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Women in wealthy, developed countries have less children because they have access to birth control. Families can choose how many children they can afford to raise without selling daughters into child-marriage to keep their heads above water, as undeveloped countries families sometimes resort to.
In bad economic times women of developed countries will have fewer children by choice, and those fewer children will lower the fertility numbers for the next generation over the long haul unless something extraordinary happens to spur more families to make more children, maybe government incentives.
Is it a bad thing to have fewer people on this planet? In the present and the future human beings are doing less manufacturing, leaving that to robots or more efficient production. We are trying to use less natural resources.
Some commenters seem to think fewer humans being born is a bad thing.
There will certainly be some bumps in the road but having fewer babies but more choice in how to live ones life seems like a bright future to me. Religion is dying out in developed countries, in the past religion greatly encouraged having many children. Now the majority of children born are chosen and treasured, seems like a good idea there.
Feel safe giving birth? More like 'afford' to give birth as in the economic conditions of the countries are as such that people can not afford children. Before birth control that wouldn't have mattered (even though abortion still took out many), however, now women are more in control of their reproductive cycles. If economic trends continue, 400 years it will be worse than today.
Reports indicate that woman in developed countries are more inclined to have careers than babies. In undeveloped countries many are still practicing the traditional family values with one marriage and several children. Even within the developed countries the poor population continue to have more children than their counterparts. Not having children does not increase their social status. Factoring in those numbers we are at a global birth replacement rate of 2.4; with countries below replacement level births.
Historically the traditional family would have children so as to continue the family business be it farming or what have you, but the idea is that children would support their elderly parents. Even our programs for the elderly (SS) are set up on the same premise in the the children working and paying taxes will help to fund their parent's retirement. With fewer children, that puts those programs at risk of going bust, if they're not bust already.
A change in traditional family values and a change in economic conditions are the deciding factors in the global population. However, one cannot dismiss the population control folks that believe that under population will somehow increase their revenue/resources/financial status. They are around in all countries with influence on policies within the countries.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thrillobyte
That's what I meant--feel safe financially giving birth. Bad syntax
It's a false premise, I think--the idea that once the population starts shrinking there's no stopping it. Women will always reproduce unless some weird event renders them sterile.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thrillobyte
That's what I meant--feel safe financially giving birth. Bad syntax
Understood --- however, if present economic trends continue, that's not happening.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thrillobyte
It's a false premise, I think--the idea that once the population starts shrinking there's no stopping it. Women will always reproduce unless some weird event renders them sterile.
That's what my x-husband's take on it was --- too much radiation in the atmosphere, rendering both men and women sterile.
When I began following this many years back the total fertility rate, globally was 2.5; today that number is 2.4 ... so something's up, but the mystery spin my x put on it, no way of substantiating that, just reports on societies change in lifestyle values ... if the trend continues the worlds population is projected to nearly stop growing by 2100.
We are a species on this planet, subject to the same conditions of survival as all the others. If the population continues to decline, all it would take is one good bug and/or one good seismic activity to take us out. Being human does not render us somehow impervious to the same laws in nature of all other species. Top that with how destructive we are ... imo, it's just a matter of time before we are included in the mass extinctions line up. Projection for the extinction of Russia, is already there.
You have to be partially right. Women WILL always reproduce. The world is simply too large and populations too diverse for extinction to be anywhere on the horizon. So we're not going to disappear.
But the population decline will go on for so long that actual extinction will be a moot point. Here's a graph of exponential decay. Just take a glance at it; no need for math, just sort of understand how it works.
If the world population declines 1% per year - and it will, starting very soon - then in 70 years the population of the world will be 1/2 what it is today. Call it the year 2100. 4B people.
And in another 70 years it will be half of that. 2170 there will be 1/4 of the people there are today. 2B people. Let's agree the exact year will be off one way or the other, but the math simply cannot lie.
And so forth.
The number of people is not the problem. 2B people would be plenty to insure survival. The problem is, 2B people will not be able to maintain the infrastructure and governments that have been long established. Some countries and regions, like Asia, will lose population faster than others and some countries will simply cease to function.
200 years ago, people were climbing over each other's backs to explore the planet and settle in new areas and develop new ideas. America was being settled. Africa was being exploited. Industrial Revolution! Railroads!
200 years from now I expect there will have been an Industrial Collapse. There will be thousands upon thousands of items which simply can no longer be manufactured or maintained. I'm not particularly worried about it, but on the other hand it may not be just a whole lot of fun for a lot of people. Our current supply chain difficulty is a precursor to something much, much worse.
I see what, your saying. But also societal morals could change whether organically or by government demand. For example massive increases in immigration will likely mean, that Western Europe will be buffeted from these effects and Canada and America will likely not feel them at all for generations. Their is also always a population having more Children. The decline is in no way uniform along groups. Texas will grow for decades after a state like Maine even without immigration. Mormons, Amish and Ultra-Orthodox populations will grow till they make up significant percent of states. These groups are different, but the growth in these populations will have massive influence on a state like Pennsylvania which has been declining in 60% of its counties for a while now.
The first case study is going to be Puerto Rico. It's an old island and has a rock bottom birth rate due to heavy outmigration of fertile people. It will be interesting at it's current state how young people will handle being on an island so old.
Greece, Lithuania and Latvia which are all old, and don't have massive positive immigration markers are also other ones to watch in 20-30 years.
China is in the news again. The 2021 statistics are out and China's 2021 birth rate dropped another 12% below their 2020 birth rate. This makes five straight years of declines in their birth rate. For 2021 they had 10.6 million officially recorded births and 10.1 million officially recorded deaths. Could 2022 be the year China officially goes into negative population growth? I can't see how they can possibly hide it anymore.
I quoted a very interesting statement made by a CCP bureaucrat from one of the articles below.
"The Director of the National Bureau of Statistics, Ning Jizhe, told state media Monday the decline in births stemmed from the pandemic and a decrease of "women of childbearing age, a continued decline in fertility, changes in attitudes toward childbearing and delays of marriage by young people," according to CNN's translation. "
You have to be partially right. Women WILL always reproduce. The world is simply too large and populations too diverse for extinction to be anywhere on the horizon. So we're not going to disappear.
But the population decline will go on for so long that actual extinction will be a moot point. Here's a graph of exponential decay. Just take a glance at it; no need for math, just sort of understand how it works.
If the world population declines 1% per year - and it will, starting very soon - then in 70 years the population of the world will be 1/2 what it is today. Call it the year 2100. 4B people.
And in another 70 years it will be half of that. 2170 there will be 1/4 of the people there are today. 2B people. Let's agree the exact year will be off one way or the other, but the math simply cannot lie.
And so forth.
The number of people is not the problem. 2B people would be plenty to insure survival. The problem is, 2B people will not be able to maintain the infrastructure and governments that have been long established. Some countries and regions, like Asia, will lose population faster than others and some countries will simply cease to function.
200 years ago, people were climbing over each other's backs to explore the planet and settle in new areas and develop new ideas. America was being settled. Africa was being exploited. Industrial Revolution! Railroads!
200 years from now I expect there will have been an Industrial Collapse. There will be thousands upon thousands of items which simply can no longer be manufactured or maintained. I'm not particularly worried about it, but on the other hand it may not be just a whole lot of fun for a lot of people. Our current supply chain difficulty is a precursor to something much, much worse.
I really admire your take on shrinking global population. People, generally speaking, are sheeple. You tell them the world is overpopulated and it will continue to be overpopulated and having children is bad and will add to this problem. It seems most people lack the ability to think past their nose and look at things with a critical eye and not just believe the propaganda they have been told over and over and over.
50% of the worlds population lives on 1% of the land. It is not overcrowded. I lover your point concerning the drop the population by 1/2 over the next 70 years. Numbers work both ways, what goes up fast will go down fast.
I agree with you that the population of the world will continue to drop. It is set in motion and it is not turning around. The drop will continue and spread into Africa and parts of the Middle East, the only areas of the world still with positive birth rates. The world will be reset in a painful way. Countries will be overrun with elderly residents and a battle will exist to recruit able body young to move their countries to do the most basic jobs to keep their society afloat, such as sanitation, education, health care, farming etc. Innovation and technology progress will be an afterthought. All the energy, money and effort will be in a desperate attempt to keep basic services intact.
The overall standing of living of the average person will drop. The global supply chain will be greatly diminished. Things will become much more local. Children will become prized and large families will be looked up upon and a benefit to all.
Last edited by Allan Trafton; 03-26-2022 at 08:53 AM..
China has 31 provinces. So far 16 have reported their 2021 population numbers, and 7 have fallen compared to 2020. A Chinese Central Bank advisor has said its possible that Chinese population could peak in 2022, instead of the expected 2027.
Women in wealthy, developed countries have less children because they have access to birth control. Families can choose how many children they can afford to raise without selling daughters into child-marriage to keep their heads above water, as undeveloped countries families sometimes resort to.
In bad economic times women of developed countries will have fewer children by choice, and those fewer children will lower the fertility numbers for the next generation over the long haul unless something extraordinary happens to spur more families to make more children, maybe government incentives.
Is it a bad thing to have fewer people on this planet? In the present and the future human beings are doing less manufacturing, leaving that to robots or more efficient production. We are trying to use less natural resources.
Some commenters seem to think fewer humans being born is a bad thing.
There will certainly be some bumps in the road but having fewer babies but more choice in how to live ones life seems like a bright future to me. Religion is dying out in developed countries, in the past religion greatly encouraged having many children. Now the majority of children born are chosen and treasured, seems like a good idea there.
I agree. I personally believe the societal collapse due to demographic change is overblown. Not saying there will not be challenges, but human beings have incredible ingenuity. I can recall people predicting gloom due to fast population growth rates. I remember reading articles about countries such as China, Indonesia, and most of Africa would remain poor because they had too many people.
China has 31 provinces. So far 16 have reported their 2021 population numbers, and 7 have fallen compared to 2020. A Chinese Central Bank advisor has said its possible that Chinese population could peak in 2022, instead of the expected 2027.
Multiple sources are reporting that China’s population is crashing. Possibly, the pandemic has speeded up the decline, or maybe it’s related to China’s massive internal migration issue, of rural people uprooting and moving to industrial cities for work, typically singles rather than families.
Multiple sources are reporting that China’s population is crashing. Possibly, the pandemic has speeded up the decline, or maybe it’s related to China’s massive internal migration issue, of rural people uprooting and moving to industrial cities for work, typically singles rather than families.
Russia, too, is reporting an unprecedented drop in population. They lost 1M people during the year ending in Oct, 2021.
The subject of the below article is Russia's ability to wage war, but it doesn't take much imagination to see a parallel between waging a war and working in an economy - they both take dedicated, smart people. Older people are a mere hindrance in either activity unless they are running things. And that doesn't take very many people.
FWIW, Russia had a population of 125M during the last years of the Czar, around 1920. Their population today in 145M and in 2100 it is expected to be 70M+-. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/03...cline-ukraine/
There is actually an organization here in America whose purpose is to convince people to stop having children. Below is an article with an example of one of their billboards.
Quote:
Stop Having Kids spokeswoman Ashley Riddle says the group started informally in Portland a few months before March 2021 and identifies itself as a “collective liberation movement.” Its website makes the group’s platform clear: The organization is “antinatalist,” meaning it’s against all human reproduction.
Okay, let's take a look at the World Population Clock. So far this year we've had over 33 Million births, and over 14 Million deaths. We've increased by about 19 Million people in less than 3 months! In another 3+ months we'll have added a population the size of Ukraine (about 44 Million)!
We can fret about the distribution of people, but we continue to produce like Doritos ("we'll make more").
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