
When will the world reach 'peak child'? - fanf2
https://ourworldindata.org/peak-child
======
lalaland1125
I think all of these analyses contain a critical flaw in that they ignore the
effect of evolution. Any characteristic that increases reproduction rates that
is passed down to the next generation, whether that characteristic is
cultural, location-specific, or genetic, will eventually become the majority.
(And yes, cultural beliefs and location can be "passed down" to some degree.)
This will result in eventual birth increases as pro-fertility adaptations
build up. You can't assume that the system is static and that trends will
continue when the math of evolution inherently promotes a pro-reproduction
bias.

~~~
llukas
Until extinction event of course as environment is not infinite ;)

~~~
vtange
So you're saying this whole world is a game where if a species is not
intelligent enough to know when to stop reproducing in order to save the
environment, it's an inevitable game over? :)

~~~
llukas
Not necessarily.

(similar but not 100% same)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%E2%80%93Volterra_equatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%E2%80%93Volterra_equations)

Predators don't know hwne

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lacker
I do not believe the world will hit peak child, unless there is a catastrophe.

Looking at overall birth rates might make it seem that way. But logically, in
order to hit peak child, every subgroup will also have to hit peak child. Will
every single country hit peak child? Will every religious group hit peak
child? All it takes is one of those groups to keep expanding, and the world
will not hit peak child. There are so many subgroups with drastically
different birth rates and retention rates, I don't believe we will hit peak
child. There will just be a transition period as the world starts to contain
fewer Italians and more Mormons.

For an interesting take on a single subgroup's demographics, the Amish, check
out this article: [https://medium.com/migration-issues/how-long-until-were-
all-...](https://medium.com/migration-issues/how-long-until-were-all-
amish-268e3d0de87)

~~~
bloak
> every subgroup will also have to hit peak child

Not really, because subgroup membership is flexible: people can enter and
leave a subgroup. But even ignoring that objection, calculating that the Amish
will eventually outnumber everyone else is a crazy bad extrapolation, whereas
predictions of world population are based on much more modest and justified
extrapolations.

If you took some old population data you could perhaps extrapolate that
Shakers were destined to increase exponentially, but what happened to them?
I'd say that the destiny of a single religious group is typically a short-term
and local phenomenon that doesn't much affect the long-term development of
world population.

~~~
lacker
I don’t claim that the Amish will eventually outnumber everyone else. I merely
claim that for the global population to hit peak child, _every_ subgroup has
to hit peak child. That is a very mathematically sound statement. To me it
seems intuitively unlikely that every subgroup will exhibit the same trend.
What I expect in practice is not that the Amish will outnumber everyone else,
but that over time many different subgroups that are expanding their
population will continue growing, and thus world population will continue to
grow.

~~~
bloak
Your "mathematically sound" statement seems obviously false, which probably
means I'm misunderstanding it. Perhaps you should state it more formally.

~~~
lacker
Claim: In order for the overall population to hit a maximum number of
children, every subgroup within it must also hit a maximum number of children.

Proof: Assume the opposite, that there is a subgroup S that never hits a
maximum amount of children, but the overall population has a maximum amount of
children X. Since S does not hit a maximum amount of children, S at some point
has more than X children. This contradicts the initial assumption. QED

~~~
bloak
Oh, that's boring. It's almost as boring as saying that the number of any
countable physical thing must reach a maximum because it is bounded by the
mass of the universe divided by the mass of an electron, or something equally
tedious. I don't think we're gaining any insight here.

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Jedd
Weird that religion isn't mentioned -- possibly too contentious -- but I
thought the correlation within societies of high religiosity and reduced
education opportunities for (or just general resistantance to the empowerment
of) women was fairly well understood.

Tracking changes in religious beliefs in different demographics can give us
some good predictive insight.

~~~
kasey_junk
In previous studies of this I thought they had shown that when correcting for
women’s education levels & wealth religion largely didn’t play much part.

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eximius
I think his point is that religion can be a causal factor of women education.

I.e., suppression of women in extreme sects of Christianity and Islam.

~~~
tim333
I'm trying to think of any Christian countries where they don't educate women.
I don't think it's a statistically significant thing.

~~~
eximius
Most Christian countries aren't dominated by Christian extremists. Look to
cults or isolated sects, though, and you'll find the hallmarks of true
patriarchal oppression.

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poniatowski
_Africa is going to be crucial_

 _What we have seen in the different projections of future global population
is that Africa is the most influential and contentious. What happens in Africa
now and in the coming decades will determine what size and structure the
global population will have at the end of the century.18_

 _It seems less certain what the future for Africa will look like; there is
considerable disagreement between UN and WC-IIASA projections. Even the medium
projections vary significantly between the two institutions: The UN projects a
population of 4.5 billion while WC-IIASA projects a population of only 2.6
billion. This difference of 2 billion is just as large as the difference
between the projection for the global population by the UN (11.2 billion in
2100) and WC-IIASA (8.9 billion in 2100). Whether the world population
increases to more than 10 billion will be decided by the speed with which
Africa develops – especially how quickly women get access to better education,
women 's opportunities within the job market, and how rapidly the improvements
in child health continue._

It's really quite astounding. _If_ the UN's predictions are accurate, Africa's
population will soar to _4.5 billion_ , with the Sub-Saharan part alone
accounting for 4 of that 4.5 billion. Which means tens or even hundreds of
millions of migrants flooding Western nations, making the current crisis seem
like a drizzle when compared with this storm looming off in the distance.

You would think this would be major news, discussed openly and often by the
talking heads on cable news networks and given front page billing by major
newspapers. Instead, you hear virtually nothing about it, unlike (for example)
Peak Oil.

Though not as famous as other dystopian novels like 1984 or Brave New World,
this might yet prove to be the most prophetic:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_of_the_Saints](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_of_the_Saints)

~~~
api
Africa is huge. Why would people be forced to migrate?

~~~
adrianN
Lack of fresh water due to global warming for example.

~~~
nine_k
Cheao solar energy would allow for massive desalination.

The problem of most countries that people flee from is not lack of resources,
but inadequate government. People flee to countries that are better governed
and _thus_ more prosperous.

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xbmcuser
THough I agree education will bring down the world population I don't see it
happening in Asia or Africa any time soon. One of the major reasons for the
change and drop in population growth in the west was not just education but
the world wars where large number of male population was either fighting or
died and resulted in woman joining the workforce in large numbers. Japan had a
similar thing happen after the war. China because of its 1 child policy had a
similar effect with more women entering the workforce and being educated.

~~~
harryf
You might find it interesting to read up on other things by the late Hans
Rosling e.g.
[https://www.google.ch/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-39211...](https://www.google.ch/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-39211144)
\- one of his key arguments is the Wests beliefs about 3rd world population
growth are largely outdated and lack awareness of how much progress has been
made.

~~~
lugg
He has a lot of good videos out there but this is the one specifically
covering Africa / population predictions and the misconceptions / dated
knowledge.

[https://youtu.be/FACK2knC08E](https://youtu.be/FACK2knC08E)

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tritium
When space releases the pressure valve, and space-faring society represents a
compelling alternative.

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nimbius
If you ask millennials, Peak child is already here. total fertility rates for
the group are in decline.

[http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/millennials-say-no-to-
kids...](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/millennials-say-no-to-kids-
population-replacement-level-turns-negative/article/2640743)

------
wyclif
In the Philippines, never, given my observations of the culture here.

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nine_k
_A quick preview of the results:_

 _\- The world has probably not reached 'peak child' yet. However, we are
likely very close to a long flat peak; the number of children in the world
will not increase much more. We are close to the peak._

 _\- A key insight from projections, under different scenarios, is that the
number of children in the long-run will depend on how successful the world
will be in providing education – in particular to women – in the short-run.
This is because women that are better educated tend to have fewer children. If
we are successful in providing accessible education for all in the near-term,
there will be fewer children – and therefore less demand for education – in
the future._

 _\- In the last part of this post I will discuss how the size of the
population will change in different world regions. Crucial will be the African
continent: fast development in Africa will slow down population growth,
whereas slow development would leave African countries in an extended period
of fast population growth. The latter scenario could see the African
population growing 5-fold over the 21st century._

~~~
joe_the_user
I don't think there's any uncertainty that the rate of child birth is peaking
and is going to decline and continue declining.

There's really no alternative path I can see. One could put it at urbanized,
cosmopolitan women aren't interested in child birth unless there are positive
options.

I mean, first people thought China's one-child policy was reducing childbirth
but a close look and efforts to dial showed the decisions were fairly well
set.

Brazil didn't have to have an education outreach program. Ordinary TV was
enough to reduce the reproduction rate.

And a variety of nations are looking at their negative reproduction rates
(Japan, Taiwan, Russia, France, China etc) and finding there's no easy
reversal. It's more like high reproduction are an exception in society's
transitioning out of peasantry but after that, it goes down and doesn't go up
again.

~~~
zanny
> it goes down and doesn't go up again.

Its almost like making and raising kids is a full time job, and in places
where you have better alternatives to making no money and hoping the fruits of
your labor support you 30 years down the line people would rather have a
career.

The day you reverse the reproduction rates in countries where they are
negative is the day you recognize parenting as a skill worthy of as much
credence as teachers, lawyers, or plumbers.

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tropo
In the long term, this can only happen when mortality is very high.

There are lots of things that seem to reduce the rate. We can consider
education, birth control, taxes, child support, alimony, custody laws,
religion, heathcare costs, daycare costs, education costs... and in the end it
doesn't matter one bit.

None of that can possibly matter in the long run because the chance of having
more offspring than normal is inheritable. You might point at birth control
and ask how that fits in, but your ability and willingness/desire to use it is
a mental trait that is at least partially inheritable.

There is no escape from evolution.

~~~
dnautics
You don't see how a child born to a lower class family of 7 might not be less
reproductively fit than. A single child from the the same class?

Think of it this way, given what you know of class dynamics and sexual
selection in humans, if your child had the choice of selecting between one in
a random assortation, without knowing which was which, which one would be
advantaged and why?

~~~
Franciscouzo
I don't share GP's view, but is a child of a family of 7 siblings 7 times less
reproductively fit than a single child?

