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The global fertility rate is falling

bbc.com

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Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#111

Post by option »

corysama wrote: post #90

This article is quite exasperated, but doesn't say much. I'm far from an expert in this area, but here's what I've read elsewhere: We're quickly moving from the population explosion problem to the population implosion problem. No one planned it or made it happen. But, it looks like we're not actually going to overflow the planet with people standing shoulder to shoulder. Instead, the problem we're facing moving forwa…

this is fantastic news. Yes, we don’t know how to properly adapt yet, but this planet resources are limited and we aren’t good at sharing them.

What worries me is that long term this can be reversed just like current trend is reversing away from population growth. Current trend seems to be driven by job prospects, education and costs of raising kids. But what if in a future we all had basic income? No need to worry about food, shelter or education for your children. Won’t this lead to population growing again?

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#112

Post by durnygbur »

cbsks wrote: post #40

My wife’s theory is that there will be a lot of babies born in about 6 months (9 months after the quarantine started), but only for first time parents. Being quarantined with a child is the absolute best birth control.

For this a childless couple has to live together. Not separately in one person household, not with parents, not sharing the place with flatmates.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#114

Post by senectus1 »

cbsks wrote: post #40

My wife’s theory is that there will be a lot of babies born in about 6 months (9 months after the quarantine started), but only for first time parents. Being quarantined with a child is the absolute best birth control.

pffft. no way. didn't slow us down at all and I got a 10 and 12 year old.

Wife isn't having any more for medical and conscious decision reasons. We just feel that 2 for 2 is plenty a replacement rate for our middle class efforts.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#115

Post by [deleted] »

sandworm101 wrote: post #73
Guy2020 wrote: post #16

Children have become more of a burden than a benefit in many ways. We once had much use for our children. When people were more independent and everyone pretty much had a small business, children were seen as the life blood of that business. Now, we are pretty much expected to fill a role at some large corporation -- which Japan is the greatest example of. Also, the family centered culture has changed to a work cente…

It isn't just the choices. Young people are having less sex. Japan has noticed this. Declining sales of contraceptives but declines in both STDs and pregnancies, especially amongst the young. Incidents of the "oops we are pregnant" scenario have declined all over the western world. Western culture has for decades complained that young people have too liberal a view of sex. Remember those abstinence pushes in the 80s…

[deleted]

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#116

Post by dragonwriter »

kijin wrote: post #87
dutch3000 wrote: post #12

another chicken little article. worthless speculation about the future. who knows what will happen if the population declines. one thing is for certain though. it will be a positive for the environment. at some point the ponzi scheme, infinite growth society must have it’s day of reckoning

> who knows what will happen if the population declines. Hopefully, a declining population will lead to an oversupply of housing. Existing homeowners will do their damnedest to prop up prices by any means possible, but it can't last forever. Housing prices will crash sooner or later. It will probably happen in each country long before a its population has halved. Cost of housing is currently a huge factor in declinin…

> Hopefully, a declining population will lead to an oversupply of housing.

It won't without policy controls, otherwise, housing units will be redeveloped into other uses (including smaller numbers of larger units designed and managed in a way to foster single-family occupancy per unit.)

> Cost of housing is currently a huge factor in declining fertility.

[citation needed]

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#117

Post by rbecker »

empath75 wrote: post #27

Why is immigration not the answer to this? Eventually developed countries are going to have to get over their bigotry and open the borders.

Because of the resulting ethnic conflict: https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1409

Perhaps the new Soviet man will be free of ethno-centrism, but until then, we have to deal with the flawed people that we have.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#118

Post by anon9001 »

all_blue_chucks wrote: post #46
Guy2020 wrote: post #16

Children have become more of a burden than a benefit in many ways. We once had much use for our children. When people were more independent and everyone pretty much had a small business, children were seen as the life blood of that business. Now, we are pretty much expected to fill a role at some large corporation -- which Japan is the greatest example of. Also, the family centered culture has changed to a work cente…

Pushed from the top? What on earth? Guy, there's no conspiracy required to explain urbanization. It is a simple matter of better agriculture tech. We just don't need much labor on farms anymore.

It's absolutely pushed from the top. Nobody outside of extreme religious communities sees increasing the population as a noble goal.

At least in the US, children are effectively a tax on the working class. How many people do you know that had to keep working to put their kids through college? Why do workplaces have tax-incentivized college savings accounts? Why does it cost employees to add children to employer-sponsored health insurance?

The system is very much set up to disincentive having kids. If you do have them, the trade is that you will always be financially drained. Somewhere between 60-80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Very few will ever acquire equity in anything.

The American Dream is now working until you're 70, supporting 2 kids through college, building equity in your house, then reverse-mortgaging your property to hopefully cover your final years.

You could argue that it's an organic evolution of our profit-driven system, but that system only exists because it's what the owner-class is pushing.

Either we should accept that having children is a hobby for the rich and find other meaningful ways to live our lives, or we should have radical changes in society to increase family sizes.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#119

Post by toomuchtodo »

grugagag wrote: post #99
Guy2020 wrote: post #16

Children have become more of a burden than a benefit in many ways. We once had much use for our children. When people were more independent and everyone pretty much had a small business, children were seen as the life blood of that business. Now, we are pretty much expected to fill a role at some large corporation -- which Japan is the greatest example of. Also, the family centered culture has changed to a work cente…

I have a 2 year old. It was an accident as both I and my wife didn’t want children or weren’t ready. I’ve got to say that it has become the best part of my life and yes it is not easy when you’re looking in from the outside but becoming a parent changes you, you become more resilient, objevtives in life change, etc So, no, children are not a burden unless you make it to be.

It’s wonderful that it’s worked out for you, but I can show you to Facebook support groups of thousands of parents that abhor and regret having children. Children by their very nature are a burden because they can’t care for themselves.

Are we arguing with the very data from this article? Clearly children are not that in demand if the fertility rate is experiencing a “jaw dropping global crash”.

Re: The global fertility rate is falling

#120

Post by grugagag »

yongjik wrote: post #91
Guy2020 wrote: post #16

Children have become more of a burden than a benefit in many ways. We once had much use for our children. When people were more independent and everyone pretty much had a small business, children were seen as the life blood of that business. Now, we are pretty much expected to fill a role at some large corporation -- which Japan is the greatest example of. Also, the family centered culture has changed to a work cente…

America has had tons of immigrants working 24/7 to run a restaurant, a laundry shop, or a drugstore, while putting their kids through school. Most of them weren't forced to come to America or choose such a job: they did it because even maintaining a 24-hour convenience store is less grueling work than planting rice, and they're rejecting their children's "help" because they want their children to study and have even…

Child mortality was huge, fixing that definitely provided a reason to put a break to the child bearing machine. There are still poor parts of the world where that is still the norm but it’s dwindling fast
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