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The childless, aging future
- forkLding 8y agoInterested to see that the top ten shrinking countries on Earth are all in East Europe. Any Eastern Europeans here that can attest to the impact of this?
- mantas 8y agoOpen borders to Western Europe. Mass migration for the better wage. Basically selling our productive (both in term of jobs and kids) people for euromoneys. Impact is our older generation is fucked because they won't get reasonable pensions. Businesses are having hard time to find people for local wages. Hard to compete on price to western europe when it's right next door. Inflation is crazy to catch up with Western salaries and pricing. Yet we don't have manufacturing and R&D base to compete on all but price. It's slowly coming up (e.g. software is doing great), but prices/wages are raising quicker than that. Hopefully we'll squeeze through to have enough to compete on by the time we're no longer price competitive. TL;DR: fun times
- jotm 8y agoHaha, downvoted because no one in the West gives a flying fuck about people leaving developing countries and the impact on those economies. They do care about dem too many immigrants though. It's puzzling.
- mantas 8y agoWest cares about individuals, not about communities or nations or states. You see crying baby - you help. You see someone hardly making a living - you invite them and pay more. Who gives a fuck about how it affects the whole society.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- nadiasotnikova 8y agoI'm from Belarus. There's lots of propaganda around having more children. Our president regularly says that women should stop having careers and start making more children. Lots of people are leaving Belarus, but since we're not in EU and it's not as easy to leave, I don't think it's the main factor. Education levels are very high in Belarus. Check out these stats. https://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/belarus_statistics.html https://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/belarus_statistics.html Literacy rates are close to 100% and majority of women get higher education. Belarus has a very poor economy and low salaries (families can't afford to have more than 1 child). And finally, a lot of people are dying. Alcoholism issues are pretty big, a lot of men die young for example. Women would have to have looots of babies to offset the mortality rate. It's probably a combination of all of these factors and more.
- AdamM12 8y ago> Alcoholism issues are pretty big, a lot of men die young for example. Not surprising given this is happening also in the states in non college educated males.
- iguy 8y agoPerhaps of interest, an assessment of Hungary's attempts to reverse this: https://ifstudies.org/blog/is-hungary-experiencing-a-policy-induced-baby-boom https://ifstudies.org/blog/is-hungary-experiencing-a-policy-...
- Chyzwar 8y agoImpact Bad: - More conservative/populist governments - Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Russia. These governments usually increase spending to buy voters. - The retirement systems is a massive ticking bomb. Next economic crisis will bring some Greek moments again but in central Europe. - Less competitive, smaller cities have a hard time to retain young people. Cities with less than 100k people are slowly collapsing.
- madballneek 8y agoSomething something robots
- madballneek 8y agoYada yada artificial organs
- eric_b 8y agoThe gist of this seemed to be that we need to either allow unrestricted immigration, mainly from Africa, or up our robot game. So really, if the "robots are going to take all our jobs" people are correct, we should just stay the course? Since we'll need those robots soon?
- mantas 8y agoOr promote having kids. Just think if all of those money and propaganda for migrants was used for families with kids.
- marcelluspye 8y agoI don't know if you've read the news, but a lot of those migrants being made into ``propaganda" are families with kids.
- mantas 8y agoI was talking about promoting locals to have kids to fix their own societies. Instead of leeching off other countries.
- dghughes 8y agoI breezed over the article but I did see longevity mentioned. My parents are in their mid 70s and they are more active and independent than their parents were. Even my Dad sick with COPD is quite active. My Dad's father died at 52 his mother at 64, both were smokers. My mother's parents lived to age 96 for her dad and late 80s for her mother. Neither smoked both ate mainly vegetables, small portions, but were not vegetarian. I can recall my mother's parents being in a retirement home in their early 70s. But contrast that with my own parents the difference is quite dramatic. I can see it with my own generation (Gen X) many do not have kids, neither do I. And it seems Millenials the "childfree trend is a thing.
- patrickg_zill 8y agoGrowing up in Canada (now living in usa) every student was propagandized about how population growth was bad, etc. Now we are told how much immigration is indispensable i.e. more people are needed. Were we lied to?
- AFNobody 8y agoMore population is bad for ecological reasons. More population is vital for economic reasons. Its two competing philosophies. (i.e. Do the financially practical things for an individual/country vs. the wisest thing for the collective species)
- tzahola 8y agoDon’t rock the boat!
- civility 8y agoA lot of people go around predicting calamity... They’re usually wrong. Generally not liars, just evolved monkeys who are trying to avoid problems.
- xapata 8y agoCalamity prediction may be right in estimating odds, despite being wrong in outcome. Wearing a seatbelt is still wise, despite never having crashed a car. Do you buy insurance?
- LarryL 8y agoThe article is quite interesting, it sums up many numbers and projections I had read in several places. But there are 2 other interesting factors to an aging society that they did not mention: - what will the retirees (~60+ y/o) do with their time? Not a small issue, I'm not thinking about economical consequences but simply social consequences & people's well-being. For some people, their job means A LOT, and once they retire, they don't know what to do. My dad is an example: R&D engineer, worked a lot until he retired, nowadays he just roams around the house (a sad view). - what is going to be the impact of such a huge number of older people on the moral views & technical progress? As you know, many older people grow more & more conservative ("stuck in their ways") or even reactionary as they age. This creates a serious number of potential issues with social progress and probably technological as well. Older people are often "left behind" by new technologies & social changes. This was not a major problem when they were a small minority, but once they'll become a not so small minority, their voices will be heard much more. I wonder if this could not lead to some stagnation or at least a slowdown in some areas/subjects (things like gay marriage, acceptance of alternative sexualities, etc.), or -at worst- a throw-back in some areas (look how HARD sexual freedom -in the broadest sense- has been hit those last 10 to 15 years, will you expect conservative/reactionary people to hold liberal views on that?).
- Chyzwar 8y ago> - what will the retirees (~60+ y/o) do with their time? Not a small issue, I'm not thinking about economical consequences but simply social consequences & people's well-being. For some people, their job means A LOT, and once they retire, they don't know what to do. My dad is an example: R&D engineer, worked a lot until he retired, nowadays he just roams around the house (a sad view). Retirement age will move up. At some point, the retirement age in Poland for man was 67 years. (recently reverted). People in retirements will gradually become more active (better health, more opportunities). > - what is going to be the impact of such a huge number of older people on the moral views & technical progress? As you know, many older people grow more & more conservative ("stuck in their ways") or even reactionary as they age. This creates a serious number of potential issues with social progress and probably technological as well. You have Brexit and Trump as examples where older voter population bring "interesting" results. There will be positive effects as well. People have fewer children and would focus more on upbringing and education. Less competition for jobs would also help to balance technology displacing whole sectors. > -at worst- a throw-back in some areas (look how HARD sexual freedom -in the broadest sense- has been hit those last 10 to 15 years, will you expect conservative/reactionary people to hold liberal views on that?). It would work another way as well. Our generation (younger) will take sexuality and democratic freedoms as granted and as we age our conservative baseline would be more liberal than our parents.
- Simon_says 8y agoI've sometimes thought that it might be nice in an abstract sense to have kids. I'm sure there are some nice moments. But in practice whenever I see my friends with kids, they look so beleaguered and complain about never having time. I just think: Who needs it? I think typical people have a real blind spot to the incredible personal costs to having kids. Something about it makes them forget about or discount the bad times and keeps them from dispassionately weighing the pros and cons of having kids. Many (for whatever reason) will simply not realize there is a choice at all. Having kids is such a hassle, that to me it's no wonder that people are opting out once effective birth control came onto the scene. Edit: @codersbrew (to whom I can't reply because your comment is dead) I don't understand why you think my opinions are short-sighted; I actually think they're the opposite. Also, people without kids have to be able to form opinions about having kids, otherwise how could anyone make an informed choice about it? And if it's an actual, real, choice, people can make either decision. I'm not sure if my opinion is correct either, but it's all I got.
- wetpaws 8y agoI want to have kids, but human females are so unreliable and dangerous that using them for procreation is a borderline suicide. I will wait untill synthetic womb or widespread surrogacy would be a thing.
- codersbrew 8y agoThis seems short sighted, and without you having a kid not sure your opinion is correct.
- kelnos 8y agoFrom what I can tell, people's desire to have kids is like how many react to religion: it's beaten into our brains from a very young age that it's the right thing to do, the only true path through adulthood and life, "real men" sire children and "real women" bear them. Pressure throughout adult life continues to reinforce it: parents wanting grandchildren (and using guilt in order to persuade), parent friends wanting you to "join their club", others playing the fear card and asking who will take care of you when you're old. Until recently, it's been taboo to talk about reproductive desires (or the lack thereof), the very real (often permanent) toll pregnancy takes on women, and the personal, career, and financial sacrifices parents must make to raise children responsibly. (And there's still a persistent stigma around discussing the negatives of child-rearing.) Many parents will even get aggressively defensive if you express a desire not to have your own kids, as if your decision has some negative effect on them. That kind of conditioning is hard to shake off, and many people don't even seriously realize (outside of the abstract) that not having a kid is even an option.
- fallingfrog 8y agoIt's probably for the best, for now at least. At these very gradual population decline rates we don't have to worry about humans going extinct for a long time, and in the meantime we'll take pressure off a lot of critically overexploited resources.
- MisterOctober 8y agothis topic always reminds me of David Benatar's "Better Never To Have Been," wherein he lays out a moral and practical case for general cessation of human reproduction. [Famously condensed by Matthew McConaughey in a 'True Detective' monologue.]
- AdamM12 8y agoThe only reason this is an issue is because of how governments setup the social security system. Each generation should have to pay for their own retirement not the next. Manufactured issue imo.
- awinder 8y agoI agree with the manufactured bit, but given that generations are fluid, and alternative policies exist for realigning bad tax policy (inheritance tax), i fail to see any kind of grand problem. SS in the US will run up to a 10 trillion dollar deficit in a country with, currently, 240 trillion in assets? And a military that spends half a trillion a year without that total being a problem? Yeah, I call BS.
- AdamM12 8y agoI also have an issue with our military spending but this post is in the context of SS so that is what I was discussing. Unreasonable expectation to have to list all the different issues with the govs spending. At some point the gov needs to get its spending together because it will just lead to massive austerity on its citizens.
- epx 8y agoSociety made incredibly risky to have kids, or even marry. You are culprit of an infinite number of crimes unless you prove yourself innocent all the time. What could go wrong?
- mac01021 8y ago> You are culprit of an infinite number of crimes unless you prove yourself innocent all the time. I don't understand. What crimes are these？
- epx 8y agoDomestic abuse, misogyny, intellectual abandonment (in case you don't spend your last penny giving your kids the absolute best trips and toys), there is a whole industry dedicated to make you feel belittled and a failure, especially if you are a man (but there is a lot in this store for women, too). The pressure comes from the least expected places - your own parents, for example.