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Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

bbc.com

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Re: Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

#41

Post by ramchip »

bitwize wrote: post #30
joshuapants wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is not overpopulated by a long shot. There may be a lot of overconsumption in certain regions, but that's a different issue.

Currently it takes 1.2 earths' worth of resources to support the earth's population, which means the earth cannot support all of us without starting to deplete resources. So yes, the planet IS overpopulated.

According to who? I don't see how that makes sense. Many resources are not renewable, so having an extra .2 Earth's worth of them would not make it more sustainable.

Re: Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

#42

Post by joshuapants »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #33
joshuapants wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You haven't travelled to India, China or Bangladesh have you ? I have traveled all over the place, so your lousy ad hominem is unnecessary. "Crowded" is not the same as "overpopulated." > If we estimate the amount of people the world can support and that's higher than the current number, it does not mean we should have that higher number. Ah, so now we've moved from a factual question ("Is the world overpopulated?"…

> "Who are we going to forcibly sterilize to maintain that level?" That's unnecessarily inflammatory. We could substantially reduce the birth rate by providing everyone with free birth control and promoting its usage. If that isn't sufficient we could pay money to anyone who has a vasectomy. There are still ethical questions there, but it's a far cry from rounding up poor people and sterilizing them against their wil…

> We could substantially reduce the birth rate by providing everyone with free birth control and promoting its usage.

The efforts to increase condom usage in sub-Saharan Africa show that this might not be very easy at all, and this assumes that the people who have children in those areas don't actually want to have children which probably isn't accurate.

> If that isn't sufficient we could pay money to anyone who has a vasectomy.

Economic coercion is still force, and still ethically shaky.

Re: Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

#43

Post by everly »

zodiakzz wrote: post #10
kiba wrote: post #2

When population growth rate is negative, it makes immortality all the easier to contemplate.

Explain?

I think he/she might have meant that immortality isn't really sustainable because of overpopulation concerns unless population growth rate is negative.

Re: Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

#44

Post by sudeepj »

I am from India, which is second most populated country in the world. A generation ago, it was common for a couple having 3 to 4 kids. But now, even here most couples (in urban areas atleast) plan for atmost 1 kid. The sheer pace with which life moves has increased compared to one generation back. Couples (especially when both are working) simply do not have money, energy & time.

India is not a developed country and still in last decade or so the birth rate is stabilising, but not decreasing.

Re: Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

#45

Post by joshuapants »

bitwize wrote: post #30
joshuapants wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is not overpopulated by a long shot. There may be a lot of overconsumption in certain regions, but that's a different issue.

Currently it takes 1.2 earths' worth of resources to support the earth's population, which means the earth cannot support all of us without starting to deplete resources. So yes, the planet IS overpopulated.

Resources on earth started depleting as soon as the planet was formed. Was the earth overpopulated before there was any life on it?

Resources are finite. They are finite no matter how many humans there are on the earth. You are referring to consumption which is a large problem, but also a fixable one (edit: to a certain point, of course). It is not overpopulation.

Re: Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

#46

Post by SiVal »

everly wrote: post #43
zodiakzz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain?

I think he/she might have meant that immortality isn't really sustainable because of overpopulation concerns unless population growth rate is negative.

Even if population growth rate is negative, that only means that birth rate minus death rate is negative, not that birth rate itself is negative. If immortality makes the death rate zero, the growth rate can't be negative, and the birth rate would have to also be zero or growth rate would become positive again.

Re: Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

#47

Post by jarek-foksa »

pvaldes wrote: post #8

Is a normal consequence on the poverty fuelled by the policies of those last years, probably. You can not expect that people think too much about having babies whereas struggling to live on microjobs. No real jobs, lots of cats and dogs. No real new babies.

Are they worried about being killed by famine (after having eaten their own cats and dogs), war or pandemic soon? If not, then they are not "struggling to live", which in turn means there is no need to reproduce that much.

From the biological perspective, excessive population growth can be dangerous to the species [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink

Re: Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

#48

Post by Xixi »

resonation wrote: post #17
Xixi wrote: post #13

Note that Japan fertility rate is not the worst out there: for instance Hong Kong (1.1), Singapore (1.2) and South Korea (1.2) are all bellow Japan (1.4).

So you're drawing distinguishment between birth rate and fertility rate?

Birth rate and fertility rate are not the same, so of course I distinguish. Though to be fair I think the correct term is total fertility rate, as sometimes fertility rate is defined as birth rate.

Birth rate (technically, births/population rate) is the total number of live births per 1,000 of a population in a year. It is abysmal in Japan because the population is very old, so not many people are in age of making children.

Total fertility rate represents the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children in accordance with current age-specific fertility rates. This rate is going up as Japan is slowly making it easier for couples to have children: more day-care facilities, and most importantly Japanese society is (slowly) becoming more tolerant to mothers going back to work.

Re: Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

#49

Post by Xixi »

jtzhou wrote: post #3

It is interesting how a country with a lot of seemingly positive aspects -- abundant natural resources and fresh water, temperate climate, stabile economy and low unemployment, and great infrastructure -- cannot convince its citizens to procreate, whereas a country like Yemen with little in development is exploding in population (doubling every 20 years). When given the choice, it seems humans have children more out…

A little known facet of German society is that it is (or rather was) extremely hostile to mothers working. Even if a German couple wanted to have children (desirability), the sacrifices were sometimes too great. Especially as raising a family on one salary is becoming harder and harder, if not outright impossible.

Japan had -and still have- a very similar issue.

Re: Germany passes Japan to have world's lowest birth rate

#50

Post by return0 »

k__ wrote: post #21
xienze wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lover birth rate is a good thing in the long term It most definitely is NOT a good thing to have a birth rate below replacement in a developed country, especially one with European-style social programs. Eventually you run out of workers to support the people who aren't doing so.

If you assume a developed country, you have an attractive place to live for many people from other badly developed countries. So you can simply import them.

typically their qualifications are low, though
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