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Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

economist.com

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Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#41

Post by lynx23 »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #4

The weirdest part is that I’m pretty sure women generally want a replacement rate (or more!) number of children when surveyed, but feel like they’re unable to support that number. Why can’t we address those? Edited to ask: some replies seemed skeptical so I went to find what I based this idea off of. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/upshot/american-fertility... https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-many-kids-do-women-want

I am not sure it always just boils down to resources. I know cases where she decided to have no more kids after her first, because she realized raising kids is psychologically stressful. Being able to take the easy way out is definitely a factor, the question is how much it weights.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#42

Post by dragonwriter »

croes wrote: post #6

Wouldn't birth rate be a better word instead of fertility? There is a difference between not wanting and not being able.

> Wouldn’t birth rate be a better word instead of fertility?

Birth rate and fertility rate are related but different measures.

Birth rate: # of live births per population per unit time

(General) Fertility Rate: # of live births in a time period per woman of childbearing age (15-44 is one definition, not sure if it is the most common.)

(Total) Fertility Rate: splitting up a definition of childbearing age (often, slightly wider than that used for GFR on the high end; I’ve seen 15-49 used where 15-44 is used for GFR), into equal size age bands (e.g., 5 year bands), calculate the GFR for women in each band on an annual basis, multiply by the width of the bands, and sum; this represents an approximate measure of the expected lifetime births per woman.

Yes, this technical usage conflicts with some common uses of “fertility”, but technical jargon is that way.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#43

Post by judge2020 »

whaleofatw2022 wrote: post #33
throwaway29291 wrote: post #5

Perhaps, instead, we can see this as a good thing and plan a graceful way back to a more sustainable population over the course of a century. Just yesterday yet another in a long line of reports talked about how humanity has not just bent but likely broken many of the Earth's ecological boundaries that humans and non-humans alike depend upon. We've known this for decades -- mountains upon mountains of studies in ecol…

Unfortunately, the likely reality is that the ones who can afford to continue reproducing will also continue to consume an unfair amount of resources.

Consumption of resources in general is the problem, and that only happens at a scale where population growth remains stable or increases. It's not the difference between even 90% of newborns eventually doing something like modding their car to roll coal instead of using bike transportation.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#44

Post by mdorazio »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18
megablast wrote: post #3

Good. Most of our modern problems are due to too many people. House prices, inflation, traffic, pollution, climate change, food scarcity, water, etc...

> House prices, inflation, traffic…food scarcity NIMBYism, combination of bad monetary policy and a supply shock, and bad urban planning. Tokyo has cheaper homes and less traffic than cities with a fraction of the population in America.

Yes and no. In the US, the vast majority of Americans want to own a single family home, not a condo or apartment [1]. That brings with it the necessity of personal vehicle ownership, which then compounds urban planning and traffic issues. And of course, you can't make more land near cities where people want to live, so you end up in a scarcity situation as the population grows (US population grows by over 1 million per year, whereas Japan's is shrinking - those million+ people have to live somewhere).

We can say that American preferences are causing a lot of these issues, but then you have to make the argument that people shouldn't be able to get what they want.

[1] https://www.builderonline.com/money/economics/80-percent-of-...

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#45

Post by jimbob45 »

Collapsed? We're 0.2 above replacement rate coming off of a major worldwide pandemic. I'm forecasting that number to remain stable or even rise and I don't see much disagreement from mainstream news.

You wanna talk about collapse? Let's talk about South Korea.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#46

Post by hotpotamus »

xeromal wrote: post #38

Every comment I read about this is how low housing, low income, no time, etc is the cause of a global fertility drop, but I don't buy. Humans have been having boatloads of kids in horrible horrible times and they haven't been stopped until now.

Any theories as to the cause then?

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#48

Post by Wiki39366 »

COGlory wrote: post #32

I've been wondering a lot about fertility lately. Almost every married woman that I know of my age group is seemingly unable to have children, despite, in most cases, wanting to. This is often accompanied by PCOS, thyroid problems, or other strange but undiagnosed illnesses. The one exception to this seems to be those of Italian American vintage. Having grown up in Rhode Island I know quite a lot of Italian Americans…

[dead]

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#49

Post by gtaylor »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #11

This is the angle here. Don't stop the AI bandwagon! > With that in mind, recent advances in ai could not have come at a better time. An über-productive AI-infused economy might find it easy to support a greater number of retired people. Eventually ai may be able to generate ideas by itself, reducing the need for human intelligence.

Seems possible or even plausible, but can't help but feel like this takes us one step closer to:

> Welcome to Costco. I love you.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#50

Post by geodel »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18
megablast wrote: post #3

Good. Most of our modern problems are due to too many people. House prices, inflation, traffic, pollution, climate change, food scarcity, water, etc...

> House prices, inflation, traffic…food scarcity NIMBYism, combination of bad monetary policy and a supply shock, and bad urban planning. Tokyo has cheaper homes and less traffic than cities with a fraction of the population in America.

And how is Japanese population growing considering they have none of American problem of "bad urban planning", "bad monetary policy" , "NIMBYism" and so on?

Or -0.5% growth is impressive indeed?

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