> It stands out that a worldwide event like coved won't alter the trajectory as far as I an see, on these trends. If i missed something long lasting on the natural reproductive rates of these economies id love to know. And that's a good thing, right?
It would be horrid if covid was visibly altering a long term trend even if it was net beneficial.
If covid leads to a long term increase in remote work that itself could lead to a change in demographics as people reduce moving to cities and away from family support networks, which could impact on fertility rates.
I think the assumption was that humans would continue growing exponentially until they reach the carrying capacity where they're all fighting for the same resources. Then the population stops increasing because there's not enough food/water/shelter to go around. What actually happened is people in rich countries have plenty of food/water/shelter to continue reproducing... if they wanted to. The thing the models didn'…
I recently heard about a survey where people on average said that they do want to have 2.something (lets say 2.4, but I don't remember the exact number) kids. I guess it is easier to prevent overshooting, but sometimes life circumstances prevent them from having as many as they wanted. That can be as simple reasons as not finding the right partner, etc. What you see less often though, is people that want to have 4 or…
> What you see less often though, is people that want to have 4 or 5 kids, which I think is stigmatized
That might vary by culture, but I can't think of a time when I've seen it be stigmatized. I imagine that current generations chose to have less than 4 kids for economic and quality of life reasons, not because they see having many kids as somehow wrong.
> we were taught about the idea of overpopulation in school That's a problem with school education. They give the wrong models. Exponential growth is impossible in nature because at some point it runs out of steam and fizzles out. Logistic curve or probit is a much better abstraction.
I think the assumption was that humans would continue growing exponentially until they reach the carrying capacity where they're all fighting for the same resources. Then the population stops increasing because there's not enough food/water/shelter to go around. What actually happened is people in rich countries have plenty of food/water/shelter to continue reproducing... if they wanted to. The thing the models didn'…
Added to this, their economy has boomed due to not having to invest in future generations. At some point of course these chickens will come home to roost when the current population hump gets to an age where they retire, but for a good 20 years it can be a massive economic boon.
>Added to this, their economy has boomed due to not having to invest in future generations. Can you clarify on what you mean by that please? Are you referring to pollution an environmental degradation?
Adults can work more and be more productive if they don’t have to take care of children
For me this stood out: "The reference projections for the five largest countries in 2100 were India (1·09 billion [0·72–1·71], Nigeria (791 million [594–1056]), China (732 million [456–1499]), the USA (336 million [248–456]), and Pakistan (248 million [151–427])." The big surprise being China,of-course. A drastic decrease projected in the coming 80 years.Should have policy consequences as well, I would think.
Isn’t this too much of variability. For example it projects India’s population range from 0.72B to 1.71B . That is like either being number one by a wide margin or dropping to 10th spot or lower.
> Longevity will mean increased fertility. I don't see how. We already live long enough to have a dozen kids per family. It's just that our society is structured such that raising kids is an expensive nightmare.
It’s not just about money, the enjoyment/benefits of having a child decreases dramatically with each child you have. Having more than 1/2 children is really tough on, particularly on the mother, both physically and mentally. If you have the choice most people will not opt for more than 2 or 3.
I heard the opposite, directly from people who have a lot of kids (one person I know has 13): it doesn't matter all that much in terms of labor how many you have if you have 3 or more. The first one is a lot of work, after that the increase is marginal. They begin to take care of each other more, which I think you will agree is a desirable thing for any human to learn early on. It's _slightly_ easier in terms of _marginal_ cost, too (younger kids can re-use clothing, toys, etc), but only marginal, the cost largely goes up linearly due to the impacts of daycare, tutoring, extracurriculars, and higher education, all of which are expensive AF in the US.
>Added to this, their economy has boomed due to not having to invest in future generations. Can you clarify on what you mean by that please? Are you referring to pollution an environmental degradation?
Adults can work more and be more productive if they don’t have to take care of children
>Added to this, their economy has boomed due to not having to invest in future generations. Can you clarify on what you mean by that please? Are you referring to pollution an environmental degradation?
Adults can work more and be more productive if they don’t have to take care of children
This is a non-issue for most asian countries. Grandparents and women who couldn't keep up with men in professional settings become caretakers. China's biggest issue is its population bomb not a lack of people to watch the kids.
"The global population was projected to peak in 2064 at 9·73 billion (8·84–10·9) people and decline to 8·79 billion (6·83–11·8) in 2100." Baseline of 9.73 billion. "China was forecasted to become the largest economy by 2035 but in the reference scenario, the USA was forecasted to once again become the largest economy in 2098" That sounds like they they forecast war? Also "meeting the Sustainable Development Goals tar…
They explained their methodology on forecasting these populations by factors such as birth rates, migration, and mortality rates. Where did you read the part that mentioned wars?