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>> It’s a natural process for people from areas experiencing population growth to move to other places experiencing decline This strategy works as long as ther

>> It’s a natural process for people from areas experiencing population growth to move to other places experiencing decline This strategy works as long as there are more places (by volume) experiencing growth than decline. Since the trend is slower growth overall, there will be a point where global growth stops, and clearly then the strategy will start to fail. Frankly, from a planet point of view I'd hope that point comes sooner than later. This will play out in obvious ways (lifting retirement age etc) but ultimately the quality of life will increase overall until some sort of stable population number emerges.

Thorrez 3y ago
Lifting retirement age will happen at the same time as increasing the quality of life? Wouldn't the retirement age only need to be increased if there's a problem? And wouldn't there being a problem mean quality of life has a problem? Also, look at cities that have had a decreasing population, such as Detroit. They don't look so good.
- andyferris 3y ago
  In Detroit I think unemployment rose (and quality of life declined) before the population started to shrink - the order of the cause and effect are important! OTOH in countries with decreasing overall populations due to birth rate and not lack of economic opportunity (emmigration), it might be possible to sustain high employment rates, low crime, and good quality of life. (There might be more need to fund social services, however, if the population is also aging).
ramraj07 3y ago
There will be a period of massive upheaval when the fundamental tenet of all economic models and assumptions (perpetual growth) is completely chronically invalidated and we run out of resources as the models reset to something that’s absolutely zero sum (as it should be). Great suffering and fighting can be expected during this period.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  while the question is open if economic growth will continue forever neither resources or population are an issue. The German economy say, has grown by 400% since the 1970s in real terms while the population has stayed stable. Energy use has slightly fallen over the last few decades. Economic growth is technologically driven and developed economies are at or already past peak resources consumption.
  - bitschubser_ 3y ago
    i'm no economist... but didn't externalizing a lot of production offset the missing population growth? So germany just externalized raw material extraction and production but still kept the profits?
    - dredmorbius 3y ago
      Germany has also "climbed the value ladder" focusing on production of high-value goods whilst counting on imports to provide for low-value ones. Some of that is of course classic Ricardian "comparative advantage" of trade. Much is, though, outsourcing high-impact / high-resource / high-effluent production to elsewhere.
  - ramraj07 3y ago
    More fundamentally I’m not convinced that we are not in a zero sum game as seems to be assumed under all economic theory.
    - imtringued 3y ago
      Entropy is inherently a zero sum game. We have a given level of energy reserves and all we do is transform what we have into a different form. Economists confuse an increase in the extraction rate as some kind of "creating something from nothing" but actually a better analogy is "traveling to previously unreachable places".
- photonbeam 3y ago
jgilias 3y ago
I come from a place that has experienced a population drop of ~30% over the last ~30 years. During the same time period inflation adjusted GDP has ~doubled, quality of life has increased immensely. Granted, all of this is due to historically extraordinary events playing out. But still, less population doesn’t necessarily imply no or negative growth. There’s an interplay of factors affecting if growth is possible, and population is just one parameter of those.
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  This is because your still able to access all the benefits of globalization. You probably have things like cheaper property prices and access to all the latest tech. You're basically leaching off goods and services provided by those in high growth areas. I think the idea is we might reach a point where globalization itself is hard to maintain and then things start to unwind, dramatically fast.
  - perryizgr8 3y ago
    > You're basically leaching off goods and services provided by those in high growth areas. Exactly. Extolling the virtues of low population growth because it enables a higher quality of life is misguided. Your life is higher quality because billions in China are toiling away in inhuman conditions, making goods for you, and unable to move to your location.
    - postmodfemenist 3y ago
      Isn't it great? Nixon was a goddamn genius. Too bad that free ride is winding down, I hope some other mass of people assume that role so I can continue to enjoy myself. Before you yell at me consider that China lifted an unprecedented amount of people out of even more inhumane conditions as a result of this process.
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      People in China are also experiencing immense economical growth. Eventually they will indeed run out of people willing to do lower level jobs in the factories, then economic growth can move somewhere else. Bangladesh, Africa, Philippines perhaps? Then we observe these countries whose population subset is actually able to move to a different, richer location (such as Maghreb countries) and we see apparent lack of serious economic growth, industry development and general instability. Makes one question all of your assumptions.
postmodfemenist 3y ago
From a planet point of view let me assure you that fewer young Japanese people running around helps absolutely nobody and nothing.
- cmews 3y ago
  Except fish populations in the oceans. Japanese are well known for their very high fish consumption
  - postmodfemenist 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - flangola7 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - dredmorbius 3y ago
        <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36796212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36796212>
        flangola7 3y ago
        What does that have to do with religion?
        dredmorbius 3y ago
        Dang, if you're not aware, is HN's moderator: <https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/the-lonely-work-of-moderating-hacker-news https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...>
        flangola7 3y ago
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
It's not clear to me that fertility will ever rebound. Is there a scenario, where some little Japanese girl who has been the only child from only children for 4 or 5 or 10 generations wakes up one morning and says to herself "I want to grow up to be a mommy and have 2.1 children"? And, if she doesn't do that, then some other little girl in Japan has to say that same thing but with a number higher than 2.1. Why would they buck the trends of their own ancestors, their own family? Surely, it looks similar to the ancient past where some lineage looks as if the same happened. But that was because only one offspring survived to adulthood, and then of his or her children only one survived. But they were having many more with tragic results. Those children, for as long as they lived, existed in a world where people were trying to have many. This is the part where people reply to me as if I were crazy. But children who grow up seeing those adults around them having few children internalize that as normal, and don't seek to have more than that number.
- Ygg2 3y ago
  > It's not clear to me that fertility will ever rebound. It might. But it won't be pretty. Either the land will be taken over by new arrivals that will assimilate and their increased fertility will lift fertility. Another scenario is that things go pear shaped and fertility rises because of uncertainty.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago
  [dead]
- kalleboo 3y ago
  > "I want to grow up to be a mommy and have 2.1 children" I live in Japan and have Japanese friends. Lots of Japanese I know want to have kids, and wouldn't mind having 3 or more kids. They love kids! And it's still the dream of many women here to get married, have kids, and be a housewife since they know how terrible the careers are in this country. But 1 or 2 is the limit due to work/time, finances, practicality (housing, vehicles/public transit). The families I know with more kids are the ones who can afford having a housewife or who have multi-generational homes (live-in grandparents). What I'm trying to say is that I think one major reason people aren't having more kids isn't because they don't want them, but because society isn't built to enable them to.

Thorrez 3y ago

Lifting retirement age will happen at the same time as increasing the quality of life? Wouldn't the retirement age only need to be increased if there's a problem? And wouldn't there being a problem mean quality of life has a problem? Also, look at cities that have had a decreasing population, such as Detroit. They don't look so good.

andyferris 3y ago
In Detroit I think unemployment rose (and quality of life declined) before the population started to shrink - the order of the cause and effect are important! OTOH in countries with decreasing overall populations due to birth rate and not lack of economic opportunity (emmigration), it might be possible to sustain high employment rates, low crime, and good quality of life. (There might be more need to fund social services, however, if the population is also aging).

ramraj07 3y ago

There will be a period of massive upheaval when the fundamental tenet of all economic models and assumptions (perpetual growth) is completely chronically invalidated and we run out of resources as the models reset to something that’s absolutely zero sum (as it should be). Great suffering and fighting can be expected during this period.

Barrin92 3y ago
while the question is open if economic growth will continue forever neither resources or population are an issue. The German economy say, has grown by 400% since the 1970s in real terms while the population has stayed stable. Energy use has slightly fallen over the last few decades. Economic growth is technologically driven and developed economies are at or already past peak resources consumption.
- bitschubser_ 3y ago
  i'm no economist... but didn't externalizing a lot of production offset the missing population growth? So germany just externalized raw material extraction and production but still kept the profits?
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Germany has also "climbed the value ladder" focusing on production of high-value goods whilst counting on imports to provide for low-value ones. Some of that is of course classic Ricardian "comparative advantage" of trade. Much is, though, outsourcing high-impact / high-resource / high-effluent production to elsewhere.
- ramraj07 3y ago
  More fundamentally I’m not convinced that we are not in a zero sum game as seems to be assumed under all economic theory.
  - imtringued 3y ago
    Entropy is inherently a zero sum game. We have a given level of energy reserves and all we do is transform what we have into a different form. Economists confuse an increase in the extraction rate as some kind of "creating something from nothing" but actually a better analogy is "traveling to previously unreachable places".
photonbeam 3y ago

jgilias 3y ago

I come from a place that has experienced a population drop of ~30% over the last ~30 years. During the same time period inflation adjusted GDP has ~doubled, quality of life has increased immensely. Granted, all of this is due to historically extraordinary events playing out. But still, less population doesn’t necessarily imply no or negative growth. There’s an interplay of factors affecting if growth is possible, and population is just one parameter of those.

ChatGTP 3y ago
This is because your still able to access all the benefits of globalization. You probably have things like cheaper property prices and access to all the latest tech. You're basically leaching off goods and services provided by those in high growth areas. I think the idea is we might reach a point where globalization itself is hard to maintain and then things start to unwind, dramatically fast.
- perryizgr8 3y ago
  > You're basically leaching off goods and services provided by those in high growth areas. Exactly. Extolling the virtues of low population growth because it enables a higher quality of life is misguided. Your life is higher quality because billions in China are toiling away in inhuman conditions, making goods for you, and unable to move to your location.
  - postmodfemenist 3y ago
    Isn't it great? Nixon was a goddamn genius. Too bad that free ride is winding down, I hope some other mass of people assume that role so I can continue to enjoy myself. Before you yell at me consider that China lifted an unprecedented amount of people out of even more inhumane conditions as a result of this process.
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    People in China are also experiencing immense economical growth. Eventually they will indeed run out of people willing to do lower level jobs in the factories, then economic growth can move somewhere else. Bangladesh, Africa, Philippines perhaps? Then we observe these countries whose population subset is actually able to move to a different, richer location (such as Maghreb countries) and we see apparent lack of serious economic growth, industry development and general instability. Makes one question all of your assumptions.

postmodfemenist 3y ago

From a planet point of view let me assure you that fewer young Japanese people running around helps absolutely nobody and nothing.

cmews 3y ago
Except fish populations in the oceans. Japanese are well known for their very high fish consumption
- postmodfemenist 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - flangola7 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - dredmorbius 3y ago
      <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36796212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36796212>
      - flangola7 3y ago
        What does that have to do with religion?
        dredmorbius 3y ago
        Dang, if you're not aware, is HN's moderator: <https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/the-lonely-work-of-moderating-hacker-news https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...>
        flangola7 3y ago

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

It's not clear to me that fertility will ever rebound. Is there a scenario, where some little Japanese girl who has been the only child from only children for 4 or 5 or 10 generations wakes up one morning and says to herself "I want to grow up to be a mommy and have 2.1 children"? And, if she doesn't do that, then some other little girl in Japan has to say that same thing but with a number higher than 2.1. Why would they buck the trends of their own ancestors, their own family? Surely, it looks similar to the ancient past where some lineage looks as if the same happened. But that was because only one offspring survived to adulthood, and then of his or her children only one survived. But they were having many more with tragic results. Those children, for as long as they lived, existed in a world where people were trying to have many. This is the part where people reply to me as if I were crazy. But children who grow up seeing those adults around them having few children internalize that as normal, and don't seek to have more than that number.

Ygg2 3y ago
> It's not clear to me that fertility will ever rebound. It might. But it won't be pretty. Either the land will be taken over by new arrivals that will assimilate and their increased fertility will lift fertility. Another scenario is that things go pear shaped and fertility rises because of uncertainty.
Slava_Propanei 3y ago
[dead]
kalleboo 3y ago
> "I want to grow up to be a mommy and have 2.1 children" I live in Japan and have Japanese friends. Lots of Japanese I know want to have kids, and wouldn't mind having 3 or more kids. They love kids! And it's still the dream of many women here to get married, have kids, and be a housewife since they know how terrible the careers are in this country. But 1 or 2 is the limit due to work/time, finances, practicality (housing, vehicles/public transit). The families I know with more kids are the ones who can afford having a housewife or who have multi-generational homes (live-in grandparents). What I'm trying to say is that I think one major reason people aren't having more kids isn't because they don't want them, but because society isn't built to enable them to.