~~
logicchains
>Government and private retirement strategies both rely on cash transfers from
younger workers. In a government system, the younger workers pay taxes which
are transferred to retirees. In a private retirement system, younger workers
are the purchasing counterparties as retirees sell off their investments.

The core unit of the economy is not cash, it's value. Saving roughly
corresponds to avoiding consumption and preserving value; in a very basic
economy, this would take the form of e.g. preserving grain in a granary rather
than eating it all. People or government savings systems that save for
retirement are then able to consume the value they saved when they retire;
they don't require any value transfer from the working population.

~~~
snowwrestler
In a society that wishes to support people who are not producing value, the
people who are producing value will need to overproduce.

Whether you measure the overage in units of lifetime granaries, or running
annual surpluses, is primarily an accounting choice.

As a practical matter, it's impossible for one farmer to save up enough food
to span their entire retirement. Storage is an expense, and food goes bad
eventually. The concept of a retirement is only possible in a society that
transacts value regularly.

~~~
kmonsen
Yeah but we have money that can be stored and anyone that is old and have
reserves of money will be treated and get food etc.

Society doesn’t reward you based on the value you produce but based on how
much fictional currency you have. This could be entirely granted to you for
example in a a lottery and you never produced anything of value.

~~~
imtringued
Money spoils (aka inflation) just as much as food does. To maintain the value
of your money you have to actively utilize it in the economy by investing it.
This is not a flaw. It is necessary to keep the economy running. Otherwise we
would see Scrooge McDuck in real life.

~~~
kmonsen
This is why we have bank accounts and index funds.

------
rmykhajliw
I've read plenty researches: main factor is healthcare. It's a natural a
better healthcare - leads to lower child and women death rate. That's why
people are having less child and they become more valuable.

100 years ago there's NO statistic for child under 13yo death rate. Mostly
because it was TOO high around 50-60% children are dying before they get ready
for marriage.

My grand-grand-ma told me she had 8 brothers and sisters and only 2 survive:
she and her brother. In that time it was reasonable to bake kids in enormous
numbers in hope some of them are won't die. Then healthcare changed
everything.

~~~
freddie_mercury
> 100 years ago there's NO statistic for child under 13yo death rate

100 years ago was 1920. Many countries absolutely had infant mortality
statistics by 1920.

See R.A. Meckel's "American public health reform and the prevention of infant
mortality, 1850-1929" which (as the name implies) goes back was more than 100
years.

See also I. Loudon's "Death in childbirth: an international study of maternal
care and maternal mortality, 1800-1950"

------
bemmu
Kind of a silly thought experiment, but ever wondered why you were born at
this point in history, and not some other point? If population is now nearing
its peak, you're more likely to be among the people alive now.

~~~
pythux
I think you might be referring to the « doomsday argument »? -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument)

~~~
kmonsen
I read a science fiction book based around this once. It makes a lot of sense
at first, the issue is that we are not a random sample. People could have used
this argument at any time in human history.

------
dmch-1
This article is not about the correlation of individual happiness and having
children, but about a demographic change and issues it might bring in the
future. In hundred years we may have a population where 80+ year olds are
twice as many as 20 year olds. What will be the health of such a population?
Who will take care of the elderly? What will be the economic prospects or
innovation on which the today's society relies? Some very legitimate
questions, and here I read about advantages/disadvantages of having children
from a personal perspective. Just annoying that many people are unable to
think about anything beyond their current immediate environment.

------
voisin
Millennials can’t afford to move out of Mom & Dad’s basement, get married, and
have kids. Our society is profoundly sick, both figuratively and now
literally.

~~~
AuryGlenz
That’s not the only reason. Overweight women have a harder time conceiving.
More alarmingly, men’s sperm counts have been dropping for decades, and not by
small amounts. I think it’s a greater threat to humanity than global warming,
yet most people aren’t even aware of it.

~~~
voisin
For every one couple who wants to get pregnant but can’t due to weight or
sperm count, I would wager there are dozens and dozens who cannot afford to
take on a baby.

------
LockAndLol
Why would a decline of sum(humans) even be a problem? We have destroyed large
swathes of our habitats, poisoned the air, land and water not only where we
live but also where we get our resources, exploit and kill each other because
of a skydaddy or for financial gain, and delude ourselves into thinking we're
a gift to this earth or even the universe.

How we can even think that putting more consumers on this planet is good for
the environment is beyond me. The best way to stop polluting is to consume
less. The max minimum of consumption is an absence of consumption.

We don't need more people, we need less of them. And if education and
prosperity is making us recognize that, then I demand more education and more
prosperity worldwide.

------
qppo
I feel like bemoaning sub-replacement rate fertility doesn't take into account
the exponential growth of automation in post-industrialized economies and how
little labor actually needs to be done to maintain the same productivity, let
alone how _less labor_ increases productivity in an organization (no numbers
there - just an observation from my own work).

Extrapolated to society I'm not really afraid of an aging population of
pensioners like Japan several years ago, because 10 years from now we'll be
moving further from human controlled economic activity. But who knows if that
is going to be a good thing.

I guess what I'm saying is we're going to hit Star Trek or the Matrix

~~~
kalleboo
I worry because society has not given us the benefits of increased
productivity. We've already massively increased productivity with
computerization, but during that same period instead of more leisure time,
society has actually demanded MORE working hours (by putting more women to
work)

~~~
qppo
It's kind of hard to make a sweeping statement like that.

We're seeing costs and benefits of increased productivity/efficiency. My diet
consists of fruits and vegetables that my parents could only buy a few times a
year when I was a kid. My grandmother made dresses from potato and flour sacks
during the war, and my great grandmother sold jams from homegrown fruits
because sugar was rationed. I'm typing this comment on a machine manufactured
and assembled halfway around the world, designed 30 miles from where I'm
sitting, and last week took a medical test that was developed, tested,
manufactured and shipped across the country in weeks.

To say that we don't benefit from increased productivity is not true - those
anecdotes are all examples of how rapid industrialization across the globe and
improved communications, design, manufacturing, operations, and strategy have
quantifiably improved my life as a human.

I also wouldn't say that the boon in productivity _demanded_ more labor.
Particularly because the entry of women into the workforce was driven by the
Great Inflation (which didn't improve productivity) and the tail end of second
wave feminism which had succeeded in changing our society's attitude towards
women in the workforce. The decomposition of that barrier in our society begot
such productivity in our economy, it didn't respond to the demand for more.

But I agree, we're not getting all the benefits of such productivity. At least
not all of us. But that's why UBI is probably the future, because eventually
all our jobs are going to be automated.

------
moultano
This trend among other things is one of the inspirations for writing this
essay that was well received on here a few weeks ago.
[https://moultano.wordpress.com/2020/06/21/the-defaults-
dont-...](https://moultano.wordpress.com/2020/06/21/the-defaults-dont-work/)

I really feel like we don't have any effective model for how to integrate
parenthood in our lives anymore, and so having kids has become almost an
affectation or a hobby, rather than something that everyone bases their life
around as a matter of course.

~~~
Nimitz14
Great read thanks for posting.

------
asperous
Adding to the discussion, population density seems to cause lower birth rates:

[https://www.jstor.org/stable/27503981?seq=1](https://www.jstor.org/stable/27503981?seq=1)

To me that seems like a natural feedback loop. Once population declines to a
certain level people will want to have more kids.

~~~
snowwrestler
Does the article actually say population density "causes" lower birth rates?
The title says it is a "factor," which is not necessarily a causal
relationship.

------
dirtyid
Overall prognosis is still bleak.

>However, this will be a truly global issue, with 183 out of 195 countries
having a fertility rate below the replacement level.

...

>As a result, the researchers expect the number of people on the planet to
peak at 9.7 billion around 2064, before falling down to 8.8 billion by the end
of the century.

...

>The population of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to treble in size to more
than three billion people by 2100.

We're still looking at a 2billion increase in population while simultaneously
9/10 billion people from least to less developed countries will be consuming
more resources as they develop. Mostly through coal and oil.

------
durnygbur
Social systems are zero sum game between individuals paying in and receiving
benefits from them.

Meantime the salaries are stale, salary deductions only increase, and
corporations (ehem formally "charities") funnel out billions annually through
tax havens and heavens.

In countries where social systems are not that mature and trustworthy (e.g.
post-Communist countries) even the most qualified like doctors and engineers
pick contracting as a form of the employment to skip contributing to the
social systems or to contribute only the minimum required by law.

How long more is this sustainable?

~~~
zanny
Its never been "sustainable", its just a question of when society wants to
bring the proverbial chickens home to roost.

~~~
durnygbur
"Purge of the needy and old", something like in the Bergamo area in Italy this
March and April... and marginalization of the homeless and incarcerated like
in the US.

------
jb775
Serious thought/question: I think everyone can agree that reproduction is how
you advance your gene pool to the next stage of the human species. Does this
mean people who don't want kids are effectively weeding themselves out? And is
this somehow a function of survival of the fittest (or natural selection) in
action?

~~~
imtringued
Yes, in theory all the people who refuse to reproduce will be gone and are
replaced by the children of those who want to reproduce. Over the long term
this problem will fix itself. However, I personally believe that the
population will level out instead of keep shrinking forever until reproductive
pressures fix the problem by force.

~~~
abjKT26nO8
_> Yes, in theory all the people who refuse to reproduce will be gone and are
replaced by the children of those who want to reproduce._

Those, who do want to reproduce, will also be replaced by the next
generations. Natural selection doesn't select individuals, it selects genes.
And your genes are well-represented in the rest of the population.

------
ceilingcorner
Maybe a controversial opinion, but: the specific way in which Western
capitalist societies (which were then pushed on to the rest of the developed
world, directly or indirectly) went about the liberation of women is a major
cause of population implosion.

It used to be possible to raise a family on a single income. However, once
corporate interests (and the blind market itself) realized that having women
in the workforce would both _increase potential consumers_ and _increase the
workforce_ (thus depressing wages), the model of _everyone should be a worker
first and a father /mother/family member second_ won out over alternatives.
Add to that an entertainment-and-consumption-focused value system, and you
have the present day: young people either can't afford to start families or
are culturally discouraged to; to be a mid-twenties married couple with kids
is almost embarrassing or shameful in many social groups.

We need a new model of work, in which parents (both men and women) aren't
punished for simultaneously pursuing individual career goals and wanting to
build a family unit.

------
iso1631
Can we take a minute to appreciate that graph

The X axis run at a nice pace, about 7 pixels a year, upto 2017

It then compresses the next 83 years in the space of about 10 years.

~~~
david_draco
Exactly, the plot is misleading. It suggests a dramatic "jaw-dropping" change,
while in reality the curve is slowly crawling towards and below 2.

------
hnarn
As the article states, women are _choosing_ to have fewer children. There are
multiple ways to read this, and you can take the materialist theory of them
just being caught up in their careers, but I tend to fall into a more cynical
interpretation: humans are social creatures, and we are acutely tuned in to
threats around us. I think humans are becoming increasingly aware, consciously
or unconsciously, that we are killing ourselves through destroying the planet
and that there is no way we can sustain further population growth. Whether
“focusing on your career” is the chicken or the egg in this situation is up
for interpretation.

------
jgilias
This absolutely must be reasoned about together with climate change
projections. I don't see there's any chance in hell we can stop at a 2 degree
world. That means though that large parts of the world will likely become
inhospitable to human life as we know it. So, I'd expect either huge
population transfers, wars, or both. The population decline will likely not be
uniform then, as people will flock to the still hospitable parts of the
planet. Provided 'native' populations don't go full lock-the-borders mode.

------
xchaotic
That Dr Murray is a spin doctor too. The argument is that its good for the
environment. And he says yes but the social problems. Well it doesn’t change
the fact that it is one of the best ways to preserve natural environment, and
somehow I think dealing with ageing society, especially with assistance of
technology is an easier problem than global environmental disasters such as
climate change etc. He also says it would take a few centuries for humans to
disappear. I would like to see the calculations he’s done as they seem wrong.

------
scarmig
The good: a lower total population is good for climate change. Additionally,
humans can focus on living in the most habitable, productive areas, improving
per capita efficiency.

The neutral: day-to-day things are unlikely to be affected much. Fewer
farmers, but fewer mouths to feed. This applies to most consumables.

The mildly negative: for knowledge intangibles, a lower total population means
a lower number of scientists, entrepreneurs, etc. Perhaps substantially less.
Apex projects that take a substantial proportion of the world's capital and
labor (e.g. colonies on Mars) become a lot harder, with many becoming
impossible. This is somewhat counteracted by most countries becoming richer
and more educated.

The disastrous: older societies where each person working has to support
multiple other people are sclerotic societies. A society where younger workers
have to pay taxes 2x higher than they do today, to support a bunch of old
people who already own all the housing and capital stocks? That's a society
that I'd move away from in a hurry, regardless of if I'm old or young. I'm
going to have to encourage any kids I have to study Yoruba.

This is one of those huge issues on par with climate change, but people mostly
don't care or think about it. I'm not sure what governments can do about it.
At some point I want to study Israeli demographics and fertility more, as it's
the only country I know of that has maintained a high TFR (>2.1) even in its
secular populations.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> " _A society where younger workers having to pay taxes 2x higher or more
> than they do today..._ "

Most likely social welfare programs for the elderly will simply be allowed to
collapse. Nothing will motivate the young to vote like having their paychecks
eaten away.

I feel bad for young people graduating now; if they're not able to save the
_entire_ cost of their own retirement over the course of their career, they
are just plain screwed.

~~~
scarmig
Retired voters, and voters approaching retirement, will fight denture and nail
against that. The likely result is some claw back of benefits for them, but
young workers would still carry a much heavier tax burden than the retired
class did, preempting their own retirement savings. That causes them to defer
or forego marriage and children as well, causing a continuing downward spiral.

Without an attestupa or genuine efforts to improve fertility rates, we're in
for very grim times in most countries. There's a kind of virtuous cycle here,
though, as a government that does figure out how to mold its age demographics
in an effective manner will be a much more attractive destination for young
emigrants.

~~~
stallmanite
For anyone else wondering; apparently prehistoric Nordic people practiced
killing of the elderly.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ättestupa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ättestupa)

------
amfittr
Just a few points I didn't see elsewhere and would like to point at for
further thought.

It seems to me that some parents have kids to help them deal with their
existential angst and fulfill a need for meaning they couldn't find elsewhere,
let's say providing and caring for people who are already alive and in dire
need of help, lets say orphans in developing countries, homeless ppl etc. Or
something entirely different. Having children have a very strong narrative for
meaning associated with it, which might cause some who are lost in their life
have children which will be equally lost.

I happen to hear things like "spread my genes" as example, probably not
accounting for the 99.9% similarity with the next random guy and we all share
the same ancestors. Even the homeless dude would help us spread our (common)
dna if we could help him get his act together.

There are lots of good reasons for having children already mentioned and I
agree with many of them, however, difficulty making friends and feelings of
meaninglessness should probably be resolved before having children.

Focusing on having something meaningful to give is a lot better. My takeaway
from the article is that people deal with more complexities today and might
not reach a point where they feel enough "on top of things". Having children
if already stressed out might not leave much left to give.

------
AuryGlenz
My wife and I have been trying for nearly 3 years now. We're both healthy - we
exercise, eat right, and we're in our early 30s. We were saving up for IVF all
of last year so we'd be able to do it this year.

Unfortunately, I'm a photographer and COVID has destroyed the chances of that
happening. Minnesota's wedding season is really short and runs from early June
to late September. That means we may not have enough until the end of next
summer. When you've been trying for as long as we have every month you wait is
absolute torture. My wife cries regularly, and while I've held together better
I've had a few absolute breakdowns.

Nothing has made me feel like more of a failure of a husband than this has.
Our infertility is unexplained, so it could be my fault. Worse is the fact
that I have a degree in computer science and I could have had a job that paid
better in the best of times, and right now could be done remotely. It's
agonizing that all of this stress and suffering could be over if we just had
some more money.

The problem is for most people there's no definitive answer, and IVF success
rates aren't absolutely amazing. It'll cost north of $30,000 for just one try
after the actual procedure, testing, and medicine. That has less than a 50/50
chance of working. How many times should you try before giving up? I've
already put two years worth of savings/retirement in to it. I honestly think
insurance should be mandated to cover at least one round of IVF. Isn't making
babies our entire biological reason for being?

------
ggm
I would love to see this re-spun as a net-positive article, discussing how we
can 'grow the economy' by providing goods and services worldwide instead of
asymmetrically to only a small cohort of the population.

'Do it better with less people' is what sustainable is all about.

Birth rate decline in many economies correlates strongly to rises in standards
of living: kids are a hedge against economic bad times in poor, rural
economies.

------
rsync
Interesting for a variety of reasons but my immediate takeaway is that the
world is in a long term deflationary economic trend and any attempts to push
against that, however successful in the short run, will fail.

Cash will be king and assets will be sold for pennies on the dollar, so to
speak - provided you can remain solvent in the whipsaws and gyrations of the
desperate attempts to stave off deflation at any cost.

------
mirimir
TFA shows the US population _increasing_ slightly by 2100. But there's no
comment. I wonder about the basis. Is it projected immigration?

~~~
tuatoru
It must be, because TFR for resident populations is below replacement. Every
wave of immigration has seen this fall: first-generation kids are
intermediate, and second-generation have the same TFR as the population as a
whole.

------
bawana
We have shit on this planet so much, we do not deserve children. None of us
choose to be born. Yet we have to deal with mistakes and evils of generations
past. Even the joy of discovery, of exploring a world anew, of making our own
rules has been stolen. We live in the dead shells of our foolish ancestors,
dragging their legacy into a future chosen for us by the wealthy 1%

------
hprotagonist
Elder care is a pressing issue, but in general isn't this good news?

~~~
eranimo
Not for the economy

~~~
grugagag
Yes for the planet and yes for the human race too, overpopulation leads to all
sort of problems

The economy should adapt not the other way around

~~~
kilroy_jones
Agreed, but no one seems to know how we decouple the economy from growth
without hurting or angering a lot of people. Maybe we just tear off that
bandaid quickly.

~~~
TOGoS
The number of people who would be adversely 'negatively' affected if we said
"alright, we're taking control of this situation and not just going to blindly
let you maximize your profits at the expense of the rest of the planet" is
pretty small. A few millionaires and billionaires. The majority of us will
adapt just fine.

------
bing_dai
One of the most fascinating books I read is Pricing the Priceless Children by
Viviana A. Zelizer
([https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0691034591](https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0691034591)).

The central theme is that modern children are "economically useless" and
"emotionally priceless".

------
cayblood
This doesn't seem that "jaw dropping." Hans Rosling was saying this for at
least a decade prior to this, that global population would peak around 10B and
decline thereafter. That said, I think that viable longevity therapy will
significantly alter this trend.

------
cheeselip420
What's terrifying is that just as we face all of this pressure from falling
fertility rates, we have the technology to implement massive state-sponsored
breeding programs to "fix" the problem...

------
amriksohata
I find articles like this send a mass hysteria that its happening across the
world, when in fact its actually dependent on the country. You can see middle
east countries to africa are not falling, but yes the overall worldwide rate
is falling.

[https://external-
preview.redd.it/_mQKfLNs2BdBrdF5eF0GNxqPMlB...](https://external-
preview.redd.it/_mQKfLNs2BdBrdF5eF0GNxqPMlBKjLV-
ao50S0OyvqY.png?auto=webp&s=b90d559108d9efe8366c8d186f03ab52fdbc8348)

------
alecco
Inverted population pyramid causes many problems. All the ponzi-like schemes
for pensions will collapse. There will be a massive influx of sub-saharan
African immigrants in the Western world as they are the only ones still making
babies. Latin America holds up, mostly. But there's already internal mass
migrations in the millions.

China has been investing a lot on on designer babies, artificial womb, and
cloning technologies.

It's going to be... interesting to see how it all develops.

------
jcun4128
Maybe it's poor access to contraceptives but I personally know people(family)
in a third-world country where a single person has 4+ kids... I'm like why,
can you even afford it. These people are also still living on a dirt patch in
the forest/woods. What's crazy too is in the 15+ years I left, it's still
almost the same... I guess that's what happens when you're far away from major
cities.

~~~
lotsofpulp
The labor from those 4 kids is the greatest form of wealth that person will
have.

------
jelliclesfarm
We should discuss the most important reason people have children. A way to
make their genetic material immortal. At least half of it. There is no other
way to continue living after ceasing to exist.

The joy of children, the company, the pain of loneliness being childless etc
are emotions that is like malicious code that hacks the human psyche in order
to replicate some other lines of code on to the next generation.

------
Keyframe
I remember we learned in elementary school, about three hundred years ago when
I was a kid, a correlation (or inverse of) between economic prosperity and
demographic picture. It was so obvious it even had named phases for it (that
we had to learn, which I forgot).. but from vague memory it was along the
lines of expansion (when country is poor), stagnation (when well-fed) and
immigration (when rich).

~~~
hiccuphippo
There's a new economic model starting to get popular in Europe called the
Donut[0][1] according to which after a country reaches a level of maturity, it
should stop focusing on growth and switch to stability so as to avoid
overshooting.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doughnut_(economic_model)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doughnut_\(economic_model\))

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhcrbcg8HBw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhcrbcg8HBw)

------
aaron695
As life span increases, which it will in the next few decades, so will the
length of fertility.

So any extrapolation out 80 years is nothing more than sensationalism.

I truly don't understand this nonsense.

We can clearly see in the past 80 years, the really slow moving pre internet
past, the global fertility rate has changed how it works significantly, but
suddenly in this hyper-society we are wasting time looking at 2100?

------
ragerino
That's a good thing, because fertile soil depletion is going to be a huge
problem.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/third-
of...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/third-of-earths-
soil-acutely-degraded-due-to-agriculture-study)

------
Leherenn
The article talks about this slightly, but very long term humanity will need a
stable fertility rate and I have no idea how it will happen.

If the fertility rate keeps being below the replacement rate, at some point
humanity will disappear. While short/medium term negative population growth
might be a good thing, at some point we will need to do something.

~~~
29athrowaway
If population keeps doubling every 60 years we will also disappear.

------
alkibiades
i think the main question is if people want kids but aren’t having them for
economic reasons or if they simply don’t want them.

the latter seems fine to me but we still need to solve the problem of paying
for the social security ponzi scheme and will have to deal with increased
labor costs (which could be a good thing)

~~~
xsmasher
Those issues can be solved by immigration and by immigration, respectively.

~~~
scarmig
Immigration from the same countries that are rapidly improving their own
standard of living, and at the same time experiencing their own demographic
crashes?

~~~
xsmasher
No, immigration from other countries whose fertility is not crashing.

------
libraryatnight
"Prof Ibrahim Abubakar, University College London (UCL), said: "If these
predictions are even half accurate, migration will become a necessity for all
nations and not an option."

So if the US current attitude towards immigrants persists, this is a future in
which it does not compete well?

------
carapace
So the Amish win?

It seems everything has already been said: Most of our problems are driven by
population pressure. Leveling off is a good thing, despite potential expense
of reconfiguring society and economies (but we have to do that anyway to
address climate change!)

------
sjg007
Kids are great. But you only have about 13 years with them until they decide
want to hang out with their friends instead of you. Enjoy the journey. It is
hard work though! Especially combined with the pressure and commitments of
working.

------
gHosts
Anybody look at that graph and say...

WTF?! The data says nothing like what the headline says!

Yes, the projection goes down sharply... but the best estimator of tomorrow is
yesterday, and the last few years of data are saying nothing like what the
projection is showing!

~~~
akvadrako
It took me a minute to get what you’re saying but indeed the graph is quite
deceptive. The time scale isn’t consistent.

------
fallat
There are two types of people in the (this) world (thread):

* People who defend the non-existent children * People who defend non-existent children can't be defended because they're non-existent

My opinion: do what your brain and heart tell you to do.

------
ralfd
> Prof Murray adds: "It will create enormous social change. It makes me
> worried because I have an eight-year-old daughter and I wonder what the
> world will be like."

Case in point: This implies the professor has only one child.

------
shahbaby
It's only 'jaw-dropping' if you've been living under a rock.

------
joshspankit
Why are they trying so hard to manufacture reasons why a lower population
would be a bad thing?

Might see reduced populations _by the end of the century_?? We don’t even know
if we’ll be immortal or off-planet by then.

------
hunter-2
The article is a little alarmist. Automation is on the rise which means you
don't so many people to take care of things. So there will be enough resources
to handle healthcare and the elderly.

------
quattrofan
Overpopulation and the resulting over consumption and pollution are our
biggest threats. This is a good thing, certainly until we can figure out a way
to live on another planet easily.

------
Ericson2314
Yes, finally we get off this stupid econ, pop, and everything else growth
wagon.

Too bad this isn't an intentional march to Fukuyama take 2, but a sign of the
Keynesian feedback loop being broken.

------
jxramos
Does anyone know how to derive replacement rate (aka break even) fertility?

    
    
        If the number falls below approximately 2.1, then
        the size of the population starts to fall.

------
lenkite
This is a very good thing. Earth is overpopulated. Ideally we shouldn't have
more than 2 billion on the planet for long-term environment sustainability.

------
ericmcer
No mention of economic inequality or rising cost of living?

~~~
grugagag
It is one of the factors for sure, but also contraception, education, women
emancipation (eg they are unwillig to make 10 kids unlike 100 years ago even
in the western world)

------
k__
How come they project it below 2?

I think it's perfectly reasonable that the numbers drop to 2 if more and more
people in the world get stable lifes.

------
bmcn2020
obviously, the quarantine might change those results :D

but on a serious note -- the global population has been falling. And it might
be seen as a "negative" thing, but if you change your perspective: the global
rate was at once higher only because women DIDN'T have access to education,
opportunities, employment, or the rest.

A positive, vis-a-vis a negative, is a negative, right?

------
sudoaza
Blame it to the abundance of endocrine disruptors in the ambient. Thyroid
problems are in an all time high, specially in women.

------
m0zg
> migration will become a necessity for all nations and not an option

Looks like the projections contradict this in at least two ways:

1\. The population of the United States is projected to grow slightly, so it's
not "all nations"

2\. The population of two of the most currently populous countries, China and
India will drop so precipitously that I'm not sure where they expect the
"migration" to come from.

~~~
ralfd
Africa.

[https://www.hoover.org/research/africa-2050-demographic-
trut...](https://www.hoover.org/research/africa-2050-demographic-truth-and-
consequences)

Specifically graphs like this:
[https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/goldstone_africa_...](https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/goldstone_africa_2050_demographic_truth_and_consequences_revised1-20.jpg)

------
gumby
This is pretty great. I expect automation will address a lot of the labor
shortage issues.

------
nottrobin
This is old news, bit glad it's getting mentioned I guess. Confused that the
BBC seem to be running it as if it's new.

And it's astounding that they somehow put an overall negative spin on it. The
problems of an ageing population seem miniscule compared to the problems of
resource scarcity and climate change.

------
Hoasi
Kids used to be the future, and still are, in a future with less of them.

------
Lammy
"Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature."?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones#Inscriptio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones#Inscriptions)

------
iovrthoughtthis
Lets build a world people want to have kids in then.

------
unstatusthequo
This may be unpopular, but I already feel the earth is well beyond it’s ideal
human population capacity. We are straining resources because of our bad
policies and practices and politics.

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
It may be unpopular, but I agree 100%.

I don't want people to suffer unnecessarily. But the more people we add to the
planet, the more we exacerbate problems with food, water, Co2 emissions, etc.

In the end, _something_ will curtail human population growth. I really hope
it's voluntary and painless.

~~~
aahhahahaaa
Following this logic (and ignoring the increase of suffering as a raw product
of addition) it's totally possible there'd be less suffering if we stayed in
loosely connected hunter-gatherer societies.

~~~
scarmig
Following this logic further, we might be best off if we reduced the
population to a single person whose ideal, perfectly happy life is that of a
hermit.

Philosophers have given this a lot of thought: the "repugnant conclusion" is
what to Google for.

------
0xFFC
RIP J. D. Unwin.

------
LordHumungous
It beats a gigantic Malthusian trap.

------
winrid
People used to want children so they could take care of you when you're older.

I suppose people don't plan that far anymore.

~~~
winrid
Note - I'm not making this up. This is a real thing in Asia for example.

------
fizixer
This is perfect. We need this ASAP.

It'll convince more and more that healthful longevity is a viable future.

------
flattone
Do we need more people?

~~~
a3n
Of course we do. Who else is going to buy all the crap that billionaires are
selling us now?

------
steele
zika is still a thing.

------
11235813213455
This is quite good news for the environment

------
sdunwoody
I think a lot of people are incorrectly identifying this as a good thing.

Really, this is an unprecedented phenomenon in recorded human history.

The entire social structure of basically every country on the planet is
completely unprepared for the challenges that a rapidly aging popuation will
bring. The effects won't be felt for decades after the change begins, and once
it starts in earnest, it will prove very difficult to reverse in any short
timescale.

It will become a sort of feedback loop - fewer people have children, so the
capacity for children in the next generation is reduced. Because the
retiree/worker ratio has now increased, the young people there are, are unable
to afford having children, and so on.

Even with massive increases in productivity, you would see economies
contracting. Ending up in a deflationary trap with increasing (and
unsustainable) debt.

I see these kind of statements so often:

"AI will solve this problem" \- really? The World Bank development report 2019
([https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2019](https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2019))
basically comes to the conclusion that "while automation displaces workers,
technological innovation creates more new industries and jobs on balance".
This has been the case for centuries now.

Automation causing mass unemployment always seems right around the corner, yet
never comes. I'm confident that we're now in the "trough of disillusionment"
when it comes to progress on AI. Things like self driving cars for example are
much more complex than we had considered.

"This is good for the environment" \- It might not be though; the economic
issues caused by aging populations could lead countries to take exploitative
short-term decisions; converting rainforests to farmland, using cheaper means
of generating electricity (that also prove to be more damaging to the
environment) for example.

It is generally more expensive to be green (in the environmental sense).

The competition for immigration (which seems like an inevetable outcome in
this scenario) could also destabilise certain countries, with potentially dire
outcomes.

"It will reduce inequality" \- Japan is ahead of the curve on the whole aging
population front, and the average wages there have basically stagnated for the
past two decades: [https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/wage-
growth](https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/wage-growth) even as the number of
employed people has stagnated/fallen:
[https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/employed-
persons](https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/employed-persons)

I think the keys to this are: \- Why are people having fewer children? If it's
a genuine choice, then of course this is acceptable. But I think often the
number of children people want to have is actually higher than the number they
feel they are able to support due to economic (and other) reasons:
[https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/08/27/the-empty-
crib](https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/08/27/the-empty-crib) \- If the
retiree/worker ratio is going to increase, and life expectancy is going to
increase, then how can we manage this in a way that puts minimal pressure on
health and social care systems? \- Are there any other ways we can prepare
economically/socially for a society with an inverse population pyramid (I
personally think this is a very, very difficult problem to solve, but would
love to be proved wrong) \- How do we manage depopulation of specific
communities? This is a problem that Spain is currently experiencing (e.g. it
is more economical to forcibly move people away from communities that are
dying out and no longer economically viable)

------
EntitledParent
Good.

------
drobert
Like any complex phenomena declining fertility has multiple causes. The
importance of each cause depends on the local conditions.

1\. Easy access to contraceptives (they are easily available throughout the
developed world) 2\. Positive view of abortion (the christian world used to
see abortion as a crime, now with increased secularisation more is placed on
the mother's preference than on the fetus). 3\. Pressure on resources (when
having children becomes a choice, it doesn't happen 'naturally', people are
less likely to bring a child into the world if they cannot raise it properly).
4\. Education and career orientation of women (Educated women make less
children, they finish school around 24, start their career and if they don't
secure a partner by 30-32 their fertility windows has closed - even if
biologically they could bear children, they struggle finding a partner to
raise children with). 5\. The marriage institution has collapsed (Marriage is
the bedrock of children rearing - high divorce rates, divorce courts,
normalisation and acceptance of divorce has made people less likely to marry
and thus having the environment in which to raise children). 6\. Culture -
it's not cool to have children. Now it's cool to travel the world and find
yourself and experiment with as many partners as you can. This culture is not
conducive to child rearing. Movies, books, music do not portrait happy
families. Today, cool is to be 'different'. 7\. Religion - christianity with
its marriage and chastity laws is dying out. Is is being replaced by the
secular world where monogamy and child rearing are not perceived as something
desirable. 8\. Lack of social support - as people travel to find jobs they do
not live with their parents. Raising children without the support of
grandparents is much more difficult. 9\. Low wage growth due to women joining
the work force. One man could maintain a family with children and his wife,
50-60 years ago. That is no longer possible unless you are in the top 0.1%.
10\. Skewed dating market. Women are desirable by men until they reach 30-32.
After that few men who want a family would try to know and marry a women
because she is less likely to bear children and this is not a priority for
her. Women are under much pressure to sort out their careers, know themselves
and start of family by early thirties. The education and career 'system' is
not optimised for mothers. 11\. Global warming and reaching peak resources. We
have reached the peak point in multiple natural resources and are destroying
natural habitats at an alarming rate. This makes people less likely to see a
hopeful future into which children have a place.

To summarise, we live in era of tremendous technological and cultural change
where we reached the limits of our planet's resources in the way we currently
use them and this has led to population shrinkage in the developed world.

------
spiritplumber
Good!

------
dutch3000
another chicken little article. worthless speculation about the future. who
knows what will happen if the population declines. one thing is for certain
though. it will be a positive for the environment. at some point the ponzi
scheme, infinite growth society must have it’s day of reckoning

~~~
mindfulhack
I support this sentiment 100%.

In human population, we should be aiming for quality, not quantity. Quality
also means diversity.

If higher quantity unavoidably brings a higher proportion of human suffering,
then we have no other choice but to promote quality over quantity. I fear for
the future of our species. Our evolutionary instinct to multiply combined with
the tech we've created is now bringing this planet to the brink.

Everyone wants to exist. But I would rather exist in a positive way, than
exist at all.

~~~
ken47
People may believe that they fear for the "future of our species," but at a
meta level, is it not merely an expression of the same innate human desire
that caused us to build up civilization and medicine to the point that we're
facing the aforementioned issues?

Without getting into a long spiel, human intelligence appears to actually be
extremely limited, compared to a theoretical perfect intelligence, and any
explicit actions we may take to enforce "quality over quantity" could end up
doing more "harm" than "good" as soon as 1 "move" beyond the furthest move
that we're capable of calculating.

IMO, there is no "saving" humankind. We're all doomed in some way. Life is
just a way of postponing death.

~~~
mindfulhack
> People may believe that they fear for the "future of our species," but at a
> meta level, is it not merely an expression of the same innate human desire
> that caused us to build up civilization and medicine to the point that we're
> facing the aforementioned issues?

Yes, in a way. But with mindfulness, one can choose different thoughts to
attach to that innate survival feeling of wanting to exist and multiply.
Instead of, 'We need to always multiply / population control is evil', make
it, 'We need to create a better world for our species and those around us'.

> IMO, there is no "saving" humankind. We're all doomed in some way. Life is
> just a way of postponing death.

Also agreed. I've read the big AI books like Nick Bostrom's and Max Tegmark's.
Given their monumental knowledge, the sentiments around population control are
not so much about saving so much as managing. More importantly, it's about
saving the possibility of AI and superior forms of evolution to arise in the
future, which are far more significant than current Homo sapiens.

One way to put this into practice is to choose to adopt a child as your own,
instead of producing yet another one. I may do this in my life.

~~~
ken47
If you believe you're the sort of person who can potentially "save" the world,
wouldn't you want to clone your inherited software to counterbalance the
cloning of those who cannot or will not?

------
Guy2020
Children have become more of a burden than a benefit in many ways. We once had
much use for our children. When people were more independent and everyone
pretty much had a small business, children were seen as the life blood of that
business. Now, we are pretty much expected to fill a role at some large
corporation -- which Japan is the greatest example of. Also, the family
centered culture has changed to a work centered culture. It used to be a mark
of shame not to have a large family -- you were seen as a "dead end."

I don't think these changes are natural, given how little control people have
over their lives. This stuff is being pushed from the top.

~~~
tclancy
I started to read this waiting for the punchline to a Dad joke. Kids can still
mow lawns for sure.

>This stuff is being pushed from the top.

Is this some kind of Sparta thing? Like you all go up to the top of the
mountain and someone pushes Dad off? Because if you actually mean there's a
"top" that is dictating human sexuality I am deeply, deeply interested in
seeing a schematic diagram for how that system works.

>It used to be a mark of shame not to have a large family

When and where was this? As someone who grew up Catholic it feels like that
cut both ways.

To be vaguely serious for longer than I want, my wife and I just had a long,
unfun conversation about how hard it is to deal with her mom's dementia and I
don't know that we could do anywhere near as well with dealing with it if we
didn't have a kid of our own. It's a shitty Ponzi schema, but the alternative
is being Shakers.

~~~
jjoonathan
Old calculus: "I need to have lots of children so they support me in my old
age. No matter the cost."

New calculus: "Between retirement accounts and welfare, society will support
me in my old age. Children are really, really expensive."

It's economics, plain and simple. Of course there's a "top" and the "top" does
dictate the structure. If you doubt that, ask: what percent of your income do
you pay in taxes, and what percent of his income does your CEO pay in taxes
(assuming you work at a typical bigcorp)?

I'm not saying that "yolo all the way to carrying capacity -- and beyond!"
would be a better policy, but it clearly used to be the policy and isn't
anymore. Personally, I think we dodged a big bullet and took a little one. The
"little" bullet is still going to hurt quite a bit, though.

~~~
Guy2020
This, but also people used to see having a family as being the meaning of
their lives. In the modern world, the alternative meaning of life invention is
the Career™. This alone, that people have been influenced to believe a career
is a replacement for having a family, is highly suspect of "top-down"
influence. We don't even have the perspective of how ridiculous career driven
culture is.

~~~
brightball
This also causes people to move farther away from their families for both
school and then work, often meaning that the grandparent support system is not
available when you want to have kids.

That, in my opinion, is taken for granted more than anything else.

~~~
scruple
It also causes people to wait longer and longer to have children. My twins, my
first children, came when I was 38 years old. My wife was 35. Most of our
friends and family were also well into their 30s before having their first
kid. This is not a winning strategy...

------
ve55
Sad the amount of technological progress we may be missing out on by this, I
rarely see it discussed but I think fertility is important in order for
society to be able to maintain a steady course of improvement in science and
technology.

~~~
HenryKissinger
The number of individuals with the potential of Albert Einstein (to pick a
stereotype) in a given country is not correlated to the total number of
people. Standard of living, a stable childhood environment, quality of
schooling, modern medicine, economic opportunity, sanitation, are more
important to nurture future innovators. A kid working the fields in Angola
will probably never reach his full potential, but little Johnny from suburban
America probably will.

