11–20 of 286 posts
> But something changed around the time of the Great Recession; the birth rate fell precipitously, and it did not recover when the economy improved. I'm going to guess that this is generational shock. That generation got burned hard, and now they are weary. I suspect when another generation passes they will forget.
The two are linked. Having children is at least partly an economic choice. People have spent decades working against "teen moms" and "single parents" and "welfare queens". Everyone is very clear that you must not have children unless you can comfortably afford to do so. And not just now, that has to be enduring economic security across their childhood. Now, how many people can comfortably afford to do so?
Are the people who want others to have more children prepared to pay for it? To help make sure that enough housing and infrastructure is built for them?
I don't understand why this is a problem. We are moving through demographic transition, as the world reaches its carrying capacity for human populations. So, we are safe from overpopulation crisis, from future unemployment crises, etc.
1. Fewer productive taxpayers to pay for old-age pensions
2. A drop-off in available investment capital as private pensions are converted to bonds and cash
3. Fewer workers for an economy with soaring demand for specific fields e.g. medical
Just offset the lack of new people being born by opening up borders to everyone, problem solved!
Just offset the lack of new people being born by opening up borders to everyone, problem solved!
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/migration-drives-german...
Hopefully we can do this for the species as a whole and gradually find equilibrium at a more sustainable population.
I don't understand why this is a problem. We are moving through demographic transition, as the world reaches its carrying capacity for human populations. So, we are safe from overpopulation crisis, from future unemployment crises, etc.
This is compounded by what was (until recently) a steady increase in life expectancy.
The really frustrating aspect of this is pensioners, who have traditionally huge voter turnouts during elections, are unlikely to have their benefits cut, because it would be political suicide for a party. The elderly believe they have "paid in" to their plans and deserve them, but outside of private pensions, this is usually a significant over-simplification. Instead, what will happen is the working young will need to pay for the generous promised benefits that the elderly are receiving, whilst 'paying in' for much lower benefits for themselves.
Hopefully we can do this for the species as a whole and gradually find equilibrium at a more sustainable population.
> But something changed around the time of the Great Recession; the birth rate fell precipitously, and it did not recover when the economy improved. I'm going to guess that this is generational shock. That generation got burned hard, and now they are weary. I suspect when another generation passes they will forget.
This is from economofact.org so I understand that they translate this to metrics like “economic productivity” yet, this kind of framing irks me. Also the implication that this impacts social security may be true for the existing system, but it may only imply that this system may need to change.
Yet I feel that the implicit message is: get policy in place to get people to make more babies.
But why isn’t the falling birth rate just a good thing from a human well-being perspective? Or: why is there even implied that there is a problem?