7 ms·

In Western countries and in Asia, fertility rates are pretty (edit: low) these days. I fear they would collapse with the introduction of a male fertility pill.

by timmg 5y ago

In Western countries and in Asia, fertility rates are pretty (edit: low) these days. I fear they would collapse with the introduction of a male fertility pill. In some sense, maybe that's not bad. The world is probably overpopulated. But if fertility drops too fast it creates real demographics problems in that few young people need to support many old people.

captainmuon 5y ago
Why? That would only be the case if a significant number of pregnancies is unwanted. We should do everything to stop any unwanted pregnancies, and then add incentives and aid for everybody who wants to have kids (e.g. parental leave, free daycare, and so on).
- timmg 5y ago
  A random google finds this: https://www.brookings.edu/research/preventing-unplanned-pregnancy-lessons-from-the-states/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/preventing-unplanned-preg... > Unintended pregnancies are at an all-time low in the U.S. but still represent about 45 percent of all pregnancies.
  - ada1981 5y ago
    Do they tease out unintended from unwanted? 45% is wild, and doubly so that this is an all time low. I could find a million dollars and it would be unintended but not unwanted.
    - dtgriscom 5y ago
      There's no way you'd get accurate answers to "do you want this child?".
      - ada1981 5y ago
        Well, some couples aren’t planning on a kid, but they also aren’t planning not to. I’d be curious to survey asking those two questions - did you want this child? Did you intend to have this child?
axiomsEnd 5y ago
Oral contraceptives are not as comfortable and easy to use as condoms, which are available everywhere. Taking drugs just to avoid pregnacy would be an alternative probably for people in relationships (instead of sometimes problematic womens contraceptives) and for people doing a lot of casual sex (who probably already use condoms/woman are on hormonal contraception).
- igetspam 5y ago
  This is not condoms vs not condoms. Condom use prevents the spread of STDs. Birth control helps prevent the spread of unwanted children and abortions. I don't find condoms comfortable at all and I'm married, so STDs are not my concern. Another kid is.
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    > Condom use prevents the spread of STDs. Birth control helps prevent the spread of unwanted children and abortions. Condoms do both. They are 97% effective if used properly, which isn't hard. I think "perfect use" of the pill is more difficult, consequently I think the true failure rate is higher. The implants are very effective though.
- knorker 5y ago
  Comfortable? I've heard some men can't even feel the difference, but to me condoms essentially mean "why even bother?". Having sex with a condom is like saying you went swimming, but actually you went to the aquarium. But still, in some types of encounters ya gotta do it, for safety. For long term relationships though there are so many other options.
thatjoeoverthr 5y ago
We shouldn’t rely on unplanned pregnancies for the birth rates. There are other strategies.
- Mirioron 5y ago
  The other strategies are clearly not working though. Birth rates have at best stayed steady or declined.
  - thatjoeoverthr 5y ago
    What if they’re actually dumb and we need other other strategies? Something to think about before banning the pill. As a parent I find the environment extremely child-hostile. I don’t want to go into it here, I’m just pointing out there’s a lot of work one could do besides blocking a certain gender from equal access to birth control pills.
    - Mirioron 5y ago
      >Something to think about before banning the pill. Regardless whether the strategies are bad or not, banning contraceptives should never be on the table. >As a parent I find the environment extremely child-hostile. It might be child-hostile, but is how child-hostile the environment is actually a consideration? The situation for having children has never been better, but birthrates are some of the lowest they have ever been.
  - everdrive 5y ago
    The rough transition aside, would it be so bad to return to lower population levels? The only thing I'm sad about is that I won't live to see the population decline rather than increase.
    - zmgsabst 5y ago
      Yes — it’s absolutely psychotic to hope for a mass loss of human life and the decline of our species. There’s no reason to think it would make things better — and many to think a massive population decline would come with a technology regression and stall of our advancement. I think such ideas are a form of mental illness, often stemming from delusions about the world.
Archelaos 5y ago
> it creates real demographics problems in that few young people need to support many old people I think this problem is overrated, because at the same time they need to support many less children, youth and young adults. In other words, the ratio `adult workforce` vs. (`retired` + `children` + `in education`) is decreasing only very slowly. And we need a price tag for each of these elements to better assess its impact: How expensive is education and child care per person per year compared to pensions per person per year? The figure that really matters for the future is purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita. This figure has been rising steadily in most industrialized countries for most of the years. There are no signs that this will change, even if birth rates continue to decline. This means that, regardless the demographic trend, more goods and services are available to everyone on average every year. The real problem is to stop the trend that only part of society benefits from economic growth.
- xenocratus 5y ago
  Just chiming in to say that money isn't the only problem. You also need to restructure your healthcare system, for example, to account for more geriatrics and less pediatrics. We'd also need more carers, but presumably some proportion of teachers and babysitters could swap to that. But if you think about it, childcare is now a part-time job for many parents working other full-time jobs in engineering, law, accounting etc. Would they be caring for their elderly parents instead, to the same degree, or would we need a lot more professional carers for it? Anyway, my point is that it's more complex than just comparing cash for this vs cash for that, we'll have to coordinate broad policies for a change like this. I think this is already happening in the West, but rather slowly.
- jltsiren 5y ago
  Averages are often misleading. Another set of key figures is the distribution of created value between earned income, capital income, and welfare payments. When the number of retirees grows relative to the size of the workforce, there is a need to increase the share of capital income and/or welfare payments, because a larger fraction of people depends on them. In reality, the reverse is more likely to happen. The share of earned income is likely to increase due to labor shortage. Retirees will then be worse off, regardless of whether they depend on social security payments or savings.
k0k0r0 5y ago
These demographic problems seem to be there arleady. Even without any further drops in the reproduction rate. At least in my country from central europe. I cannot provide any scientific discussion as a source - indeed I'd be happy if someone could share some source, but it seems pretty obvious to me. Generation baby boomer chose career over family and soon they need to be taken care of whilst they didn't produce many children themselves that could do so. And partially related: they chose personal weahlth over a healthy planet. At least I feel betrayed, and I guess I am not the only one. So these demographic problems might be accompanied by a change of the younger generation priorities, when confronted with both, a huge old generation that they couldn't care for, even if they wanted to and even if there wouldn't be any further crisis, and a climate crisis caused by the same old generation that is now dependent on them.
simulate-me 5y ago
Do we really need more people? America has almost 350 million, and is completely dwarfed by India and China. That seems like plenty of people to me.
- DuskStar 5y ago
  This depends. Do you want someone to be able to take care of you after you retire? Medical care, that sort of thing? If so, that means that you need people. People younger than you. People with some sort of societal attachment to you that results in them not just tossing your entire generation into a metaphorical woodchipper, because taking care of old people is a ton of work. The traditional way to ensure that such a population of younger people exists has been to have children. Importing immigrants might solve the "people younger than you" side of things, but it is yet to be determined if it adequately solves the "societal attachment" side of things.
  - igetspam 5y ago
    But we don't parity or growth. A decline would would tax our systems less and we could still provide for our elderly.
    - jtbayly 5y ago
      It depends on the systems. Social security is a system that would be under greater pressure, not less.
      - bqmjjx0kac 5y ago
        Hot take: social security is a Ponzi scheme.
        snovv_crash 5y ago
        By implication, the people who get out first are the only winners?
hasbot 5y ago
I see this comment about not enough young people to take care of the old. Why is this concern so common among, presumably, young people? Of the older people I know or have known, none are/were being taken care of by younger people. I'm a 57 bachelor and I know I'll never be taken care of by anybody.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  I think most younger people are acutely aware that their retirement/pension payments aren’t earmarked for them, but are already being used for today’s retirees. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but to use your case as an example: you might not have anybody in particular taking care of you, but you might collect social security for the next three or four decades. After your initial investment, the majority of that money will be coming from the current working-age population.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
I don't think it'll make a big difference. We're already at the point where people only have kids when they want to. It might reduce some accidents but I think that's good. Not nice for a child to be unwanted.
- knorker 5y ago
  Apparently 45% of US pregnancies are unintended. https://www.brookings.edu/research/preventing-unplanned-pregnancy-lessons-from-the-states/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/preventing-unplanned-preg...
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    45% of an already low fertility rate.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    That's a lot.. That means there's a lot of room for improvement. I don't think we as a society should want anyone eto have unwanted babies. I'm pretty sure this will be much lower in Europe though, as we have much less taboos on sexual education.
throwaway00893 5y ago
Good! One of our collective goals as a species should be to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies to 0. Nobody should be a parent unless they want to be. Every child deserves loving parents who made the choice to have kids. We will get there eventually. Nothing will stop scientific progress.

by timmg 5y ago

captainmuon 5y ago

Why? That would only be the case if a significant number of pregnancies is unwanted. We should do everything to stop any unwanted pregnancies, and then add incentives and aid for everybody who wants to have kids (e.g. parental leave, free daycare, and so on).

timmg 5y ago
A random google finds this: https://www.brookings.edu/research/preventing-unplanned-pregnancy-lessons-from-the-states/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/preventing-unplanned-preg... > Unintended pregnancies are at an all-time low in the U.S. but still represent about 45 percent of all pregnancies.
- ada1981 5y ago
  Do they tease out unintended from unwanted? 45% is wild, and doubly so that this is an all time low. I could find a million dollars and it would be unintended but not unwanted.
  - dtgriscom 5y ago
    There's no way you'd get accurate answers to "do you want this child?".
    - ada1981 5y ago
      Well, some couples aren’t planning on a kid, but they also aren’t planning not to. I’d be curious to survey asking those two questions - did you want this child? Did you intend to have this child?

axiomsEnd 5y ago

Oral contraceptives are not as comfortable and easy to use as condoms, which are available everywhere. Taking drugs just to avoid pregnacy would be an alternative probably for people in relationships (instead of sometimes problematic womens contraceptives) and for people doing a lot of casual sex (who probably already use condoms/woman are on hormonal contraception).

igetspam 5y ago
This is not condoms vs not condoms. Condom use prevents the spread of STDs. Birth control helps prevent the spread of unwanted children and abortions. I don't find condoms comfortable at all and I'm married, so STDs are not my concern. Another kid is.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  > Condom use prevents the spread of STDs. Birth control helps prevent the spread of unwanted children and abortions. Condoms do both. They are 97% effective if used properly, which isn't hard. I think "perfect use" of the pill is more difficult, consequently I think the true failure rate is higher. The implants are very effective though.
knorker 5y ago
Comfortable? I've heard some men can't even feel the difference, but to me condoms essentially mean "why even bother?". Having sex with a condom is like saying you went swimming, but actually you went to the aquarium. But still, in some types of encounters ya gotta do it, for safety. For long term relationships though there are so many other options.

thatjoeoverthr 5y ago

We shouldn’t rely on unplanned pregnancies for the birth rates. There are other strategies.

Mirioron 5y ago
The other strategies are clearly not working though. Birth rates have at best stayed steady or declined.
- thatjoeoverthr 5y ago
  What if they’re actually dumb and we need other other strategies? Something to think about before banning the pill. As a parent I find the environment extremely child-hostile. I don’t want to go into it here, I’m just pointing out there’s a lot of work one could do besides blocking a certain gender from equal access to birth control pills.
  - Mirioron 5y ago
    >Something to think about before banning the pill. Regardless whether the strategies are bad or not, banning contraceptives should never be on the table. >As a parent I find the environment extremely child-hostile. It might be child-hostile, but is how child-hostile the environment is actually a consideration? The situation for having children has never been better, but birthrates are some of the lowest they have ever been.
- everdrive 5y ago
  The rough transition aside, would it be so bad to return to lower population levels? The only thing I'm sad about is that I won't live to see the population decline rather than increase.
  - zmgsabst 5y ago
    Yes — it’s absolutely psychotic to hope for a mass loss of human life and the decline of our species. There’s no reason to think it would make things better — and many to think a massive population decline would come with a technology regression and stall of our advancement. I think such ideas are a form of mental illness, often stemming from delusions about the world.

Archelaos 5y ago

> it creates real demographics problems in that few young people need to support many old people I think this problem is overrated, because at the same time they need to support many less children, youth and young adults. In other words, the ratio `adult workforce` vs. (`retired` + `children` + `in education`) is decreasing only very slowly. And we need a price tag for each of these elements to better assess its impact: How expensive is education and child care per person per year compared to pensions per person per year? The figure that really matters for the future is purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita. This figure has been rising steadily in most industrialized countries for most of the years. There are no signs that this will change, even if birth rates continue to decline. This means that, regardless the demographic trend, more goods and services are available to everyone on average every year. The real problem is to stop the trend that only part of society benefits from economic growth.

xenocratus 5y ago
Just chiming in to say that money isn't the only problem. You also need to restructure your healthcare system, for example, to account for more geriatrics and less pediatrics. We'd also need more carers, but presumably some proportion of teachers and babysitters could swap to that. But if you think about it, childcare is now a part-time job for many parents working other full-time jobs in engineering, law, accounting etc. Would they be caring for their elderly parents instead, to the same degree, or would we need a lot more professional carers for it? Anyway, my point is that it's more complex than just comparing cash for this vs cash for that, we'll have to coordinate broad policies for a change like this. I think this is already happening in the West, but rather slowly.
jltsiren 5y ago
Averages are often misleading. Another set of key figures is the distribution of created value between earned income, capital income, and welfare payments. When the number of retirees grows relative to the size of the workforce, there is a need to increase the share of capital income and/or welfare payments, because a larger fraction of people depends on them. In reality, the reverse is more likely to happen. The share of earned income is likely to increase due to labor shortage. Retirees will then be worse off, regardless of whether they depend on social security payments or savings.

k0k0r0 5y ago

These demographic problems seem to be there arleady. Even without any further drops in the reproduction rate. At least in my country from central europe. I cannot provide any scientific discussion as a source - indeed I'd be happy if someone could share some source, but it seems pretty obvious to me. Generation baby boomer chose career over family and soon they need to be taken care of whilst they didn't produce many children themselves that could do so. And partially related: they chose personal weahlth over a healthy planet. At least I feel betrayed, and I guess I am not the only one. So these demographic problems might be accompanied by a change of the younger generation priorities, when confronted with both, a huge old generation that they couldn't care for, even if they wanted to and even if there wouldn't be any further crisis, and a climate crisis caused by the same old generation that is now dependent on them.

simulate-me 5y ago

Do we really need more people? America has almost 350 million, and is completely dwarfed by India and China. That seems like plenty of people to me.

DuskStar 5y ago
This depends. Do you want someone to be able to take care of you after you retire? Medical care, that sort of thing? If so, that means that you need people. People younger than you. People with some sort of societal attachment to you that results in them not just tossing your entire generation into a metaphorical woodchipper, because taking care of old people is a ton of work. The traditional way to ensure that such a population of younger people exists has been to have children. Importing immigrants might solve the "people younger than you" side of things, but it is yet to be determined if it adequately solves the "societal attachment" side of things.
- igetspam 5y ago
  But we don't parity or growth. A decline would would tax our systems less and we could still provide for our elderly.
  - jtbayly 5y ago
    It depends on the systems. Social security is a system that would be under greater pressure, not less.
    - bqmjjx0kac 5y ago
      Hot take: social security is a Ponzi scheme.
      - snovv_crash 5y ago
        By implication, the people who get out first are the only winners?

hasbot 5y ago

I see this comment about not enough young people to take care of the old. Why is this concern so common among, presumably, young people? Of the older people I know or have known, none are/were being taken care of by younger people. I'm a 57 bachelor and I know I'll never be taken care of by anybody.

woodruffw 5y ago
I think most younger people are acutely aware that their retirement/pension payments aren’t earmarked for them, but are already being used for today’s retirees. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but to use your case as an example: you might not have anybody in particular taking care of you, but you might collect social security for the next three or four decades. After your initial investment, the majority of that money will be coming from the current working-age population.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

I don't think it'll make a big difference. We're already at the point where people only have kids when they want to. It might reduce some accidents but I think that's good. Not nice for a child to be unwanted.

knorker 5y ago
Apparently 45% of US pregnancies are unintended. https://www.brookings.edu/research/preventing-unplanned-pregnancy-lessons-from-the-states/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/preventing-unplanned-preg...
- slothtrop 5y ago
  45% of an already low fertility rate.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  That's a lot.. That means there's a lot of room for improvement. I don't think we as a society should want anyone eto have unwanted babies. I'm pretty sure this will be much lower in Europe though, as we have much less taboos on sexual education.

throwaway00893 5y ago

Good! One of our collective goals as a species should be to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies to 0. Nobody should be a parent unless they want to be. Every child deserves loving parents who made the choice to have kids. We will get there eventually. Nothing will stop scientific progress.