3 ms·

There are ~8B people in the world, up from 1B in 1800 and around 1.7B in 1900. Lower fertility rates (as an outcome of family choice, not laws) than previous d

There are ~8B people in the world, up from 1B in 1800 and around 1.7B in 1900. Lower fertility rates (as an outcome of family choice, not laws) than previous does not sound like a disaster to me and may turn out to be an important part of ensuring the survival (and comfort) of the species.

armadsen 2y ago
I tend to agree, but it also is difficult for economies that have been built on the idea that growth can and will continue forever.
StopTheWorld 2y ago
Right. The current world population growth rate is about where it was at the time of World War II, and that growth rate was the highest it had been in about 8000 years. The baby boom in the 1950s and 1960s was a world-wide phenomena, and we are not at that peak now, but world population is currently growing faster than it did from 4000 BC to 1940. Some countries, like in the Baltics, are seeing population decline, but human population is still growing fairly quickly.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  And to complicate things, the population growth rate is not evenly distributed; combined with migration, it means many people get to observe a cultural transformation happening around them in real-time, which creates all sorts of reactions.
PheonixPharts 2y ago
From a ecology standpoint, you're correct, it would be better for the species if birthrates flatten out. However from an economics standpoint increasing numbers declining birthrates across the globe is disastrous. Capitalism works by continually passing the buck to the next generation. In order to maintain our current economy we need an ever larger amount of cheap labor creating affordable products. The only two solutions to this are to have a high birth rate or to take advantage of another country's high birthrate through immigration. Europe is seeing this as massive waves of immigration that many groups are uncomfortable with, but these immigrants are necessary to provide affordable labor in the face rapidly declining birthrates. But this economic salvation comes at a the cost of local culture. American's pride themselves on being a "melting pot" but not all European nations feel the same. The US has long relied on immigration for this, but if you look immigration has been flattening out [0] and the impact can be felt in the US. Labor based services are getting harder and harder to get and companies that require labor intensive industries like lumber are experiencing shutdowns because they cannot find enough affordable labor [1]. Again, from a purely ecological/sustainability standpoint this is good: reduced production means reduced consumption, much better for the planet. But this also translates to reduced quality of life. As this trend continues people will continue to find it harder and harder to get goods and services that require human labor. 0. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states-2024 https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested... 1. https://www.mtpr.org/2024-04-18/lumber-mill-closure-leaves-seeley-lake-wrestling-with-a-timberless-future https://www.mtpr.org/2024-04-18/lumber-mill-closure-leaves-s...
barbariangrunge 2y ago
A lot of people I know don’t have kids because they’re not able to, and many of the others have children with developmental challenges. Something is going on. Dismissing the problem when something is accidentally affecting a whole populations’ reproductive health is frankly dumb. Population reduction through policy is entirely different
- devilbunny 2y ago
  The people you know - and I am guessing here - probably waited too long to have kids. Biologically, we should be reproducing around age 20, but that’s not viable unless you’re either rich (parents fund you) or poor (the government does). I have no children and, barring some unusual happenstance, will not. But I knew that going into my marriage (heterosexual, we certainly could have had them).
david-gpu 2y ago
A an ever larger proportion of a population is too old to do significant amounts of work, the smaller proportion of healthy able bodied younger people is forced to pick up the slack. This goes from teachers, to truckers, to plumbers and beyond. This burden is made even worse as most developed countries have established pension systems that act as generational wealth transfers, where younger workers pay for the pensions of the elderly, in the hopes that the next generation of children will in turn pay for their parents' pensions. It gets worse: that large mass of retired people now represent the main block of voters, making it very difficult to enact pension reforms that will reduce the amount of money they siphon from younger generations. It is very easy to go from a sustainable stable population to a rapid population decline that is difficult to recover from.
- AstralStorm 2y ago
  It is also somewhat easy to get a slow burn of a decline. Somehow our expectations for birth rates are based on a period of a boom. Proper stats are not used for this purpose because they would clash with the prosperity narrative. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empi... Sample ignored statistics. The baby boom was fueled by enormous fall in childhood mortality. Otherwise the growth rates are apparently near zero... Our negative percentages are likely a correction over the sudden boom, which is why we see a similar reaction worldwide. Regardless of the housing prices, income or other reasons. Even in the Global South.

armadsen 2y ago

I tend to agree, but it also is difficult for economies that have been built on the idea that growth can and will continue forever.

StopTheWorld 2y ago

Right. The current world population growth rate is about where it was at the time of World War II, and that growth rate was the highest it had been in about 8000 years. The baby boom in the 1950s and 1960s was a world-wide phenomena, and we are not at that peak now, but world population is currently growing faster than it did from 4000 BC to 1940. Some countries, like in the Baltics, are seeing population decline, but human population is still growing fairly quickly.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
And to complicate things, the population growth rate is not evenly distributed; combined with migration, it means many people get to observe a cultural transformation happening around them in real-time, which creates all sorts of reactions.

PheonixPharts 2y ago

From a ecology standpoint, you're correct, it would be better for the species if birthrates flatten out. However from an economics standpoint increasing numbers declining birthrates across the globe is disastrous. Capitalism works by continually passing the buck to the next generation. In order to maintain our current economy we need an ever larger amount of cheap labor creating affordable products. The only two solutions to this are to have a high birth rate or to take advantage of another country's high birthrate through immigration. Europe is seeing this as massive waves of immigration that many groups are uncomfortable with, but these immigrants are necessary to provide affordable labor in the face rapidly declining birthrates. But this economic salvation comes at a the cost of local culture. American's pride themselves on being a "melting pot" but not all European nations feel the same. The US has long relied on immigration for this, but if you look immigration has been flattening out [0] and the impact can be felt in the US. Labor based services are getting harder and harder to get and companies that require labor intensive industries like lumber are experiencing shutdowns because they cannot find enough affordable labor [1]. Again, from a purely ecological/sustainability standpoint this is good: reduced production means reduced consumption, much better for the planet. But this also translates to reduced quality of life. As this trend continues people will continue to find it harder and harder to get goods and services that require human labor. 0. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states-2024 https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested... 1. https://www.mtpr.org/2024-04-18/lumber-mill-closure-leaves-seeley-lake-wrestling-with-a-timberless-future https://www.mtpr.org/2024-04-18/lumber-mill-closure-leaves-s...

barbariangrunge 2y ago

A lot of people I know don’t have kids because they’re not able to, and many of the others have children with developmental challenges. Something is going on. Dismissing the problem when something is accidentally affecting a whole populations’ reproductive health is frankly dumb. Population reduction through policy is entirely different

devilbunny 2y ago
The people you know - and I am guessing here - probably waited too long to have kids. Biologically, we should be reproducing around age 20, but that’s not viable unless you’re either rich (parents fund you) or poor (the government does). I have no children and, barring some unusual happenstance, will not. But I knew that going into my marriage (heterosexual, we certainly could have had them).

david-gpu 2y ago

A an ever larger proportion of a population is too old to do significant amounts of work, the smaller proportion of healthy able bodied younger people is forced to pick up the slack. This goes from teachers, to truckers, to plumbers and beyond. This burden is made even worse as most developed countries have established pension systems that act as generational wealth transfers, where younger workers pay for the pensions of the elderly, in the hopes that the next generation of children will in turn pay for their parents' pensions. It gets worse: that large mass of retired people now represent the main block of voters, making it very difficult to enact pension reforms that will reduce the amount of money they siphon from younger generations. It is very easy to go from a sustainable stable population to a rapid population decline that is difficult to recover from.

AstralStorm 2y ago
It is also somewhat easy to get a slow burn of a decline. Somehow our expectations for birth rates are based on a period of a boom. Proper stats are not used for this purpose because they would clash with the prosperity narrative. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empi... Sample ignored statistics. The baby boom was fueled by enormous fall in childhood mortality. Otherwise the growth rates are apparently near zero... Our negative percentages are likely a correction over the sudden boom, which is why we see a similar reaction worldwide. Regardless of the housing prices, income or other reasons. Even in the Global South.