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America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population

economist.com

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Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population

#51

Post by 6865 »

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #28
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #14

Well then, aren't we lucky that there are so many people who want to come to America? It might be a good idea to, y'know, let them in and allow them to work. This is such an easy to solve problem. If only we would decide to solve it.

>”It might be a good idea to, y'know, let them in and allow them to work.” There is no need to be glib. The United States already has the world’s most generous immigration policy. And, what is likely the most lenient stance towards illegal immigration and foreign labor of any developed nation.

I do not think they're being glib. Do you have examples of the generosity? My SO is American (I'm a European with nearing ten years of IT work experience and counting) and we are going through the immigration system, to call it a hell hole is an insult to hell.

A generous policy would be to make the process simple for individuals that are able to work and contribute on their own. That is not the case.

Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population

#52

Post by geodel »

lemoncookiechip wrote: post #42
gretch wrote: post #12

This is only loosely related to the article - I always hear people talking about how disastrous a falling population is. But I visited Japan last year which has had a falling population for a while and was in a long term recession for decades, since the 80s. I gotta ask, is that what “bad” looks like? Because I thought it was a pretty amazing experience and society did not seem like it was crumbling. I understand the…

Did you visit the countryside, or the smaller cities? A lot of Japan is getting abandoned, Akiya (abandoned buildings) are becoming more prevalent, small communities are dying out as the younger generations are forced to move to the larger cities like Tokyo to get a good living, which leads to death spirals. And then there's the age groups skewing, as less people are born and more people reach the point where they're…

I mean people, culture, societies, ecosystems have all come and gone. Some may feel sad about but thats just the nature of things.

Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population

#53

Post by dgoldstein0 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #36
BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>”It might be a good idea to, y'know, let them in and allow them to work.” There is no need to be glib. The United States already has the world’s most generous immigration policy. And, what is likely the most lenient stance towards illegal immigration and foreign labor of any developed nation.

Then why are we discussing population decline? I'm just saying, if we need more people, we know where to get them.

The projections are that population decline will hit the whole world, it's just hitting developed nations first. So immigration is only a temporary solution that'll last a few decades.

If we really want to address population decline, we have to reverse the reasons people are choosing to have fewer children. Which starts with policies aimed to give child-bearing aged adults better financial stability, affordable housing, and support -i.e. easily available, non bank breaking childcare (perhaps even free childcare), improved income / decreased expenses to make it easy to have financial security while also having extra bedroom(s) for kids, and longer, paid parental leave.

Whereas the existing housing crunch, continued downward pressure on median and lower incomes, bare minimum parental leaves, and high cost of childcare in the US discourages and delays a lot of people from having children.

Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population

#54

Post by polski-g »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #36
BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>”It might be a good idea to, y'know, let them in and allow them to work.” There is no need to be glib. The United States already has the world’s most generous immigration policy. And, what is likely the most lenient stance towards illegal immigration and foreign labor of any developed nation.

Then why are we discussing population decline? I'm just saying, if we need more people, we know where to get them.

No countries have experienced a faster fertility drop than the poor countries in the "global south". Chile's TFR numbers just came out last month and it dropped 24% YOY.

Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population

#55

Post by polski-g »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #30
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #14

Well then, aren't we lucky that there are so many people who want to come to America? It might be a good idea to, y'know, let them in and allow them to work. This is such an easy to solve problem. If only we would decide to solve it.

There are two problems with this take: * The people who immigrate have declining TFR after a couple of generations, if not in the first generation. * The rest of the world has declining TFR. So hey, you might gain a couple of generations, but maybe not even that much. Populations all over the world are rapidly gaining in education and, with it, undergoing the "demographic transition" -- later entry into the work forc…

Education isn't the cause of fertility decline because North Korea is experiencing the same drop.

Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population

#56

Post by BuyMyBitcoins »

6865 wrote: post #51
BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>”It might be a good idea to, y'know, let them in and allow them to work.” There is no need to be glib. The United States already has the world’s most generous immigration policy. And, what is likely the most lenient stance towards illegal immigration and foreign labor of any developed nation.

I do not think they're being glib. Do you have examples of the generosity? My SO is American (I'm a European with nearing ten years of IT work experience and counting) and we are going through the immigration system, to call it a hell hole is an insult to hell. A generous policy would be to make the process simple for individuals that are able to work and contribute on their own. That is not the case.

Generosity doesn’t mean rubber stamping everyone who wants to emigrate. “Simple” seems to imply that becoming a citizen should just involve filling out a few forms.

I don’t think people truly appreciate the sheer number of people who are trying to emigrate. If I may, which European country do you belong to? I invite you to compare your own nation’s legal emigration numbers and procedures to that of the US. I suspect you’ll find that the barrier to entry is even higher.

As for generosity, here is some information from Wikipedia: “In absolute numbers, the United States has by far the highest number of immigrants in the world, with 50,661,149 people as of 2019.[1][2] This represents 19.1% of the 244 million international migrants worldwide, and 14.4% of the United States' population.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...

Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population

#57

Post by stemlord »

throwitaway222 wrote: post #2

If the strength of population growth, hard work attitude and morals ever come back from the 50s we'll be ok. Since the internet seems to want the opposite, I guess we're just going to burn.

This reads like a boomer shitpost. Like something you see in the comments section of clickbait tabloid news sites like the guardian or dailymail, not necessarily here.

Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population

#58

Post by foogazi »

Animats wrote: post #47
gretch wrote: post #12

This is only loosely related to the article - I always hear people talking about how disastrous a falling population is. But I visited Japan last year which has had a falling population for a while and was in a long term recession for decades, since the 80s. I gotta ask, is that what “bad” looks like? Because I thought it was a pretty amazing experience and society did not seem like it was crumbling. I understand the…

In Japan, infrastructure is centrally funded. So roads, water, sewers, schools, and police services continue even if the local population can't pay for them.

Does the central government just keep empty schools open and staffed ?

Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population

#59

Post by foogazi »

dgoldstein0 wrote: post #53
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why are we discussing population decline? I'm just saying, if we need more people, we know where to get them.

The projections are that population decline will hit the whole world, it's just hitting developed nations first. So immigration is only a temporary solution that'll last a few decades. If we really want to address population decline, we have to reverse the reasons people are choosing to have fewer children. Which starts with policies aimed to give child-bearing aged adults better financial stability, affordable housi…

> So immigration is only a temporary solution that'll last a few decades.

If there is a global population decline then all other societies would start declining- in that scenario the US can keep siphoning citizens

Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population

#60

Post by Animats »

foogazi wrote: post #58
Animats wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Japan, infrastructure is centrally funded. So roads, water, sewers, schools, and police services continue even if the local population can't pay for them.

Does the central government just keep empty schools open and staffed ?

No, but they keep them open and staffed as long as the number of students is nonzero. Here's a junior high school with two students.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMcn2DSva2M

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