25 ms·

‘Remarkable’ global decline in the number of children women are having

181 points by maxwell 8y ago

amelius 8y ago
Fertility means "ability to have offspring", but the article says that the declining number of childbirths is mostly because of choice. I think we need a better word then.
- fredley 8y ago
  Title should read fertility rate.
  - maxwell 8y ago
    Updated, thanks.
- littleweep 8y ago
  "Remarkable decline in conception of new human life since 1950"
  - lukevdp 8y ago
    That wouldn’t work either as the population has increased dramatically since 1950.
- ashelmire 8y ago
  Birth rate. I don't know why this article is using fertility here.
  - buboard 8y ago
    i think the word "rate" makes it clear they are not talking about just "fertility".
  - compiler-guy 8y ago
    "Fertility rate" and "birth rate" are related, but used to mean different things. Observe that the first thing wikipedia says in the entries for both topics is, "Not to be confused with" the other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_rate
  - abtinf 8y ago
    My thought was that maybe this was a difference between British English and American English, so I looked up the word "fertility" in the Cambridge Dictionary. It turns out that while the dialects share roughly the same first definition ("(of animals and plants) the quality of being able to produce young or fruit:"), British English has a second definition: "(of land) the quality of producing a large number of good quality crops". In that sense, I can see why they used the word. They sort of invented a new definition, "the quality of producing a large number of good quality humans." https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/fertility https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/ferti...
- cheeseomlit 8y ago
  But haven't sperm levels in men dropped drastically since then as well?
  - jandrese 8y ago
    Citation needed. As far as I know that is a wingnut paranoia point and not supported by the data. Edit: Looks like I've been missing the story on this one. Interesting that the articles all talk about obesity, unknown chemicals, brief style underwear, and whatnot as a possible cause without stopping to consider that maybe societal attitudes towards masturbation may play a role.
    - wild_preference 8y ago
      > Interesting that the articles all talk about obesity, unknown chemicals, brief style underwear, and whatnot as a possible cause without stopping to consider that maybe societal attitudes towards masturbation may play a role. First you deny that it exists at all, calling it wingnut paranoia. When proven wrong, you suddenly suggest that it's so self-evident that you cannot fathom why nobody has considered societal views on masturbation as a culprit. And then you decide it's so obvious that no explanation is needed, leaving the connection as an exercise for the reader.
    - cheeseomlit 8y ago
      https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropping-in-western-world/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropp...
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      Uh, no. https://www.npr.org/2017/07/31/539517210/sperm-counts-plummet-in-western-men-study-finds https://www.npr.org/2017/07/31/539517210/sperm-counts-plumme...
    - no1youknowz 8y ago
      Here's one after a 10 second google for "sperm rates in men" https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/9/17/17841518/low-sperm-count-semen-male-fertility https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/9/17/17841518/lo... The takeaway: https://i.imgur.com/RhrrNI2.png https://i.imgur.com/RhrrNI2.png
- dang 8y ago
  Ok, we changed the title to the subtitle.
abledon 8y ago
7.6B humans, what we need is an infertility bomb.
- izzydata 8y ago
  Yup. That was the whole plot of the book Inferno.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  If you’re planning to forego reproduction, I offer you my wholehearted thanks for making life easier for my descendants.
  - abledon 8y ago
    reproduction is fine, its just when families are having 5-6 children still, or when a human can only give love to a child if it is 'their' blood. Also in 1970 World pop was 3.6B, a much more sustainable number if everyones going to live a modern lifestyle with high consumption needs.
Mikeb85 8y ago
Well the 1950's were the post-WWII baby boom, as well as coinciding with the start of the green revolution. Not surprising that birth rates are going to fall off now, given how over-populated the Earth is.
- pitaj 8y ago
  Overpopulation is a myth Edit: People are asking for proof of this. Unfortunately, I can't prove a negative. It's impossible. I will say this, though: There is a long history of people claiming that overpopulation will happen, resulting in mass starvation and shortages across the globe. It never happened. If you predict overpopulation will happen, then name a number. Whether it be global population or the a year in the future, make an estimate. We'll see if you fair better than those in the past.
  - nickelcitymario 8y ago
    Got anything to back that up?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - xfitm3 8y ago
    Source? Concern about overpopulation is an ancient topic. Particularly in China, where they introduced the one-child policy in 1979 which, according to the Chinese government, prevented an additional population growth of about 400 million until it was phased out in 2015.
  - tombert 8y ago
    What does that even mean? If nothing else, the more people we have, the more pollution we could be creating, which can affect climate change.
    - millstone 8y ago
      And the more people we have, the larger the world economy, the greater the ability to undertake projects to mitigate climate change, alleviate suffering, etc. Think about it like so: US carbon emissions are ~19 tons per person per year. Carbon offsets range wildly in price with $40 per ton a very conservative (high) estimate. So an American's carbon emissions "costs" < $1k a year. Even if this is off by a factor of 5, it is still small compared to an individual's productive capacity and earning potential. If the US were to prioritize fighting climate change, then a larger and more powerful US economy would be a very good thing. Obviously that goes for other developed countries as well.
onetimemanytime 8y ago
Maybe it's be but I started to think that post WWII inventions have causes a drop in sperm count or something...and than read that people want to have less kids.
- buboard 8y ago
  Now, sperm counts are indeed falling dramatically, but this isn't about that. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-sperm/sperm-count-falling-sharply-in-developed-world-researchers-say-idUSKBN1AA28K https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-sperm/sperm-count-...
matchagaucho 8y ago
I'm surprised the article doesn't mention longer life span for Women since 1950. Strong correlation.
chiefalchemist 8y ago
Not to get too off topic, but higher birth rates equal more economic growth, or at least the potential for it. That is, what's currently being passed off as an immigration issue - in the USA, and Europe (e.g., Germany) - is ultimately an economic growth issue. With "native" births flat (or less), growth has to come from somewhere. The quick and simple solution is immigration. But, obviously, that's coming with baggage, at least for the proles. The economic elites continue to cash in. Put another way, no one wants to be the next Japan. Capable but ultimately stagnant. Note: Yes, I'm generalizing but the bottom line is, immigration in many countries is often a proxy for economic growth.
- adverbly 8y ago
  What is wrong with people in Japan? I understand that the entity of the country is of lower standing relative to other countries due to population stagnation, but for the individual, who cares about your country's global standing if your country's members are better off on average?
  - soared 8y ago
    Op is talking about growth, not current standing. Japan looks good now, but that will change in the future without growth.
  - criveros 8y ago
    They are not better off. Have you worked or even been there? Their culture is horrible? People are literally worked to death and sexism and xenophobia is rampant. The summers suck as it's too damn hot, to the point it sucks going out.
  - screye 8y ago
    > What is wrong with people in Japan? The OP is referring to their declining birth rates, paired with general xenophobia and anti immigrant sentiment. As the average population gets older, they are faced with a smaller and smaller tax paying population and an increasing tax dependent population. This will eventually lead to the death of retirement funds and an aging country that can't afford to have retirees. Higher average age also makes old people the main voting bloc and forces the country to prioritize funding towards younger populations needs, as they have increasing lower representation. The country's general productivity will also drop as even if older people come out of retirement, they can't match the efficiency and vigor of a young work force. It is an all out impending disaster.
vezycash 8y ago
Child Protection Laws: Societal criminalization of sex with people less than 18 or 17 of old has definitely reduced birth rates. 8 year olds used to find gainful employment. By 15 or 16, these "children" were relatively self sufficient. Now, such jobs are called child labor. Compulsory mass schooling has also pushed the average child bearing age to 30s. Health: Slashing infantile mortality rates has also stopped people from hedging with 5 or more children. I don't how people perceived contraceptives in the past. However, the lowly condom has prevented lots of pregnancy. Financial: Cost of raising a child has sky rocketed. Child birth cost is just crazy. Cost of schooling / rearing - live time cost of a child is something people now seriously debated before giving birth. And having to change houses, and cars to accommodate the growing family is also a thing. In undeveloped countries with poor health care, low education, child care... high birth rates is still common. Japan 2d partners: What's up with that country? Seems like they just became uninterested in actually having sex with actual human beings. If having sex with animals is bestiality; having sex with dead people is necrophilia; what is sex with 2d anime girls?
- conductr 8y ago
  Also brunch and day drinking are too fun to give up. To be serious, I’m a recent parent pushing 40 and I just didn’t want the responsibility. It’s just me not wanting to grow up.
- 706f6f70 8y ago
  Also important: children became liabilities instead of being assets. Nearly all labour which a child could contribute to has been automated or reduced. In countries where children can be trusted with the responsibility of doing something economically useful, birth rates continue to be high.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  > Cost of raising a child has sky rocketed. No, the cost hasn’t risen much. People are just buying a standard of living for their children that didn’t exist for any human alive 150 years ago. It’s an important difference.
  - 8y ago
RickJWagner 8y ago
This brings hope for planet Earth. Fewer people means fewer pollutants. (Maybe the single biggest factor.) There will be other ramifications (like economic change), but for the planet it's got to be a positive.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  It’s temporary. The humans of the future will be the descendants of the people having lots of kids right now. You should basically never extrapolate out any trends that are driven by people with below replacement fertility rates.
  - jpatokal 8y ago
    No, it's not temporary. The trend is global and will see the world's fertility go below replacement level soon enough. Of course there are various hotspots, but they'll be smoothed out eventually by emigration or less pleasant means (famine, war, disease).
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      The three necessary and sufficient ingredients for evolution are: 1) Inheritance, 2) Variation, and 3) Selection. Let’s consider fertility using this lens: 1) Fertility rate is heritable, 2) Fertility rates vary from person to person, and 3) People with higher fertility have higher reproductive success (it’s almost a tautology). I’ll let you work out the implications.
      - htns 8y ago
        That struggles to explain how fertility rates have ever dropped. For higher fertility you would need stronger biologic instincts, the present lack of which suggests they would conflict with something else important for viability, a high "materialist profit" from having having children, which the man's child protection services will catch on to if your group grows big enough, or a "sense of duty", which again seems increasingly hard to maintain as the group grows for an array of reasons.
iotb 8y ago
You make things wildly unaffordable. You make the most basic need of a human being (a roof over their head a ponzi scheme speculative investment) You destroy the middle class. You plunge everyone into debt with over- financialization. You play divisive social games to cement power structures finalizing in men vs. women politics. You destroy the family unit. You undermine men. You push male guilt. You push social trends for women to party through their most fertile years You convince women that long term monogamous relationships are prison... You turn everyone on to Tinder and glorify transient lifestyles... All because such lifestyles make various corporations richer via higher consumption.. society be damned. Optimal profit at the expense of broader society... Up until broader societal conditions drag down corporations that made it so. The cause and effect are obvious to anyone w/ two brain cells. And just to show its all for the almighty dollar, millions of dollars are pumped into studies/research of this phenomenon only to avoid the elephants in the room. We call this modern society where we pretend to not know why things are the way they are. Society optimizes for certain things like profit above all else and there are a slew of negative outcomes or things that are harmed as a result. Why would someone have a kid in the current environment? This process is pushed out to someone who either is quite wealthy and has no impact or is quite poor and is uncaring of the impact. The middle is hallowed out. It's why from anywhere from the first world EU to the US there is a big push for immigration. That too is steeped in economic factors and has little to do w/ a genuine interest in helping people. Instead of fixing core societal problems, the powers that be deem it easier to just pave over the domestic populous with new-comers who would willingly tolerate such conditions and birth new workers into the fold. The middle core of the population deems it ridiculous to have kids. The number crunchers see this as an impact to their precious economic models... and thus comes the political push to import people from places in the world who have kids in far more impoverished conditions and see 1st world countries as a step up. Not sure how this comment will go here but that's just the plain reality. A reality people like to play pretend they don't know exists. A reality people make hordes of money to ignore and further. Humanity will pay a hefty price in the years to come for these stupid games we play. Historically, various reckonings have occurred when civilizations and empires play these stupid games. Then the cycle resets and is born again only to arrive at the same juncture when people stray far enough from sound principals.
- 8y ago
buboard 8y ago
The survey they reference (Global Burden of Disease 17) is a lot more alarming: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32858-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... > GBD 2017 is disturbing. Not only do the amalgamated global figures show a worrying slowdown in progress but the more granular data unearths exactly how patchy progress has been. GBD 2017 is a reminder that, without vigilance and constant effort, progress can easily be reversed. But the GBD is also an encouragement to think differently in this time of crisis. By cataloguing inequalities in health-care delivery and patterns of disease geography, this iteration of the GBD presents an opportunity to move away from the generic application of UHC and towards a more tailored precision approach to UHC. GBD 2017 should be an electric shock, galvanising national governments and international agencies not only to redouble their efforts to avoid the imminent loss of hard-won gains but also to adopt a fresh approach to growing threats.
dqpb 8y ago
> The fall in fertility rate is not down to sperm counts or any of the things that normally come to mind when thinking of fertility. Instead it is being put down to three key factors: - Fewer deaths in childhood meaning women have fewer babies - Greater access to contraception - More women in education and work In many ways, falling fertility rates are a success story.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  It's funny how both the "left" and the "right" love higher birth rates (they sell it as noble worries but it's usually for furthering their cause) when it doesn't make sense anymore in modern societies. There are too many people on the planet already, and most of them don't have a good quality of life. And more importantly, there isn't a way of significantly improving it (with today's technology and social/ethics understanding)
  - heelhook 8y ago
    > most of them don't have a good quality of life What does that even mean? Are you implying most of “them” (whatever that might be) are lives not worth living thus “we” should put them out of their misery? > And more importantly, there isn't a way of significantly improving it (with today's technology and social/ethics understanding) Sources? Read Factfulness; you’ll be surprised at just how far of reality your view is!
  - chronid 8y ago
    > There are too many people on the planet already I feel the reaction many people have about population decline in NA and EU is understandable (one may or may not share the concern though, that's personal): your tribe is making less children, the others do no seem to care. And they will replace your tribe in the future if you don't make children, it's a game of numbers in the end. NA and EU count very little in the great scheme of things from a population perspective [1] anyway - there are 5+ billion people in Asia and Africa (many in places that will be devastated by global warming), and those people aren't going to stop making babies any time soon. Are we going to force them to stop? How? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File:Population_Growth_by_World_Bank_continental_division.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File:P...
buboard 8y ago
western countries have 2 ways forward: a) invest in artificial wombs and b) invest massively on longevity research
- jessaustin 8y ago
  Longevity makes all of these problems worse. It has other benefits, of course, but it isn't a solution in this case.
  - buboard 8y ago
    increase of the healthspan is a way to avert the collapse of social-security etc.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      Is "healthspan" an attempt to move the goalpost from "longevity"? I'll allow it, if you can give me any reason to suspect that these additional old folks will be contributing to entitlement programs rather than depending on them. I meet lots of people in their seventies. There are more of them every day. The majority would be in serious trouble if social security were taken away from them. (If the racists have their way with respect to immigration, change that to will be, when.)
- mjevans 8y ago
  I don't want a "Brave New World" future... but it really does seem like we're hurtling towards that book + 1984 at this rate. Can we please have a full-tilt space race to get an out of solar system backup.
  - buboard 8y ago
    then you would need the wombs even more
- black-tea 8y ago
  Since the invention of farming, through to the invention of the washing machine men have been gradually making women more and more redundant. With artificial wombs and realistic VR sex it would be complete. This is a difficult thing to think about and I know I risk my account here just by posting this, but I like to constantly challenge myself.
yogthos 8y ago
I'm really struggling how this is a bad thing to be honest. The planet is already overpopulated, and each new person introduces a huge carbon footprint.
- eeZah7Ux 8y ago
  Spot on. The alarmist article used the following words: "fall, world is facing... , insufficient, affected, impacted". The implication are clear: anything other than GROWTH is taboo.
- tempestn 8y ago
  It could be a bad thing in the medium term if the number of older people requiring care overwhelms the ability of societies to provide (given fewer working age people contributing). In the longer term, yes, sustainable population certainly seems like a good thing. (Although one could make a utilitarian argument that as long as it _is_ sustainable, and assuming people's lives are generally good, you want as many people as possible.)
- megaman8 8y ago
  i completely agree. we could use a lot fewer people on this planet.
- sien 8y ago
  It may very well break the welfare state. Most rich countries pension systems depend on sufficient workers to pay for pensioners. How many rich countries are running a surplus this year in a non-recession year. In 20 or 30 years with far fewer income earners per pensioner how will it look.
  - jnurmine 8y ago
    Exactly. Pension systems where generation i+1 pays for generation i are fundamentally broken. If the population size sinks, generation i+1 will pay more. If paying more and thus having less disposable income makes them defer having babies, you have your bad feedback loop right there. A better and stable system is where generation i pays for generation i.
phendrenad2 8y ago
Remarkable. I never wanted to have kids, because the economics don't make sense. But at this point the government may have to pay people to have kids, just to keep the wheels of capitalism turning.
- tempestn 8y ago
  That and allow more immigration, as the article says. If one consequence of this is greater openness to immigrants, that's probably a positive for the world.
maxwell 8y ago
I'm not sure why the HN admins now have such a propensity for changing informative article titles that contain actual numbers into vague click-bait original titles. I've been here for over ten years, and only noticed it happening over the past few months. The title I submitted contains information: "Human fertility rates have fallen nearly 50% since 1950". The weak original title ("'Remarkable' decline in fertility rates") contains no information.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- stochastic_monk 8y ago
  I agree with your arguments. I’m not sure on enforcement, but it does state that one should post the original title in the guidelines. This may be worth a larger discussion elsewhere.
  - maxwell 8y ago
    "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- user5994461 8y ago
  Your title contains no information, unless one knows the rate in 1950. By some metrics, it's more clickbait than the original title.
  - baud147258 8y ago
    > Your title contains no information The original title told how the rate has changed since 1950 (minus 50%), which is a piece of information.
  - shakestheclown 8y ago
    By which metrics?
DoreenMichele 8y ago
I think this is mostly scary because as we live longer, we see more health issues and more need to be taken care of, etc, plus we have an expectation of retiring at some point. If the human norm was to be fit as a fiddle until age 85 and then suddenly drop dead for some reason, then an aging population isn't anything to worry about. This worries people because it means people need to keep working even as their health and energy levels are expected to decline, it's problematic for a shrinking workforce to service the obligation of Social Security and similar programs, etc. If we don't successfully plan for the consequences, those consequences are more likely to turn into drama, such as government bankruptcy or suddenly de-funding (or reducing funding for) certain programs for people ill-equipped to adapt (because they are old and their health is failing), etc.
cagenut 8y ago
This is old (2017) but still fantastic news w/r/t global warming. In a simplified model of: (Population x Consumption x Efficiency) / Resources We can either all consume far less, or there can be less of us. I would rather have half as many people living a 2x more efficient and 4x more luxiourous lifestyle in 2100 than twice as many people fighting for water and arable land.
- turc1656 8y ago
  Agreed. I've always wondered why everyone freaks out at information like that contained in the article. Controlled, natural decline in my mind is good because there is simply too many people on the planet. The options for addressing that can be lumped into either 1) having society formally or informally agree to depopulate through choices, culture, law, etc. or 2) killing people. No sane person wants #2. So if there is a natural/cultural shift that is moving toward depopulation that's a huge win because the other options are doing something similar to China's previous one child policy or some other method of forcing or providing incentives to have fewer children. As long as society is aware of the trend we can plan accordingly. Demographically, we'll be looking more like Japan, but I don't necessarily see the intrinsic harm in that. The planet has a fixed mass and fixed resources. We can't keep playing this game of "infinite growth forever!" in every aspect of the economy. As the saying goes, "that which cannot continue, will not continue."
  - shoo 8y ago
    i think there is a bit of fear of how to stably operate a society that has negative population growth, and/or negative economic growth (not that both of those things are necessarily coupled). we've had a bit of practise over the past handful of decades since the industrial revolution of trying to figure out how to have a roughly stable society under conditions of economic and population growth, perhaps a lot of those rules of thumb need to be thrown-out and rethought
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- vitaflo 8y ago
rmykhajliw 8y ago
As always winning factors play key roles: contraception (especially condoms/pills) and education. Contraception protects women from unwanted pregnancies and education forces them to choose career instead of staying at home with children. You can't get both high fertility rate and high education level.
- analog31 8y ago
  This is one of the reasons why educating girls and women is one of the most potent weapons against poverty.
yters 8y ago
If we have too many people then we may have wars and famine. If we have too few people the human race could go extinct. Both are bad, but the second seems worse.
- shoo 8y ago
  this isn't a particularly clear way to frame things -- there is likely some middle ground between "too many" and "too few" that is better than both of those extremes. i suspect human population could decline by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude without getting into "too few" territory, provided it was declining towards a steady state, not crashing uncontrollably
  - yters 8y ago
    One can hope.
austincheney 8y ago
A dramatic fertility decline was predicted some time ago. The prediction stated the around the late 20th century population would balloon to record levels but it’s rate of growth would dramatically slow until reaching a near steady state of about 9.2 billion about 2055.
Animats 8y ago
Where we're headed is pretty clear. Two big trends will drive this century - declining birth rates and rising temperatures. The world hit "peak baby" this year. The number of babies born per year worldwide is now declining. The US hit peak baby in 2016. Japan hit peak baby in 1981. Japan, outside of Tokyo and Osaka, is emptying out. On the rising temperature front, some areas of the world are becoming uninhabitable. Some of those areas near the equator have a lot of people in them.
- naasking 8y ago
  It's almost ironic that progressives may one day become a minority while conservatives will become a majority again, purely because traditional gender roles ensure the continuation of those values to future generations. We're not yet at the point where we can beat nature on this matter.
  - mercutio2 8y ago
    This intergenerational memetic strategy only works if your offspring adopt your values.
    - naasking 8y ago
      It should be clear that a non-zero percentage will do so, and those that do not will fall victim to the same diminishing population, therefore the trend holds.
      - mercutio2 8y ago
        A non-zero percentage, sure. But greater than 50%? That doesn’t seem obvious at all.
        naasking 8y ago
        Conservatives in the west have 60% more children than liberals. Conservativism is also linked to specific brain structures [1]. These are arguably somewhat heritable, but of course also shaped by environment. Most children of conservatives are conservative until they reach college, where the strong liberal bias in academia changes some of their minds [2]. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-between-conservatives-and-liberals-2018-2#being-scared-can-make-you-more-conservative-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-be... [2] This bias is well known by the way, this is not a conservative talking point. See Jonathan Haidt's talks on this point, and why this bias is bad for society.
OpenBSD-reich 8y ago
This is not good. Africa is going to explode by a billion this century while Native Europeans worldwide continue to decline, having been since the '80s.
- sfohohoho 8y ago
  Less Europeans could be a good thing
black-tea 8y ago
This is the end of civilisation. It's happened before and it's happening again. It's not necessarily a bad thing. We are living far beyond our means.
jplayer01 8y ago
I'd say this is why automation will grow in importance in the medium term, but it'll require a complete rework of Western economic principles (and companies will have to pay far far more in taxes than they ever have in history).
alismayilov 8y ago
I've just watched a documentary about the "Sex Robots". I wondering how this will also influence marriages, in general relationships. In the long term, if few people will have relationships, there will be also a few people who have children. I think we will see the effect of the "Sex Robots" after 5-10 years. What do you think?
- mercutio2 8y ago
  A lot of people want to have lots of sex at times in their lives when they don’t want to have kids. I don’t think the desire for companionship and parenthood goes away if you replace one form of sex-with-yourself with some other form of sex-with-yourself. I will admit that later in life childbearing has an effect on total fertility, but I think that ship sailed with effective birth control.
- spiralx 8y ago
  You might find this interesting, and it has possibly my favourite title ever :) https://jacobitemag.com/2018/04/24/uncanny-vulvas/ https://jacobitemag.com/2018/04/24/uncanny-vulvas/
jnun 8y ago
Another way to read this headline is “Unwanted Pregnancies Plummet Thanks to Science.” We have plenty of babies! The 3rd world is pumping them out like an assembly line. If you want more taxpayers, just import those people who want to move into your nation and give them citizenship. Perfect storm for economic development by the numbers: * Higher birth rate * Overpopulation * War Nothing improves employment stats like a draft! This is why people who govern based on economic metrics like this are dangerous fools and should be booted from any office with authority.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

181 points by maxwell 8y ago

Fertility means "ability to have offspring", but the article says that the declining number of childbirths is mostly because of choice. I think we need a better word then.

fredley 8y ago
Title should read fertility rate.
- maxwell 8y ago
  Updated, thanks.
littleweep 8y ago
"Remarkable decline in conception of new human life since 1950"
- lukevdp 8y ago
  That wouldn’t work either as the population has increased dramatically since 1950.
ashelmire 8y ago
Birth rate. I don't know why this article is using fertility here.
- buboard 8y ago
  i think the word "rate" makes it clear they are not talking about just "fertility".
- compiler-guy 8y ago
  "Fertility rate" and "birth rate" are related, but used to mean different things. Observe that the first thing wikipedia says in the entries for both topics is, "Not to be confused with" the other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_rate
- abtinf 8y ago
  My thought was that maybe this was a difference between British English and American English, so I looked up the word "fertility" in the Cambridge Dictionary. It turns out that while the dialects share roughly the same first definition ("(of animals and plants) the quality of being able to produce young or fruit:"), British English has a second definition: "(of land) the quality of producing a large number of good quality crops". In that sense, I can see why they used the word. They sort of invented a new definition, "the quality of producing a large number of good quality humans." https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/fertility https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/ferti...
cheeseomlit 8y ago
But haven't sperm levels in men dropped drastically since then as well?
- jandrese 8y ago
  Citation needed. As far as I know that is a wingnut paranoia point and not supported by the data. Edit: Looks like I've been missing the story on this one. Interesting that the articles all talk about obesity, unknown chemicals, brief style underwear, and whatnot as a possible cause without stopping to consider that maybe societal attitudes towards masturbation may play a role.
  - wild_preference 8y ago
    > Interesting that the articles all talk about obesity, unknown chemicals, brief style underwear, and whatnot as a possible cause without stopping to consider that maybe societal attitudes towards masturbation may play a role. First you deny that it exists at all, calling it wingnut paranoia. When proven wrong, you suddenly suggest that it's so self-evident that you cannot fathom why nobody has considered societal views on masturbation as a culprit. And then you decide it's so obvious that no explanation is needed, leaving the connection as an exercise for the reader.
  - cheeseomlit 8y ago
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropping-in-western-world/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sperm-count-dropp...
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    Uh, no. https://www.npr.org/2017/07/31/539517210/sperm-counts-plummet-in-western-men-study-finds https://www.npr.org/2017/07/31/539517210/sperm-counts-plumme...
  - no1youknowz 8y ago
    Here's one after a 10 second google for "sperm rates in men" https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/9/17/17841518/low-sperm-count-semen-male-fertility https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/9/17/17841518/lo... The takeaway: https://i.imgur.com/RhrrNI2.png https://i.imgur.com/RhrrNI2.png
dang 8y ago
Ok, we changed the title to the subtitle.

abledon 8y ago

7.6B humans, what we need is an infertility bomb.

izzydata 8y ago
Yup. That was the whole plot of the book Inferno.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
toasterlovin 8y ago
If you’re planning to forego reproduction, I offer you my wholehearted thanks for making life easier for my descendants.
- abledon 8y ago
  reproduction is fine, its just when families are having 5-6 children still, or when a human can only give love to a child if it is 'their' blood. Also in 1970 World pop was 3.6B, a much more sustainable number if everyones going to live a modern lifestyle with high consumption needs.

Mikeb85 8y ago

Well the 1950's were the post-WWII baby boom, as well as coinciding with the start of the green revolution. Not surprising that birth rates are going to fall off now, given how over-populated the Earth is.

pitaj 8y ago
Overpopulation is a myth Edit: People are asking for proof of this. Unfortunately, I can't prove a negative. It's impossible. I will say this, though: There is a long history of people claiming that overpopulation will happen, resulting in mass starvation and shortages across the globe. It never happened. If you predict overpopulation will happen, then name a number. Whether it be global population or the a year in the future, make an estimate. We'll see if you fair better than those in the past.
- nickelcitymario 8y ago
  Got anything to back that up?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- xfitm3 8y ago
  Source? Concern about overpopulation is an ancient topic. Particularly in China, where they introduced the one-child policy in 1979 which, according to the Chinese government, prevented an additional population growth of about 400 million until it was phased out in 2015.
- tombert 8y ago
  What does that even mean? If nothing else, the more people we have, the more pollution we could be creating, which can affect climate change.
  - millstone 8y ago
    And the more people we have, the larger the world economy, the greater the ability to undertake projects to mitigate climate change, alleviate suffering, etc. Think about it like so: US carbon emissions are ~19 tons per person per year. Carbon offsets range wildly in price with $40 per ton a very conservative (high) estimate. So an American's carbon emissions "costs" < $1k a year. Even if this is off by a factor of 5, it is still small compared to an individual's productive capacity and earning potential. If the US were to prioritize fighting climate change, then a larger and more powerful US economy would be a very good thing. Obviously that goes for other developed countries as well.

onetimemanytime 8y ago

Maybe it's be but I started to think that post WWII inventions have causes a drop in sperm count or something...and than read that people want to have less kids.

buboard 8y ago
Now, sperm counts are indeed falling dramatically, but this isn't about that. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-sperm/sperm-count-falling-sharply-in-developed-world-researchers-say-idUSKBN1AA28K https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-sperm/sperm-count-...

matchagaucho 8y ago

I'm surprised the article doesn't mention longer life span for Women since 1950. Strong correlation.

chiefalchemist 8y ago

Not to get too off topic, but higher birth rates equal more economic growth, or at least the potential for it. That is, what's currently being passed off as an immigration issue - in the USA, and Europe (e.g., Germany) - is ultimately an economic growth issue. With "native" births flat (or less), growth has to come from somewhere. The quick and simple solution is immigration. But, obviously, that's coming with baggage, at least for the proles. The economic elites continue to cash in. Put another way, no one wants to be the next Japan. Capable but ultimately stagnant. Note: Yes, I'm generalizing but the bottom line is, immigration in many countries is often a proxy for economic growth.

adverbly 8y ago
What is wrong with people in Japan? I understand that the entity of the country is of lower standing relative to other countries due to population stagnation, but for the individual, who cares about your country's global standing if your country's members are better off on average?
- soared 8y ago
  Op is talking about growth, not current standing. Japan looks good now, but that will change in the future without growth.
- criveros 8y ago
  They are not better off. Have you worked or even been there? Their culture is horrible? People are literally worked to death and sexism and xenophobia is rampant. The summers suck as it's too damn hot, to the point it sucks going out.
- screye 8y ago
  > What is wrong with people in Japan? The OP is referring to their declining birth rates, paired with general xenophobia and anti immigrant sentiment. As the average population gets older, they are faced with a smaller and smaller tax paying population and an increasing tax dependent population. This will eventually lead to the death of retirement funds and an aging country that can't afford to have retirees. Higher average age also makes old people the main voting bloc and forces the country to prioritize funding towards younger populations needs, as they have increasing lower representation. The country's general productivity will also drop as even if older people come out of retirement, they can't match the efficiency and vigor of a young work force. It is an all out impending disaster.

vezycash 8y ago

Child Protection Laws: Societal criminalization of sex with people less than 18 or 17 of old has definitely reduced birth rates. 8 year olds used to find gainful employment. By 15 or 16, these "children" were relatively self sufficient. Now, such jobs are called child labor. Compulsory mass schooling has also pushed the average child bearing age to 30s. Health: Slashing infantile mortality rates has also stopped people from hedging with 5 or more children. I don't how people perceived contraceptives in the past. However, the lowly condom has prevented lots of pregnancy. Financial: Cost of raising a child has sky rocketed. Child birth cost is just crazy. Cost of schooling / rearing - live time cost of a child is something people now seriously debated before giving birth. And having to change houses, and cars to accommodate the growing family is also a thing. In undeveloped countries with poor health care, low education, child care... high birth rates is still common. Japan 2d partners: What's up with that country? Seems like they just became uninterested in actually having sex with actual human beings. If having sex with animals is bestiality; having sex with dead people is necrophilia; what is sex with 2d anime girls?

conductr 8y ago
Also brunch and day drinking are too fun to give up. To be serious, I’m a recent parent pushing 40 and I just didn’t want the responsibility. It’s just me not wanting to grow up.
706f6f70 8y ago
Also important: children became liabilities instead of being assets. Nearly all labour which a child could contribute to has been automated or reduced. In countries where children can be trusted with the responsibility of doing something economically useful, birth rates continue to be high.
toasterlovin 8y ago
> Cost of raising a child has sky rocketed. No, the cost hasn’t risen much. People are just buying a standard of living for their children that didn’t exist for any human alive 150 years ago. It’s an important difference.
- 8y ago

RickJWagner 8y ago

This brings hope for planet Earth. Fewer people means fewer pollutants. (Maybe the single biggest factor.) There will be other ramifications (like economic change), but for the planet it's got to be a positive.

toasterlovin 8y ago
It’s temporary. The humans of the future will be the descendants of the people having lots of kids right now. You should basically never extrapolate out any trends that are driven by people with below replacement fertility rates.
- jpatokal 8y ago
  No, it's not temporary. The trend is global and will see the world's fertility go below replacement level soon enough. Of course there are various hotspots, but they'll be smoothed out eventually by emigration or less pleasant means (famine, war, disease).
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    The three necessary and sufficient ingredients for evolution are: 1) Inheritance, 2) Variation, and 3) Selection. Let’s consider fertility using this lens: 1) Fertility rate is heritable, 2) Fertility rates vary from person to person, and 3) People with higher fertility have higher reproductive success (it’s almost a tautology). I’ll let you work out the implications.
    - htns 8y ago
      That struggles to explain how fertility rates have ever dropped. For higher fertility you would need stronger biologic instincts, the present lack of which suggests they would conflict with something else important for viability, a high "materialist profit" from having having children, which the man's child protection services will catch on to if your group grows big enough, or a "sense of duty", which again seems increasingly hard to maintain as the group grows for an array of reasons.

iotb 8y ago

You make things wildly unaffordable. You make the most basic need of a human being (a roof over their head a ponzi scheme speculative investment) You destroy the middle class. You plunge everyone into debt with over- financialization. You play divisive social games to cement power structures finalizing in men vs. women politics. You destroy the family unit. You undermine men. You push male guilt. You push social trends for women to party through their most fertile years You convince women that long term monogamous relationships are prison... You turn everyone on to Tinder and glorify transient lifestyles... All because such lifestyles make various corporations richer via higher consumption.. society be damned. Optimal profit at the expense of broader society... Up until broader societal conditions drag down corporations that made it so. The cause and effect are obvious to anyone w/ two brain cells. And just to show its all for the almighty dollar, millions of dollars are pumped into studies/research of this phenomenon only to avoid the elephants in the room. We call this modern society where we pretend to not know why things are the way they are. Society optimizes for certain things like profit above all else and there are a slew of negative outcomes or things that are harmed as a result. Why would someone have a kid in the current environment? This process is pushed out to someone who either is quite wealthy and has no impact or is quite poor and is uncaring of the impact. The middle is hallowed out. It's why from anywhere from the first world EU to the US there is a big push for immigration. That too is steeped in economic factors and has little to do w/ a genuine interest in helping people. Instead of fixing core societal problems, the powers that be deem it easier to just pave over the domestic populous with new-comers who would willingly tolerate such conditions and birth new workers into the fold. The middle core of the population deems it ridiculous to have kids. The number crunchers see this as an impact to their precious economic models... and thus comes the political push to import people from places in the world who have kids in far more impoverished conditions and see 1st world countries as a step up. Not sure how this comment will go here but that's just the plain reality. A reality people like to play pretend they don't know exists. A reality people make hordes of money to ignore and further. Humanity will pay a hefty price in the years to come for these stupid games we play. Historically, various reckonings have occurred when civilizations and empires play these stupid games. Then the cycle resets and is born again only to arrive at the same juncture when people stray far enough from sound principals.

8y ago

buboard 8y ago

The survey they reference (Global Burden of Disease 17) is a lot more alarming: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32858-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... > GBD 2017 is disturbing. Not only do the amalgamated global figures show a worrying slowdown in progress but the more granular data unearths exactly how patchy progress has been. GBD 2017 is a reminder that, without vigilance and constant effort, progress can easily be reversed. But the GBD is also an encouragement to think differently in this time of crisis. By cataloguing inequalities in health-care delivery and patterns of disease geography, this iteration of the GBD presents an opportunity to move away from the generic application of UHC and towards a more tailored precision approach to UHC. GBD 2017 should be an electric shock, galvanising national governments and international agencies not only to redouble their efforts to avoid the imminent loss of hard-won gains but also to adopt a fresh approach to growing threats.

dqpb 8y ago

> The fall in fertility rate is not down to sperm counts or any of the things that normally come to mind when thinking of fertility. Instead it is being put down to three key factors: - Fewer deaths in childhood meaning women have fewer babies - Greater access to contraception - More women in education and work In many ways, falling fertility rates are a success story.

raverbashing 8y ago
It's funny how both the "left" and the "right" love higher birth rates (they sell it as noble worries but it's usually for furthering their cause) when it doesn't make sense anymore in modern societies. There are too many people on the planet already, and most of them don't have a good quality of life. And more importantly, there isn't a way of significantly improving it (with today's technology and social/ethics understanding)
- heelhook 8y ago
  > most of them don't have a good quality of life What does that even mean? Are you implying most of “them” (whatever that might be) are lives not worth living thus “we” should put them out of their misery? > And more importantly, there isn't a way of significantly improving it (with today's technology and social/ethics understanding) Sources? Read Factfulness; you’ll be surprised at just how far of reality your view is!
- chronid 8y ago
  > There are too many people on the planet already I feel the reaction many people have about population decline in NA and EU is understandable (one may or may not share the concern though, that's personal): your tribe is making less children, the others do no seem to care. And they will replace your tribe in the future if you don't make children, it's a game of numbers in the end. NA and EU count very little in the great scheme of things from a population perspective [1] anyway - there are 5+ billion people in Asia and Africa (many in places that will be devastated by global warming), and those people aren't going to stop making babies any time soon. Are we going to force them to stop? How? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File:Population_Growth_by_World_Bank_continental_division.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File:P...

buboard 8y ago

western countries have 2 ways forward: a) invest in artificial wombs and b) invest massively on longevity research

jessaustin 8y ago
Longevity makes all of these problems worse. It has other benefits, of course, but it isn't a solution in this case.
- buboard 8y ago
  increase of the healthspan is a way to avert the collapse of social-security etc.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    Is "healthspan" an attempt to move the goalpost from "longevity"? I'll allow it, if you can give me any reason to suspect that these additional old folks will be contributing to entitlement programs rather than depending on them. I meet lots of people in their seventies. There are more of them every day. The majority would be in serious trouble if social security were taken away from them. (If the racists have their way with respect to immigration, change that to will be, when.)
mjevans 8y ago
I don't want a "Brave New World" future... but it really does seem like we're hurtling towards that book + 1984 at this rate. Can we please have a full-tilt space race to get an out of solar system backup.
- buboard 8y ago
  then you would need the wombs even more
black-tea 8y ago
Since the invention of farming, through to the invention of the washing machine men have been gradually making women more and more redundant. With artificial wombs and realistic VR sex it would be complete. This is a difficult thing to think about and I know I risk my account here just by posting this, but I like to constantly challenge myself.

yogthos 8y ago

I'm really struggling how this is a bad thing to be honest. The planet is already overpopulated, and each new person introduces a huge carbon footprint.

eeZah7Ux 8y ago
Spot on. The alarmist article used the following words: "fall, world is facing... , insufficient, affected, impacted". The implication are clear: anything other than GROWTH is taboo.
tempestn 8y ago
It could be a bad thing in the medium term if the number of older people requiring care overwhelms the ability of societies to provide (given fewer working age people contributing). In the longer term, yes, sustainable population certainly seems like a good thing. (Although one could make a utilitarian argument that as long as it _is_ sustainable, and assuming people's lives are generally good, you want as many people as possible.)
megaman8 8y ago
i completely agree. we could use a lot fewer people on this planet.
sien 8y ago
It may very well break the welfare state. Most rich countries pension systems depend on sufficient workers to pay for pensioners. How many rich countries are running a surplus this year in a non-recession year. In 20 or 30 years with far fewer income earners per pensioner how will it look.
- jnurmine 8y ago
  Exactly. Pension systems where generation i+1 pays for generation i are fundamentally broken. If the population size sinks, generation i+1 will pay more. If paying more and thus having less disposable income makes them defer having babies, you have your bad feedback loop right there. A better and stable system is where generation i pays for generation i.

phendrenad2 8y ago

Remarkable. I never wanted to have kids, because the economics don't make sense. But at this point the government may have to pay people to have kids, just to keep the wheels of capitalism turning.

tempestn 8y ago
That and allow more immigration, as the article says. If one consequence of this is greater openness to immigrants, that's probably a positive for the world.

maxwell 8y ago

I'm not sure why the HN admins now have such a propensity for changing informative article titles that contain actual numbers into vague click-bait original titles. I've been here for over ten years, and only noticed it happening over the past few months. The title I submitted contains information: "Human fertility rates have fallen nearly 50% since 1950". The weak original title ("'Remarkable' decline in fertility rates") contains no information.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
stochastic_monk 8y ago
I agree with your arguments. I’m not sure on enforcement, but it does state that one should post the original title in the guidelines. This may be worth a larger discussion elsewhere.
- maxwell 8y ago
  "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
user5994461 8y ago
Your title contains no information, unless one knows the rate in 1950. By some metrics, it's more clickbait than the original title.
- baud147258 8y ago
  > Your title contains no information The original title told how the rate has changed since 1950 (minus 50%), which is a piece of information.
- shakestheclown 8y ago
  By which metrics?

DoreenMichele 8y ago

I think this is mostly scary because as we live longer, we see more health issues and more need to be taken care of, etc, plus we have an expectation of retiring at some point. If the human norm was to be fit as a fiddle until age 85 and then suddenly drop dead for some reason, then an aging population isn't anything to worry about. This worries people because it means people need to keep working even as their health and energy levels are expected to decline, it's problematic for a shrinking workforce to service the obligation of Social Security and similar programs, etc. If we don't successfully plan for the consequences, those consequences are more likely to turn into drama, such as government bankruptcy or suddenly de-funding (or reducing funding for) certain programs for people ill-equipped to adapt (because they are old and their health is failing), etc.

cagenut 8y ago

This is old (2017) but still fantastic news w/r/t global warming. In a simplified model of: (Population x Consumption x Efficiency) / Resources We can either all consume far less, or there can be less of us. I would rather have half as many people living a 2x more efficient and 4x more luxiourous lifestyle in 2100 than twice as many people fighting for water and arable land.

turc1656 8y ago
Agreed. I've always wondered why everyone freaks out at information like that contained in the article. Controlled, natural decline in my mind is good because there is simply too many people on the planet. The options for addressing that can be lumped into either 1) having society formally or informally agree to depopulate through choices, culture, law, etc. or 2) killing people. No sane person wants #2. So if there is a natural/cultural shift that is moving toward depopulation that's a huge win because the other options are doing something similar to China's previous one child policy or some other method of forcing or providing incentives to have fewer children. As long as society is aware of the trend we can plan accordingly. Demographically, we'll be looking more like Japan, but I don't necessarily see the intrinsic harm in that. The planet has a fixed mass and fixed resources. We can't keep playing this game of "infinite growth forever!" in every aspect of the economy. As the saying goes, "that which cannot continue, will not continue."
- shoo 8y ago
  i think there is a bit of fear of how to stably operate a society that has negative population growth, and/or negative economic growth (not that both of those things are necessarily coupled). we've had a bit of practise over the past handful of decades since the industrial revolution of trying to figure out how to have a roughly stable society under conditions of economic and population growth, perhaps a lot of those rules of thumb need to be thrown-out and rethought
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
vitaflo 8y ago

rmykhajliw 8y ago

As always winning factors play key roles: contraception (especially condoms/pills) and education. Contraception protects women from unwanted pregnancies and education forces them to choose career instead of staying at home with children. You can't get both high fertility rate and high education level.

analog31 8y ago
This is one of the reasons why educating girls and women is one of the most potent weapons against poverty.

yters 8y ago

If we have too many people then we may have wars and famine. If we have too few people the human race could go extinct. Both are bad, but the second seems worse.

shoo 8y ago
this isn't a particularly clear way to frame things -- there is likely some middle ground between "too many" and "too few" that is better than both of those extremes. i suspect human population could decline by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude without getting into "too few" territory, provided it was declining towards a steady state, not crashing uncontrollably
- yters 8y ago
  One can hope.

austincheney 8y ago

A dramatic fertility decline was predicted some time ago. The prediction stated the around the late 20th century population would balloon to record levels but it’s rate of growth would dramatically slow until reaching a near steady state of about 9.2 billion about 2055.

Animats 8y ago

Where we're headed is pretty clear. Two big trends will drive this century - declining birth rates and rising temperatures. The world hit "peak baby" this year. The number of babies born per year worldwide is now declining. The US hit peak baby in 2016. Japan hit peak baby in 1981. Japan, outside of Tokyo and Osaka, is emptying out. On the rising temperature front, some areas of the world are becoming uninhabitable. Some of those areas near the equator have a lot of people in them.

naasking 8y ago
It's almost ironic that progressives may one day become a minority while conservatives will become a majority again, purely because traditional gender roles ensure the continuation of those values to future generations. We're not yet at the point where we can beat nature on this matter.
- mercutio2 8y ago
  This intergenerational memetic strategy only works if your offspring adopt your values.
  - naasking 8y ago
    It should be clear that a non-zero percentage will do so, and those that do not will fall victim to the same diminishing population, therefore the trend holds.
    - mercutio2 8y ago
      A non-zero percentage, sure. But greater than 50%? That doesn’t seem obvious at all.
      - naasking 8y ago
        Conservatives in the west have 60% more children than liberals. Conservativism is also linked to specific brain structures [1]. These are arguably somewhat heritable, but of course also shaped by environment. Most children of conservatives are conservative until they reach college, where the strong liberal bias in academia changes some of their minds [2]. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-between-conservatives-and-liberals-2018-2#being-scared-can-make-you-more-conservative-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-be... [2] This bias is well known by the way, this is not a conservative talking point. See Jonathan Haidt's talks on this point, and why this bias is bad for society.

OpenBSD-reich 8y ago

This is not good. Africa is going to explode by a billion this century while Native Europeans worldwide continue to decline, having been since the '80s.

sfohohoho 8y ago
Less Europeans could be a good thing

black-tea 8y ago

This is the end of civilisation. It's happened before and it's happening again. It's not necessarily a bad thing. We are living far beyond our means.

jplayer01 8y ago

I'd say this is why automation will grow in importance in the medium term, but it'll require a complete rework of Western economic principles (and companies will have to pay far far more in taxes than they ever have in history).

alismayilov 8y ago

I've just watched a documentary about the "Sex Robots". I wondering how this will also influence marriages, in general relationships. In the long term, if few people will have relationships, there will be also a few people who have children. I think we will see the effect of the "Sex Robots" after 5-10 years. What do you think?

mercutio2 8y ago
A lot of people want to have lots of sex at times in their lives when they don’t want to have kids. I don’t think the desire for companionship and parenthood goes away if you replace one form of sex-with-yourself with some other form of sex-with-yourself. I will admit that later in life childbearing has an effect on total fertility, but I think that ship sailed with effective birth control.
spiralx 8y ago
You might find this interesting, and it has possibly my favourite title ever :) https://jacobitemag.com/2018/04/24/uncanny-vulvas/ https://jacobitemag.com/2018/04/24/uncanny-vulvas/

jnun 8y ago

Another way to read this headline is “Unwanted Pregnancies Plummet Thanks to Science.” We have plenty of babies! The 3rd world is pumping them out like an assembly line. If you want more taxpayers, just import those people who want to move into your nation and give them citizenship. Perfect storm for economic development by the numbers: * Higher birth rate * Overpopulation * War Nothing improves employment stats like a draft! This is why people who govern based on economic metrics like this are dangerous fools and should be booted from any office with authority.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]