The global fertility rate is falling • Hacker News Board

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#381

Post by novia » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 6:33 AM UTC

ggggtez wrote: post #235

manquer wrote: post #197

One aspect this article does not address at all is the massive sex ratio imbalance in India and China (for different reasons) at around 1,100 men for every 1000 women. This means there are 100 million girls less today in these countries alone, finding a suitable partner becomes harder and there are lesser number of couples will be there in the first place who can have kids The 2.1 replacement is perhaps not adequate…

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…

>If the birth rate remains at 2.1 you can have as many miscarriages as you want, and the population will still increase.

2.1 children per woman is the REPLACEMENT rate, meaning this is what it would take for the population size to remain roughly the same. One kid to replace her, one kid to replace a random dude (not necessarily the father!), and .1 kids to make up for the kids that die before they reach adulthood.

This does not mean that every woman needs to have children. it means that the total number of children divided by the total amount of women needs to be 2.1 for the population to remain stable

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#382

Post by novia » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 6:34 AM UTC

globular-toast wrote: post #376

gregfjohnson wrote: post #357

The Hacker News comment section tends to be factual, rational, and logical. So - this may be out of place, but here goes. When making decisions about whether or not to have children, we operate in a state of partial information. (This is of course true of all decisions.) I would like to contribute a bit of information. I'm 66, and have three children and four grandchildren. My adult children are the most wonderful pe…

A lot of those people alone in care homes have children. They just don't care. You can never know what the future holds so make reasonable plans but above all just enjoy your life and make yourself useful while you can. You have a therapist so you're not really selling the whole child lifestyle to me.

Therapy ≠ dysfunction

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#383

Post by ixacto » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 6:36 AM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #187

corysama wrote: post #90

This article is quite exasperated, but doesn't say much. I'm far from an expert in this area, but here's what I've read elsewhere: We're quickly moving from the population explosion problem to the population implosion problem. No one planned it or made it happen. But, it looks like we're not actually going to overflow the planet with people standing shoulder to shoulder. Instead, the problem we're facing moving forwa…

Here are two scary storylines that get discussed pretty regularly here on HN: a) AI and machine learning will raise productivity so much that they will steal millions of jobs from people. b) Global population will eventually go into decline, which will crash the economy by killing growth. But, these two stories look far less scary when considered together. In fact they seem directly complementary, although the timing…

C) We will develop anti-aging treatments due to increased funding of SENS and similar projects. Combine that with a universal basic income and robots and you get a much better picture of the future.

Edit: we are also not taking into account artificial gestation methods that may be developed in the next 100 years. In 2120 it may seem as barbaric as child labor and other 19th century atrocities to actually have a woman carry through a pregnancy, not to say that religious fundamentalists will want to continue the practice.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#384

Post by newyankee » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 6:37 AM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #271

sumedh wrote: 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.

These projections do not account for increase in life expectancy. India is projected to peak at 1.7 b, if you consider Indian subcontinent as an entity, it puts the population of South Asia at 2.25 b. Not a good sight when coupled with unreliable climate, water scarcity, unlivable summer temperatures and no direct opportunities which means corruption may lead to feudalism of the yore.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#385

Post by ralfd » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 6:39 AM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #193

> migration will become a necessity for all nations and not an option Looks like the projections contradict this in at least two ways: 1. The population of the United States is projected to grow slightly, so it's not "all nations" 2. The population of two of the most currently populous countries, China and India will drop so precipitously that I'm not sure where they expect the "migration" to come from.

Africa.

https://www.hoover.org/research/africa-2050-demographic-trut...

Specifically graphs like this: https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/goldstone_africa_...

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#386

Post by irrational » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 6:39 AM UTC

kasrkin623 wrote: post #364

echelon wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 peop…

Who wants to live in Georgia though? I mean this unironically, there's not much to do in terms of entertainment and opportunities for a young 20 yo vs LA or NY

Isn't Atlanta a major metropolitan city? I would assume that many of the same opportunities present in LA or NY wold be available there. I live in Portland, OR and there are tons of 20 year olds here and we are a very very tiny city.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#387

Post by newyankee » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 6:39 AM UTC

tuatoru wrote: post #317

mdorazio wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: major world problems like climate change are a direct result of having too many people, and more specifically having too many people living unsustainable lifestyles. Worse, a large percentage of the world's population is now moving out of sustainable living into unsustainable living as a result of globalization (as people gain more wealth, they tend to want things like more meat and driving a car). The…

> Counterpoint: major world problems like climate change are a direct result of having too many people Not exactly. The bottom 85% (in income terms) of the global population contribute very little to unsustainability. There are too many people in OECD countries, perhaps.

That is also partly because bottom 50% don't have decent lifestyles. Try commuting for 1.5 hrs in packed local trains in Mumbai and you will definitely wish for a slightly higher carbon footprint in exchange for a better quality of life. Off course, USA standards is unsustainable for the world, but at the least Japanese standards of living are like human rights.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#388

Post by mxcrossb » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 6:42 AM UTC

creato wrote: 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…

Lack of economic opportunity is largely a man made problem due to poor social institutions. Unfortunately a reduced population size won’t fix that.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#389

Post by slim » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 6:44 AM UTC

corysama wrote: post #90

This article is quite exasperated, but doesn't say much. I'm far from an expert in this area, but here's what I've read elsewhere: We're quickly moving from the population explosion problem to the population implosion problem. No one planned it or made it happen. But, it looks like we're not actually going to overflow the planet with people standing shoulder to shoulder. Instead, the problem we're facing moving forwa…

  No one planned it or made it happen

are you serious ? UN planned this since the 70' there's policies and support for developing countries at the global scale for implementing birth control

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#390

Post by DoingIsLearning » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 6:44 AM UTC

Arn_Thor wrote: post #164

anon9001 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely pushed from the top. Nobody outside of extreme religious communities sees increasing the population as a noble goal. At least in the US, children are effectively a tax on the working class. How many people do you know that had to keep working to put their kids through college? Why do workplaces have tax-incentivized college savings accounts? Why does it cost employees to add children to employer-spons…

This article is about global birth rates falling, which is true. But your comment is about conditions specific to the US. Yet birth rates are falling in countries which don't have the warped incentives you point out in the states, and where having children is supported (see Europe, much of Asia, etc.). So although you accurately point out that there are downsides, if not disincentives, to having kids in the US, that…

> having children is supported (see Europe...

I politely disagree, the childcare support and social services you have in Europe are not an incentive in anyway, for the large majority of countries here, they are a mitigation at best.

The majority of young europeans in fertile age, continue to struggle with housing costs (high rents high down payments) and salaries not in line with COL until far too late in their careers, if not indefinitely. Those two are the major drivers for 'post-poning' having children in IMHO.