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The global fertility rate is falling

bbc.com

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Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#401

Post by kamaal »

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…

>>This means there are 100 million girls less today in these countries alone

Actual numbers are way off the real numbers.

In my kids school you can see a very noticeably difference in the count of boys and girls in any standard and section. It's noticeable to a point, if you walk in to a classroom you can see at least visually boys outnumber girls by a good enough difference.

I also refuse to believe this due to infanticide or foeticide. The dirty little secret is at least in most urban centers, even tier 2 cities, these practices are dead today. You can't blame these practices for the difference anymore. How then is the difference arising?

Again on a pure anecdotal evidence basis, I see people who have boys tend to have more boys. That is male kids are born more to families with more male kids. Also having the first kid as a boy couples tend to go in for more kids. On the other hand these days if some one had a daughter as the first child they don't even bother to have another child. This way boys are born way ore than. This is a huge problem. Reason being this is not wrong by any means. This not illegal or unethical. Yet it creates a larger social problem.

These problems will never go away in India as long as there are big fat wedding expenses(Pretty much entirely paid by the girls side) and dowry. And girls not allowed to take care of their parents, both in presence help and financial help.

The other part is of course due to Thyroid illness become prevalent in India. Many couples aren't able to have kids.

I expect the gender ratio imbalance to not only continue but get way worse in India. Like really to a point, where an upper middle class man wouldn't be able to find a bride after decades of searching.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#402

Post by mlyle »

nostromo wrote: post #391
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…

This is a bit like hearing a successful startup founder speak about the joys of success. It’s absolutely correct, but it’s also just one data point. Keep in mind, most of the lonely old people you see have children. And I’m not sure it’s a good, caring thing to tell childless people that they will be lonely in old age, because it need not be true.

A different view from one engaged in parenting 3 boys (11, 9, 6):

Having kids is very little fun. It is work. But helping new people to be the best people they can be is fulfilling, joyful work.

We're having one of our roughly weekly sleepovers tonight where we all spread out cots on the family room floor. (Everyone falls asleep before me, and so sometimes I make my way online). I like this time because we have a long talk about the world as they get sleepy and settled. Now I hear all these people I deeply love breathe and shift and sleep and feel contentment. Tomorrow there will be problems to solve. As they grow older, the problems become less frequent... and more complicated.

I sure hope they continue to be a big part of my life in their adulthood, but that's not exactly why one does it.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#404

Post by throwaway936482 »

creato wrote: post #375
fiblye wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I'm not so sure about that. Loads of wealth is consolidated at the top, both in terms of economic class and age. People who got their jobs and attained management positions after barely graduating high school are demanding ba…

You are thinking very short term and in a very narrow range of conditions around our current economic situation. We have never seen economic conditions remotely close to what we would see if the population were actually shrinking.

It's not actually that unusual for a country to have a shrinking population. Italy, Croatia, Lithuania, and a few other central and Eastern European countries currently have declining populations, as does Japan, some due to ageing and a drop in fertility and some due to that plus emigration. Economically and socially they've not entered into the death spiral some people seem to think will happen and are actually doing alright. Countries with declining populations due to war, economic collapse etc. are a different matter but in those cases the decline in population is a symptom not a cause. The transition to a shrinking world population will happen gradually over a period of decades and at different times in different areas of the works giving us plenty of time to for economic and social structures to adapt to deal with it. If it were to happen over night we would be in trouble but it won't.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#405

Post by Santosh83 »

mchusma wrote: post #205

I hope Humanity grows many orders of magnitude larger and expands across the galaxy. The universe will be a more interesting place. Some people here are saying this is good for the environment. Having 20% fewer people won't do that. Clean energy and other technology will. You can easily fit 100B humans on earth, with more of the earth dedicated to nature preserves. (Maybe a trillion people https://youtu.be/8lJJ_QqIVn…

A human being can fit into approximately 2x2 feet cylinder. I propose packing the entire accessible Universe with a human being per such cylinder stacked alongside each other with no padding/margin between cylinders.

We will thus avoid shrinking into extinction and maximally populate all available 3-dimensional space.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#406

Post by dang »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #148
empath75 wrote: post #27

Why is immigration not the answer to this? Eventually developed countries are going to have to get over their bigotry and open the borders.

get over our bigotry against female genital mutilation, honor killings, and acid attacks. got it.

We've banned this account since you've ignored our requests to stop using the site for flamewar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#407

Post by mlyle »

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…

> 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.

An economy exists to fulfill human needs of various kinds-- making stuff, providing services, etc. Old people intensively consume (medical services, etc) and don't produce anymore. Getting too high of a ratio of old people therefore has some impacts beyond equilibrium labor prices.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#408

Post by dang »

empath75 wrote: post #27

Why is immigration not the answer to this? Eventually developed countries are going to have to get over their bigotry and open the borders.

Please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN. You've been doing it a lot, it's not what this site is for, it destroys what it is for, and we eventually ban such accounts.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#409

Post by mrmonkeyman »

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.

This is true. A lot of folks are disgustingly bad at parenting and then expect eternal love. It does not work like that.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#410

Post by mellosouls »

thehappypm wrote: post #206

Give it a few generations. In the past, having a family was status quo and basically required. Now, it’s a choice. Natural selection will heavily favor those with the “I want kids!” gene.

Astute observation, but given the fact that we also seem to be seeing an increase in fatherless/split families (indicating poor choice in parenting partners and decisions) it's not likely to simply see-saw back in necessarily healthy ways.
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