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The global fertility rate is falling

bbc.com

341–350 of 881 posts

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#341

Well that is a particularly click baitey article. My index is failing me here but I recall a paper that had looked into falling birth rates as standards of living increased and found that birth rate correlated strongly with the "cost" of children. The supposition (it really wasn't a theory or even a solid hypothesis) was that as parents became more educated and society's measure of success became more material, the p…

> if the state provided support to people with larger families that offset their costs significantly

It's been tried, many times, without success.[1]

You could argue that those countries didn't try hard enough, but that's a fallacy the name of which escapes me for the moment.

[1] Demographers talk about a "low fertility trap": because young women grow up in a one-child environment, that is normal to them. They see their peers having one child, and they do too.

There are other factors besides re-norming: assortative mating is given a lot of weight; there are the effects of TV, social media, video games, shopping, and other distractions (measured as these things have diffused through countries and regions of countries). Check out a recent demography textbook.

(Fringe authors talk about the estrogen-like effects of obesity on sperm, and the 30% - 50% decline in micronutrients in food since the 1980s. They might be right, but they're fringe at present.)

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#342

The article talks about this slightly, but very long term humanity will need a stable fertility rate and I have no idea how it will happen. If the fertility rate keeps being below the replacement rate, at some point humanity will disappear. While short/medium term negative population growth might be a good thing, at some point we will need to do something.

If population keeps doubling every 60 years we will also disappear.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children inherently cost money. Someone has to pay it. You're trying to pretend like the system is designed to screw parents by burdening them with this cost source that is a child when simply put, children cost money. > How many people do you know that had to keep working to put their kids through college? College costs money. The incentives with government backed student debt has inflated that cost dramatically. Th…

I used to believe your line of reasoning, but I don't anymore. > It was a moral hazard of a bad policy intended to make college accessible but in turn caused massive tuition inflation. Do you really think that's unsolvable? That "bad policy" is corruption. That tuition inflation could be capped. > Again if there are higher costs, someone has to pay them. You would think we would all want to educate, insure, and suppo…

For your struggling friends, I found the problem:

"career people, and they're still struggling to save much of anything after childcare expenses"

That just isn't going to work. It can't. By law in most places, the ratio of childcare workers to children is limited. The work simply doesn't scale. Suppose the ratio is 1:4, and there is a 100% markup on the wages to pay for stuff like the building. Sending 4 kids will thus cost the pay of two workers. Dividing down, just 2 kids will cost as much as the typical parent might earn.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Premodern society where women were effectively property, where religion dictated their role, where marriage and a woman staying at home were the social norm. You're trying to pretend like social policy is a new thing when the Catholic Church has been controlling the rights of individuals for a very long time. To such an extent that Kings were generally subservient to the Pope. And then those Kings and Queens did acti…

Perhaps the "premodern societies" that are emphasized in educational settings had those qualities. Maybe that says more about our educational values than about premodern societies. Many ancient people didn't emphasize property in the first place. Many others were more matriarchal than patriarchal. Sure, Catholicism was fairly irredeemable...

> Sure, Catholicism was fairly irredeemable...

What a bigoted thing to say. Truly the last acceptable prejudice.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#345
It is disturbing that people take for granted that this is an economic problem. This thread is full of people lamenting the fact that we could support X times as many people as we do now if we all just sacrifice Y.

When I look around the world today, I think the biggest resource that is lacking is economic opportunity. Huge swathes of people are desperate, angry, and depressed, I think because there is no opportunity for them. The best case scenario for huge numbers of people is stagnation.

A shrinking, aging population would fix this problem. The demand for labor will go up, the supply will go down. Bad for the investor class looking for profits, good for reducing economic inequality. People will be able to profit from labor again.

The techno utopian solution of allocating everyone a 20 m^2 apartment, a vr headset, and 1500 calories of soylent per day is going to be a disaster unless you also allocate everyone some future drugs to keep them sedated.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now if we could just get the robots to pay social security It's called “taxing capital” and we can (logically; whether we have the political will is a different question.)

Political will quickly arises if there is loud public demand for it.

That is not true in the US. What happens in the senate has low overlap with what the public wants compared with what donors/lobbyists want.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#347
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially with all the doom and gloom we've always been fed Which is still true, if the billion Indians and Billion Chinese start having American lifestyles, that is just not sustainable for the planet.

India and China are both projected to have a <1B population by 2100.

I think by 2100 we have either solved this problem or is too late. I guess most likely the latter but there is still hope.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#349
post #345

It is disturbing that people take for granted that this is an economic problem. This thread is full of people lamenting the fact that we could support X times as many people as we do now if we all just sacrifice Y. When I look around the world today, I think the biggest resource that is lacking is economic opportunity. Huge swathes of people are desperate, angry, and depressed, I think because there is no opportunity…

> The techno utopian solution of allocating everyone a 20 m^2 apartment, a vr headset, and 1500 calories of soylent per day is going to be a disaster unless you also allocate everyone some future drugs to keep them sedated.

I don't know if you live in California, but I think that there's sort of a reality distortion field that comes with living in a big and expensive city.

Here in Georgia the rents are cheap and people seem to be moderately satisfied. A little money goes a long way. You can own acres of land dirt cheap and do with it whatever you want.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miscarriages are not births. If the birth rate remains at 2.1 you can have as many miscarriages as you want, and the population will still increase. The same with Hikkikomori, and gay people. As long as there is 2.1 children born for every woman, then the population will increase. The only factor which you mention that is correct is that in a society that murders female babies, then yes, you will need more than a 2.1…

You are failing to account for the gender imbalance. Consider an extreme gender ratio where for the 2.1 born for an average woman, there are 2 males and 0.1 females. This means that every generation will have 10X less women.

You can still grow, like India clearly shows, the woman just need to give birth more times.
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