Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The world will be less crowded and cleaner, and more able to sustain the smaller population with good quality natural foods.
The planet cannot sustain a constantly growing population. There are limits to space available and the ability to produce food for the masses, and limits to how much waste can be processed or buried.
The only real problem with a slowly declining population is care of the elderly. Over time, as population equalizes, that will no longer be a problem.
The planetary population has already doubled in my lifetime. If I live long enough, I may see it double again. We have too many people now.
The question is, "Why will it equalize (I assume you mean stabilize)?" If world fertility rate drops below replacement level, population will decline, and will continue to always decline. What would make the fertility rate rise, and why would that occur at some "perfect point"?
Perhaps there will come a day - and it is beginning to look like this - most of humanity will live in North America and Europe, where the climate is temperate.
There is a lot of good information in your article. But not everyone believes the numbers reported by China, which claims a population of 1.4B. Many people point to evidence that China has already shot itself in the foot and is inflating population numbers to hide the fact that their one-child policy created a monster.
Until very recently the UN continued to publish the 11B figure. When it became obvious to amateur students of demography that the number could not be supported mathematically the UN gave up their position.
Decline is coming, no matter whose figures are used. It's just a matter of picking the right date.
T
Gather 6 couple-friends around the dinner table. Do you count 13 children among those couples? .... No? Then you are not unusual, because we can't, either.
"
We hit 15 children with just three couple friends. With six, we need a bigger house to have them all visit at once.
However, the 15 kids of the three couple friends are now adults ranging form 21 years old to 33, mostly on the higher side. Of the 15 only two have a child. However that is less an issue of them not having kids and more an issue of people having kids later in life (and also marrying later in life). Those 15 kids may well end up producing 75 offspring, but not until they are in their 40s or 50s.
Sow e have a population gap, but whether we have a population drop remains to be seen.
There are a number of things that determine population growth or decrease outside of mother nature.
The intervention of Science,The intervention of wealth, The intervention of poverty, The intervention of war always come to mind.
Pick your Potion. Pick your Poison.
Apply liberally for the best results...
All true, I suppose, but some of the things listed would be temporary. If everyone lived to be 100, everyone would still die; wealthy and impoverished people still die although infant mortality would probably be higher among the impoverished. Speaking as a 76 year old, I can confidently say that old people are not nearly as productive as young ones. Every month my "worthless, ancient existence" sucks up assets created by younger workers. So if I and all my friends live to be 100, we are going to become a huge drag on society. Shooting us is illegal, so countries largely will have to accommodate us. But we would just be a population bubble - like a pig through a python, so to speak. In the end, it changes nothing.
War definitely changes the equation.
As long as everyone born dies at some point it will take a fertility rate of 2.1 to replace the population. If people start living forever, or babies are created in Petri dishes then the number of children born to the average woman would not count. But we're not there yet.
A new Chinese study was released that shows a much steeper decline that had previously been forecast. The new study show a decline in population in China of 50% in 29 years - 2070. https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other...rns/ar-AAP0o4P
New research, from Professor Jiang Quanbao and colleagues with the institute for population and development studies at Xian Jiaotong University, warned that the country's population decline may have been severely underestimated. If the fertility rate drops to 1, in 29 years the population in China will fall by half, and many people now believe that the true fertility rate in China is now below 1.
A new Chinese study was released that shows a much steeper decline that had previously been forecast. The new study show a decline in population in China of 50% in 29 years - 2070. https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other...rns/ar-AAP0o4P
New research, from Professor Jiang Quanbao and colleagues with the institute for population and development studies at Xian Jiaotong University, warned that the country's population decline may have been severely underestimated. If the fertility rate drops to 1, in 29 years the population in China will fall by half, and many people now believe that the true fertility rate in China is now below 1.
Texas how are ya. China is now limiting access to non-medically necessary abortions.
Texas how are ya. China is now limiting access to non-medically necessary abortions.
I believe limiting access to non-medically necessary abortions is just the first step. If the birth rate does not tick upwards I strongly suspect China's government will ban all forms of contraception. Authoritarian regimes can become very desperate when things do not go their way.
It will be interesting to see how Chinese women react if that was to happen.
I believe limiting access to non-medically necessary abortions is just the first step. If the birth rate does not tick upwards I strongly suspect China's government will ban all forms of contraception. Authoritarian regimes can become very desperate when things do not go their way.
It will be interesting to see how Chinese women react if that was to happen.
Interesting thought, Dan
That may be one way that many governments fight the trend. I don't think any government has tried that yet, but South Korea, with the lowest fertility rate in the world has a total ban on abortions - has had since 1953 - and that hasn't worked.
Mathematically, the last South Korean will become extinct in about 700 years, but of course the cities will die long before that; Brusan in 2400 and Seoul 100 years later.
I noticed the article referenced above was written in 2017, and fertility rates have dropped since its writing. The author also opines that South Korea will not drop below 35M, but gives no reason why he thinks women will begin having more children. "They just will" seems to suffice for him. I don't know; it seems to me he just babbles on.
Since he wrote his article, many countries have joined South Korea and South Korea itself has continued to trend downward with fewer babies being born each year.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
