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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

#121

Post by rideg »

I think there is an interesting aspect of the depopulation that I haven't seen discussed yet: the scientific progress.

If we have less and less people, there will be less brain power to innovate while as far as I can tell the innovation is getting more and more difficult as we moving forward. Just imagine inventing the wheel was probably easier than inventing the combustion engine.

I have a feeling that the huge technological advancements of the 20th century happened because of the exponentially increasing population. Also having more advanced technology helped back the population growth too.

So I think if the shrinking population will cause technological stagnation on top of the constant hardship due to the proportionally increasing number of elderly who need support.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#122

Post by pyuser583 »

klipt wrote: post #34
lynx23 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in my case, I moved to a city for more infrastructure, public transport and my job. I had absolutely no plans to raise kids there. In fact, most people I know move out of the city center to the suburbs once they have kids. I dont follow your analysis why less childbirth would automatically lead to deserted cities.

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

All it takes is people moving from rural areas to cities.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#123

Post by Clubber »

echelon wrote: post #98
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 th…

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

Yes, people want to party and be free and not have to be tied down and spend money on raising kids. Having kids is a pretty fulfilling experience though. It's not something I understood until I had some. The people that don't have kids will really struggle when they get old and infirm with no one to take care of them.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#124

Post by airgapstopgap »

aylmao wrote: post #106
klipt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

IMO this is getting a bit too ahead of ourselves. IIRC, Russia and Japan are the countries with the most population shrinkage, and they've just lost 5 million and 2.5 million people off their peak. - 5 million / 148 million is 3% down from peak for Russia. - 2.5 million / 128 million is 2% down from peak for Japan. Most importantly, Russia's population decline (which started before Japan's) has leveled off. It hit a…

Russian population decline has been compensated for with a great number of immigrants from Central Asia (plus occupied Crimea; that's not recognized internationally but is obviously a factor for their economy). It'd probably be more like 138 million modulo those and their children, perhaps less.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#125

Post by georgeg23 »

mlsu wrote: post #93
UncleOxidant wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

You mean billions of old people, dying together!

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#126

Post by Clubber »

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.

>10B. It's just too much. 2-3B is realistic.

What are you basing this on? Meaning, why is it too much, why is 2-3B the sweet spot?

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#127

Post by seydor »

every shortage is followed by glut which is followed by shortage. It's the opposite of the boomer era

> The obvious one is that it is getting harder to support the world’s pensioners

that was never taken for granted, the expansion of welfare was a happy accident of the largest generation the world will ever see. Also, the idea that real estate prices will keep going higher should not be taken for granted. Ideas like these are taken for granted because "boomer" generations were so dominant numerically -- and that s the reason why they loved democracy so much. We might see a regression in democracy as the world is becoming more and more expensive for everyone but the boomers.

Anti-fertility is driven by the anomalous cost structures that we have created: children require physical space , they are physical objects after all. But real estate is extremely unaffordable compared to most of history (when people just built their own homes), and nobody talks about it as a global crisis (people are worried that housing prices might fall and actively discourage buildiung for environmental reasons). Instead, luxuries such as travel , tourism and touchscreens are cheap and people flock to them.

Ironically low fertility will be used as a weapon for wages to go up, way up

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#128

Post by ChatGTP »

kajaktum wrote: post #112
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…

Do you think the world can sustain the lifestyle of the average American if the whole of Africa and China have it too? We need to change, and frankly those with privileges need to. Otherwise they would rightly claim that it is unfair.

I think what is more likely to happen is, as China and India become the worlds largest economic powers, and it will happen, it's just a matter of time, they will basically make the west poorer, that's how that issue will be solved. We just won't be able to afford the things we used to have.

Americans will mostly be jobless and replaced by automation, many goods will be exported and China will likely fair a lot better because it's already a place where "social credit" and other policies already exist which are more acceptable than what the USA will tolerate. Americans hate the idea of free healthcare and UBI for example.

I know the US media likes to pretend China is finished, but I really don't think that's the case, it will continue to grow, even if only by inertia.

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#129

Post by mlsu »

throwapine wrote: post #117
mlsu wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But not a human standpoint! Billions of old people, dying alone. I do not want to live in that world. Let alone encourage it!

The alternative is continue killing trillions of animals a year and polluting the air, water and soil until our biosphere is no longer suitable for many species including humans. At that point we can forget about exploring the stars or whatever.

The alternative to degrowth is actually trying to transcend these problems. I'm not blind to the problems we have here. They are hard, but human beings are pretty clever. We eradicated polio. Polio! I'd be dead in a week if a biologist I've never met hadn't invented a way to use bacteria as a nano-factory to mass-produce a molecule which does not exist in nature.

What you're saying is like saying "Let's not play the World Series, let's just go home and settle for 2nd. We'll still be a playoff team!"

Re: Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

#130

Post by pyuser583 »

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…

“Ecosystem contains society contains economy”

I hear this a lot, but it seems more like a slogan.

Ecologists have disproven dialectical materialism? Or Hegelian idealism? I doubt that very much.

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