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>economies run on labor and skill, and growth or shrinking of a labor pool has serious ramifications. [...] In most countries with low birth rates, it would be

>economies run on labor and skill, and growth or shrinking of a labor pool has serious ramifications. [...] In most countries with low birth rates, it would be extremely beneficial to everyone there to boost population growth through immigration. It is possible to make the argument that negative birth rates are either (1) a result of overpopulation correcting itself or (2) a result of social problems relating to factors like marriage and career goals. I would consider (1) to be a strong form of this argument and (2) to be a weak form. (1) being true implies that there is essentially no way to maintain first world living standards at the current level of population in first world countries, and that the population actually should go down in the short term (say over the next few decades or so) until it reaches some balanced level at which the birth rate would likely naturally return to ~2.1 This seems like it may actually be the case in certain countries like Japan and Korea where most of the population lives in high density cities and it is even more clear in cities like Hong Kong which has a population density of 7,060 people per square kilometer[0] and a birth rate of 0.7.[1] and Singapore. If (1) is true, high immigration would always be a net negative in the long term. If (2) is true immigration is acting as a band-aid for solving that problem, and once that problem is solved the specific argument you gave in favor of immigration would not be valid anymore. I think both (1) and (2) are true to different degrees in different countries. It is hard to argue that the issue with eg. Singapore's low birth rate has nothing to do with it having the third highest population density in the world.[2-3] Some European cities also have extremely high density cities such as Paris, but there is considerable variability, which leads me to the conclusion that the answer involves both (1) and (2). >It sucks when someone is outcompeted by immigrant labor, but that should probably prompt some self reflection -- how can someone new to a country substitute into their job? And why weren't they doing more to find a job where that wasn't possible? One reason might be that immigrants are willing to work for less pay. Additionally immigrant families are more likely to live in denser housing, for example in multi-generational or multi-family households, to reduce cost of living,[4-6] which is something non-immigrants generally do not want to do. These are just two among perhaps dozens of factors. The two above factors are related to my earlier point about there potentially being "no way to maintain first world living standards at the current level of population in first world countries." [0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?locations=HK https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?locations=H... [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=HK https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location... [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?locations=SG https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.DNST?locations=S... [3] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=SG https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location... [4] https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OHE/Pages/HCI-Housing-Overcrowding.aspx https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OHE/Pages/HCI-Housing-Overc... - California. Data broken down by race rather than immigration status but should correlate with immigration status. [5] https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2023.S0501 https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2023.S0501 - US. See "1.01 or more occupants per room." Also compare average household size and average number of rooms. [6] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12187-020-09743-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12187-020-09743-7 - Finland

0dayz 2y ago
I highly disagree, we don't know for sure what is causing people not to have kids. However it's much more likely to be that it's due to the atomonization of society and as such people have a hard time raising kids.
- fngjdflmdflg 2y ago
  When you say you disagree, is it with (1), (2) or both? If you meant you disagree with (1) but agree with (2), which seems to be the case based on your comment, why is there an inverse correlation between population density and TFR in developed countries?[0] It seems obvious that housing prices in a given city will in general increase and house size will decrease according to population density. If that is the case, it follows that potential parents will need to work longer before having children, which in turn decreases TFR. Look at apartment size in the US vs East Asia, for example.[1-3] It seems impossible for population density to increase while dwelling size remains constant, unless there is gap between the "legal" boundaries of a city in terms of what is counted toward population density and the "real" city which then would have to start out as smaller and grow larger at the outskirts. [0] https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2002.1117 https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2002.1117 - "When explaining the level of fertility, population density comes out second in importance after female literacy, yet still well ahead of the traditionally studied factors: female labour force participation, income, urbanization and food security. This strong negative effect of population density on the level of fertility five years later is statistically significant in almost all years, both at the global level and among the sub-group of developing countries. " Note that this is after trying to account for other factors: "It is worthwhile to have a closer look at this apparently strong bivariate relationship between density and fertility because it might not really reflect a causal relationship, but rather could be due to some other developmental variables in the background, such as level of income or level of education that might simultaneously lead to lower fertility and make higher population densities possible. For this reason tables 3, 4 and 5 give sets of multiple regressions that study the relationship of population growth and fertility to population density while controlling some of the other social and economic variables measured." (Developing countries also show an inverse correlation, as mentioned in the quote) [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/average-u-s-apartment-sizes-are-shrinking-survey-says/ https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/average-u-s-apartment... - "According to a new report, the average size of a new apartment in 2022 was less than 900 square feet." [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1350102/usa-apartment-size-by-city/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1350102/usa-apartment-si... - The smallest city by apartment size is Seattle at 689 square feet and then Minneapolis at 720. Both do not have a very high densities compared to the largest US cities by density. Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, SF and DC are next in that list, however, and they are all high density. I will also note that apartments do not automatically shrink when population density increases and there are a lot of historical factors that perhaps play a larger role for the size of apartments as well as the difference between the legal boundaries of a city and the boundaries of the city as relevant to this discussion. This said, landlords theoretically should opt to convert one large apartment to two smaller ones (or two large ones to three smaller ones) although I don't know how common that actually is given you need to install new plumbing, gain permits etc. to do that. [3] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Property/Living-large-Hong-Kong-moves-out-of-pint-sized-nano-flats https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Property/Living-lar... - "The average median per capita size of a Hong Kong dwelling is 172 sq. feet, smaller than Tokyo at 210 sq. feet, Singapore's 270 sq. feet and Shenzhen at 300 sq. feet."

0dayz 2y ago

I highly disagree, we don't know for sure what is causing people not to have kids. However it's much more likely to be that it's due to the atomonization of society and as such people have a hard time raising kids.

fngjdflmdflg 2y ago
When you say you disagree, is it with (1), (2) or both? If you meant you disagree with (1) but agree with (2), which seems to be the case based on your comment, why is there an inverse correlation between population density and TFR in developed countries?[0] It seems obvious that housing prices in a given city will in general increase and house size will decrease according to population density. If that is the case, it follows that potential parents will need to work longer before having children, which in turn decreases TFR. Look at apartment size in the US vs East Asia, for example.[1-3] It seems impossible for population density to increase while dwelling size remains constant, unless there is gap between the "legal" boundaries of a city in terms of what is counted toward population density and the "real" city which then would have to start out as smaller and grow larger at the outskirts. [0] https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2002.1117 https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2002.1117 - "When explaining the level of fertility, population density comes out second in importance after female literacy, yet still well ahead of the traditionally studied factors: female labour force participation, income, urbanization and food security. This strong negative effect of population density on the level of fertility five years later is statistically significant in almost all years, both at the global level and among the sub-group of developing countries. " Note that this is after trying to account for other factors: "It is worthwhile to have a closer look at this apparently strong bivariate relationship between density and fertility because it might not really reflect a causal relationship, but rather could be due to some other developmental variables in the background, such as level of income or level of education that might simultaneously lead to lower fertility and make higher population densities possible. For this reason tables 3, 4 and 5 give sets of multiple regressions that study the relationship of population growth and fertility to population density while controlling some of the other social and economic variables measured." (Developing countries also show an inverse correlation, as mentioned in the quote) [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/average-u-s-apartment-sizes-are-shrinking-survey-says/ https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/average-u-s-apartment... - "According to a new report, the average size of a new apartment in 2022 was less than 900 square feet." [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1350102/usa-apartment-size-by-city/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1350102/usa-apartment-si... - The smallest city by apartment size is Seattle at 689 square feet and then Minneapolis at 720. Both do not have a very high densities compared to the largest US cities by density. Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, SF and DC are next in that list, however, and they are all high density. I will also note that apartments do not automatically shrink when population density increases and there are a lot of historical factors that perhaps play a larger role for the size of apartments as well as the difference between the legal boundaries of a city and the boundaries of the city as relevant to this discussion. This said, landlords theoretically should opt to convert one large apartment to two smaller ones (or two large ones to three smaller ones) although I don't know how common that actually is given you need to install new plumbing, gain permits etc. to do that. [3] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Property/Living-large-Hong-Kong-moves-out-of-pint-sized-nano-flats https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Property/Living-lar... - "The average median per capita size of a Hong Kong dwelling is 172 sq. feet, smaller than Tokyo at 210 sq. feet, Singapore's 270 sq. feet and Shenzhen at 300 sq. feet."