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.
China was expected to lose population, so it was not a surprise they did. The ripple effect of their two child policy from the previous generation is having resounding repercussions through their society. Americans and other western countries are not having children due to a variety of reasons. From watching lots of adult entertainment, using more contraceptives, and the rising cost of child care, American's view starting a family as more of a burden than as a natural progression. Some sociologists thought there might be a baby boom during the pandemic, but the opposite happened.
Looking at populations, it's clear Africa is the future in terms of "growth". However, in the US, the never ending economic chase for growth and bigger GDPs needs to end, because it doesn't actually equate to a better quality of life. America needs to stop building endless culture-less sub-developments, and rebuild the thousands of small towns and places that already exist.
I was looking at the 'Worldometers' website, and the population growth so far this year, as of me writing this, is 32.2M. Extrapolated out for the rest of the year, that's an annual population growth of about 66.6M, a level not seen since the 60s.
Over the last 5 years, annual global population growth has averaged 82-83M. So population growth this year will be 15-16M people less than 'usual.'
Is Covid far worse than we realize? Is the Covid economic crisis causing higher death rates? Are people simply having less children due to the uncertainty?
I dont think Covid has anything to do with it. The birth rate has been dropping for some time for various reasons. Still there are more than twice the number of births than deaths.
China was expected to lose population, so it was not a surprise they did. The ripple effect of their two child policy from the previous generation is having resounding repercussions through their society. Americans and other western countries are not having children due to a variety of reasons. From watching lots of adult entertainment, using more contraceptives, and the rising cost of child care, American's view starting a family as more of a burden than as a natural progression. Some sociologists thought there might be a baby boom during the pandemic, but the opposite happened.
Looking at populations, it's clear Africa is the future in terms of "growth". However, in the US, the never ending economic chase for growth and bigger GDPs needs to end, because it doesn't actually equate to a better quality of life. America needs to stop building endless culture-less sub-developments, and rebuild the thousands of small towns and places that already exist.
Don't underestimate the impact of women delaying marriage and childbirth for career or stability reasons. When you push back the accepted family start date from 18 to 28 that lops off the decade of highest fertility. I was surprised by how many of my friends ended up needing fertility treatments to have kids even at thirty.
I'm not sure major population growth in Africa is a good thing given the existing political & financial problems, famines, and health crisis they already face.
Long term automation and computerization means we'll need fewer people to perform the same amount of work . We're also seeing people live and work productively to higher ages. So I cannot see where these additional people find a livelihood. In that sense I understand the folks referring to Hunger Games in the future.
Relationship dynamics in western nations are not optimized for child rearing... it's low income types who are pumping out most of the kids now.
You need both partners working, and people are all social media addicts always craving their next hit of dopamine, so they are less likely to want to stick around in a LTR once the "fun" wears off and they get "bored" ... so they branch swing... the nuclear family is gradually on the decline...
In any case hopefully robotics will take care of this problem eventually because we can't just keep breeding at really high rates just to pay for the social programs of all the aging people, which were generally put into place during times we had a high rate of population growth and are largely pyramid schemes, which means it takes a lot of young worker bees to pay for the elderly, and increasingly, the people who sit around and do nothing.
An era of high inflation and shortages of everything is coming (is here but will worsen) as less people work, and there is a smaller pool of workers in general, at least until they get the robots to compensate for this. It doesn't help when there are job openings and states say you don't need to look for a job, we'll keep paying you to sit around... that is gradually ending. On the other hand, employers need to pay more if they ever expect to find anyone... it's an adjustment for sure... people are tired of slaving away for peanuts compared to the boomer generation. What's $15/hour going to get anyone when houses are $250,000+?
Good post but I disagree with the bolded. Employers won't have to raise wages they will have to outsource, and where that's not possible, import workers from the third world, often "undocumented" so no American labor laws will apply. Americans will all have to work the gig economy for an unsteady supply of peanuts, and more progressive states are already trying to do away with the gig economy in the name of "worker protections". Or we can all start or own businesses and discover how big corporations have rigged the game in their favor. We will all know the joys of working 16+ hour days 7 days a week just to not quite break even while people wonder why nobody but the welfare class is having children anymore, and **** and moan when we don't want to employ low level workers for a "living wage" that we are not even making ourselves. I'm not sure how it will pan out if 200 million people all try to start their own businesses at the same time though. And we can't just learn to code because the H1B's have that market cornered.
I think maybe before too long we are going to need the 2nd amendment more than ever, and the elites know it which is why they are trying to repeal or neuter it.
I dont think Covid has anything to do with it. The birth rate has been dropping for some time for various reasons. Still there are more than twice the number of births than deaths.
Yeah the birth rate has been gradually declining, but this substantial of a drop in the population growth numbers in just one year is highly unusual.
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.
