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India's surprise baby bust

economist.com

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Re: India's surprise baby bust

#31

Post by 9cb14c1ec0 »

staminade wrote: post #11

Unless they roll-back women's rights and improvements in child mortality, societies will need to radically overhaul their entire relationship to supporting parenthood in order to reverse this trend. The economic costs of having children at a replacement rate are simply too high. We need universal childcare services, provided by the state and available to all, and other childcare-enabling reforms like automatic right…

> We need universal childcare services

Birth rates have been falling worldwide, regardless of the level of government support. It's much more a matter of attitudes about having children.

> The economic costs of having children at a replacement rate are simply too high

Nope. My wife and I have 4 children, on a lower-middle-class income in the US. Your lifestyle choices matter a lot. If you want to have children, you can find a way to afford them.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#34

Post by marcuskaz »

i_idiot wrote: post #8

What's the strong case against population dwindling other than supporting aging population? Given the AI armageddon, it just makes sense to reduce the population. If there's less population, we need less production and less workers. Of course, countries have to deal with oldest population for a brief period of time.

The basis of capitalism is on growth. How can you continue to grow revenue constantly if there aren't more people to buy products or use your services. Additionally tax revenue decreases as fewer people are working, so less government services and employment would be available.

Schools is a good example, as there are less children, you need less schools and consolidate. So there are less jobs for teachers, now it looks like an equilibrium issue since over time it will balance out. But those teachers who are losing their jobs are adults, tax payers, consumers now and the loss of spending has a cascading effect.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#36

Post by fhdkweig »

wolfi1 wrote: post #21
mywittyname wrote: post #16

> One study showed how the arrival of cable television in Indian villages in the 2000s led to a moderate fall in fertility. Soap operas depicting urban, middle-class women with small families may have changed norms (though some wonder whether people were just watching TV rather than having sex). The latter part seems like the most meaningful cause world wide. Sex is a boredom activity and we just aren't bored in the…

when there is a power outage it is most likely that the cell towers are down, too

In the US, cell towers have battery backups so emergency calls can still go through. I imagine most countries do too.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#37

Post by kranke155 »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #17
i_idiot wrote: post #8

What's the strong case against population dwindling other than supporting aging population? Given the AI armageddon, it just makes sense to reduce the population. If there's less population, we need less production and less workers. Of course, countries have to deal with oldest population for a brief period of time.

Well, in the extreme case, human extinction seems like a pretty bad thing.

a large organism (human populaton on earth) reaching equilibrium and ceasing to grow does not equal to human extinction... it far more likely is just a temporary contraction that will then reverse when the conditions are set for it.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#38

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

>But when Indian school textbooks are reprinted this summer, they will carry a very different message. They will warn not of the dangers of having too many babies, but of the risks of having too few.

The Chinese have discovered that it is easy to crank down the fertility rate, but impossible to raise it again when you want to do that. And they have brutal totalitarianism on their side.

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#39

Post by BrainInAJar »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #17
i_idiot wrote: post #8

What's the strong case against population dwindling other than supporting aging population? Given the AI armageddon, it just makes sense to reduce the population. If there's less population, we need less production and less workers. Of course, countries have to deal with oldest population for a brief period of time.

Well, in the extreme case, human extinction seems like a pretty bad thing.

human extinction is far more likely if we keep reproducing than if we slow down. See: climate change etc

Re: India's surprise baby bust

#40

Post by stavros »

i_idiot wrote: post #8

What's the strong case against population dwindling other than supporting aging population? Given the AI armageddon, it just makes sense to reduce the population. If there's less population, we need less production and less workers. Of course, countries have to deal with oldest population for a brief period of time.

That's the same question I have as well. We're a cancer that's spreading on the earth and we're worrying we aren't spreading fast enough. Yeah, I get that we want to support the aging population, but at this point we're doing it at the expense of humanity as a whole.
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