Except in Africa.
The world natural increase map is most interesting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_...
No one wants to have kids anymore
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Re: No one wants to have kids anymore
#22Does the change over from home manufactured children to imported mirror the offshoring of North American industry? This could be an inevitable outcome of optimizing for labor costs.
Re: No one wants to have kids anymore
#23As well written and funny as the article is it still finds itself in a tunnel vision scenario because if the population is rising continuously and no one wants to have kids anymore then where are all these extra kids coming from?
Population growth is both more kids being born, and people living longer. We're now in the people living longer stage. Hans Rosling did a simple demonstration of this with boxes over a decade ago. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_global_population_gro... edit: better illustration of the point, still Hans with Boxes here: https://youtu.be/2LyzBoHo5EI?t=203
It’s also survival rates of the babies being born. People don’t realize how many babies died back in the day.
Re: No one wants to have kids anymore
#24Paywall?
Re: No one wants to have kids anymore
#25Except in Africa. The world natural increase map is most interesting: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_...
Niger is going to be insane real soon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Niger
50% of the population under 14 years old right now
Re: No one wants to have kids anymore
#26> Don't fool yourself; we're not overpopulating ourselves to global economic and environmental meltdown; Yes we are. Yes. We. Are. Let it happen. I'll start panicking if the human population is still decreasing at 100 million. But for now, we are still growing.
Even if you believe that the earth is overpopulated and think a shrinking population is good, you still need to consider the sustainability of that population change.
Birth rates below replacement means that the proportion of elderly increases every year, forever. This means an every increasing proportion of resources has to be transferred from the working to non-working population.
It will become harder and harder for young people to build wealth and support themselves and it means fewer resources to solve the other very big problems we have such as climate change.
Re: No one wants to have kids anymore
#27I think it cliche to believe it's strictly a financial decision. In fact, in the West (afaik) the middle and upper class have a lower birth rates than those below them. Not to get subjective and fuzzy but children are a symbol of hope and promise. Any reasonable adult who is considering children has to ask themselve how to answer when the child asks, "Why? Why did you bring me into *this* world?" Who has a good answe…
>Who has a good answer for that at this point?
There likely isn't a satisfactory answer for everyone but I consider our job (as a whole) to move the human civilization forward. Every person can help take the one small step they can and it may not even be in the direction we intended it to be. My job as a parent is to provide the nurturing environment for my son to develop that sense of self and direction so he can find his purpose.
So while I work to make the better place for my son to live in, I can't solve all the problems we face. It is up to people collectively to overcome those burdens and the trip we make along the way is part of it.
For all the grief, hardship and depression we see in the world, Joy, Love and Happiness still exists to be found and I'm doing my best to let my son find the latter while trying to shelter him from much of the former.
Re: No one wants to have kids anymore
#28I think it cliche to believe it's strictly a financial decision. In fact, in the West (afaik) the middle and upper class have a lower birth rates than those below them. Not to get subjective and fuzzy but children are a symbol of hope and promise. Any reasonable adult who is considering children has to ask themselve how to answer when the child asks, "Why? Why did you bring me into *this* world?" Who has a good answe…
isnt it U-shaped? after a certain level of wealth i think the rate goes back up?
Re: No one wants to have kids anymore
#29The only solution is to ban condoms. Will solve so many problems.
Btw this article neglects to mention a very important feedback loop: less babies equals less economic growth, which equals less babies because it’s too expensive, which in turn leads to less economic growth and so on.
Collapsing birth rates are a serious problem! You won’t notice until the country becomes a depopulated wasteland and then it will be too late to do anything about it - at least for 30 years.
Re: No one wants to have kids anymore
#30> Don't fool yourself; we're not overpopulating ourselves to global economic and environmental meltdown; Yes we are. Yes. We. Are. Let it happen. I'll start panicking if the human population is still decreasing at 100 million. But for now, we are still growing.
Humans are not “fungible”. Therefore: - Immigration will alter the societal outcomes of a region, for “better” or “worse”, as the region chooses - Destruction of productive and healthy societies by prolific but unhealthy ones will cause widespread harm. - Failure to reproduce at replacement levels won’t show up as a disaster until many years after it is too late to correct it. Wouldn’t it be better to aim to reduce h…
Human's at scale are fungible. "Destruction of productive and healthy societies by prolific but unhealthy ones". I hesitate to use the word dog whistle, but this is pretty inarguably racist. Unless you'd like to clarify which 'unhealthy' cultures you're referring to. For many value judgements, the lack of social cohesion, level of violent crime, historically high rates of imprisonment etc make the US an 'unhealthy culture'.