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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

#91

Post by COGlory »

mdorazio wrote: post #64
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…

How old is your age group? I noticed the same thing among my friends, but then also noticed they all didn't start having kids until mid-30s. It turns out career-oriented women are choosing to start having kids much later in their lives than in previous decades, which is definitely a compounding factor.

Late 20s to early 30s mostly. Some have been trying for years though.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#92

Post by jojobas »

aemreunal wrote: post #8

As the article points out, having a choice, and not being pressured by society into having kids one doesn't want, certainly is a good thing. On the other hand, as the article notes: > [...] cannot afford to have more children, or because of other policy failures, such as housing shortages [...] the financial aspect is a huge blocker for those who want to have children. We live in a world where the majority of young p…

Not having children at any particular level of "poverty" is still a choice. African women have >4 children in conditions that makes a food stamp life look like king's.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#93

Post by mlsu »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #80
mlsu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this take before, especially around climate and the environment. It's correct that having 20,000 humans on Earth would be more (actually indefinitely) sustainable. These "degrowth" strategies mean tremendous suffering. People have to die to make degrowth possible. Those who stick around have to suffer of curable medical complications. They have to live hard lives without the comforts of modern life. Why do…

> These "degrowth" strategies mean tremendous suffering. People have to die to make degrowth possible. But nobody's saying they have to die early. A fertility rate under replacement will lead to degrowth. Yes, it's going to be difficult during the degrowth phase (less young people to support the aged), but eventually the population will stabilize at a lower level and that will be better from both a sustainability and…

But not a human standpoint!

Billions of old people, dying alone.

I do not want to live in that world. Let alone encourage it!

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#94

Post by chii »

tus666 wrote: post #19

The worlds population is/was racing towards 10B. It's just too much. 2-3B is realistic. AI can take over where new workers would have filled in. A small elite living in an AI paradise just as SciFi predicted is the right time to be alive.

indeed. Though of course, you're assuming you're gonna be one of those 2-3 billion, and not the 7 billion that is killed/died...

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#95

Post by klipt »

lynx23 wrote: post #56
klipt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A shrinking population does eventually have to lead to smaller (or fewer) cities.

Why? What if those left alone in rural areas end up moving to cities for the exact reasons they already do? At least that is what happens right now. Rural areas do nothing to make the young stay. If you don't own a car, you are lost. Most jobs are mechanical in nature, software almost nowhere to be found. And the cities are growing, slowly, but they are. What maes you think this effect would be changed just because o…

Math? City population has to be smaller than total population. If total population eventually shrinks to zero, city population must eventually too.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#96

Post by throwapine »

mlsu wrote: post #54
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…

I've seen this take before, especially around climate and the environment. It's correct that having 20,000 humans on Earth would be more (actually indefinitely) sustainable. These "degrowth" strategies mean tremendous suffering. People have to die to make degrowth possible. Those who stick around have to suffer of curable medical complications. They have to live hard lives without the comforts of modern life. Why do…

Can you provide sources for those claims?

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#97

Post by amrocha »

mlsu wrote: post #54
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…

I've seen this take before, especially around climate and the environment. It's correct that having 20,000 humans on Earth would be more (actually indefinitely) sustainable. These "degrowth" strategies mean tremendous suffering. People have to die to make degrowth possible. Those who stick around have to suffer of curable medical complications. They have to live hard lives without the comforts of modern life. Why do…

Degrowth is about shifting our focus as a society from growth at all costs to sustainability and quality of life. It's not about killing people, it's not about worse medical care, it's not about less food.

Our current growth strategy is not sustainable. Growth as a goal has failed. If we need to take a step back to reevaluate how to do it right going forward, that's fine.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#98

Post by echelon »

dbgev wrote: post #84

Consider Victorian era Britain, when the average person is much poorer, the air is heavily polluted with coal use, and the medical care is almost non-existant by modern standards. Fertility rate is about 5-6. Then it dropped to around 3 over 100 years and has been on a steady downward trajectory ever since. This pattern is broadly replicated everywhere that industrializes. Whatever the cause, it's not due to wealth p…

100%

I think this popular narrative of "kids are too expensive" is mostly a media fiction. It's more about individual comfort. Money can be a factor in comfort, but it's hardly the only one.

Poorer immigrants tend to have many children. Even today, poorer people in general have more kids than wealthy folks. Just look at the data - it contradicts the headlines.

As Peter Zeihan likes to say, kids were free labor for the farm and made life easier. In today's world, they're expensive furniture for your condo or apartment and they break things.

People are focused on their own lives and careers and aren't ready to take a back seat and turn attention to children. They're main characters. I think a lot of folks feel that having children turns you into an NPC.

Poor people aren't climbing the corporate ladder. They don't need to worry about keeping their calendars clear for meetings. They're not filling their Instagram with travel photos.

Middle income folks have access to social media and easy dopamine hits. They want to stretch being single or unmarried or not having kids out longer and enjoy it more.

It's society, not wealth and cost of living, that is causing the dip in children.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#99

Post by thou32io4u3243 »

Good.

People are today essentially stand-ins for robots to work for elites who collude with each other and anyway deeply despise the 'plebs'. Little wonder, in this mad pursuit, there has been a big collapse in diversity of people, traditions, languages, cultures, are all a miniscule fraction of what they were when the world population was You can extend this to the way we treat animals and the world and things automatically make sense. Obviously uniformity has been good for control and productivity. And for what ?

Even the act of bringing up your child in a manner not dictated by the state and state-allied academics is seen as a act of iconoclasm in this day across the world. Little wonder it's very close to being criminalized.

Reminds me of the 'Clone army' from star wars.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#100

Post by mlsu »

saurik wrote: post #79
mlsu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this take before, especially around climate and the environment. It's correct that having 20,000 humans on Earth would be more (actually indefinitely) sustainable. These "degrowth" strategies mean tremendous suffering. People have to die to make degrowth possible. Those who stick around have to suffer of curable medical complications. They have to live hard lives without the comforts of modern life. Why do…

Is there a number between 20,000 (which seems so low as to not be a serious suggestion I have ever seen anyone make) and "growing forever"--for which there was that great analysis done by the physicist arguing with the economist, to whom they were trying to explain that even small amounts of growth forever led to us boiling our oceans with heat output to satisfy everyone's energy needs--that would work for you?

Not forever, of course. But we are so, so, so early.

How much energy is in all of the uranium that can be mined?

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