Fertility rate: 'Jaw-dropping' global crash in children being born

[Nearly Sane]

The numbers in these predictions are quite extraordinary. It's both too long term and too complex for anything our current political structures to plan for. It makes global warming look comparatively understandable.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53409521

[Roses]

I saw that earlier, I am not sure what to make of it.

[Outrider]

In the long-term it has to be seen as a good thing, presuming it holds, but there are a few caveats, not least of which is the (relatively) short-term impact of an aging populace on a dimished working-age population - automation will presumably mitigate that at least somewhat.

It is likely to see retirement ages and the like rise further, although with improved healthcare that's not necessarily an horrendous state of affairs, although I can see the subjective feel that people are working longer than they should being a very real complaint.

What's going to be the biggest impact, I think, is that the geographic spread of this is going to see a massive shift in relative productivity, military strength and the like towards Africa which will continue to grow as other regions stabilise or shrink; as China and India are currently the dynamic, low-cost, labour-rich economies undercutting the established nations, so Africa will take that mantle over.

That said, the world population was estimated to be around 1.5-1.7 billion in 1900, and over 6 billion in 2000, and that's with the impact of Spanish Flu and two world wars thrown into the mix - we've handled massive population changes before, and it's likely we'll manage this lesser one as well.

O.

[Nearly Sane]

I think that underestimates the problem. For the last 120 years or so we've had society in the main based on a vast Ponzi scheme, and that is already straining to work in countries with low fertility rates. As the article covers Sweden have made concerted efforts to increase their rate but I suspect  the overall cost in that will be difficult to keep up.

In addition, there is a limit to how much we can increase the retirement age both politically and practically. While peoplehavd a much better quality of life for longer, they also have a much longer time of not being in good enough health to work. We've already seen huge impacts in the care sector with that. When you add in a further increase, with a reduction in the number of people able to care for them, it is not easy.

The idea that because we have dealt with some issues in the past means that we will deal with different issues in the futire is surely the problem of induction writ large?

Running alongside all of this is the change in work patterns. It may be that this will alleviate some of the above - I think for instance that they could certainly help with the retirement age issue. They hold their own challenges though in that we could well see an increase in unemployment arising from Covid 19 being a permanent state of affairs.


The different impacts of Covid and the 'Spanish' flu is an indication of how much the world changed in those 100 years. The change is happening exponentially quicker now. Evolution is a slow  process.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It's paradoxical given the number of people who are just fucking about.

[jeremyp]

I think that underestimates the problem. For the last 120 years or so we've had society in the main based on a vast Ponzi scheme, and that is already straining to work in countries with low fertility rates. As the article covers Sweden have made concerted efforts to increase their rate but I suspect  the overall cost in that will be difficult to keep up.

In addition, there is a limit to how much we can increase the retirement age both politically and practically. While peoplehavd a much better quality of life for longer, they also have a much longer time of not being in good enough health to work. We've already seen huge impacts in the care sector with that. When you add in a further increase, with a reduction in the number of people able to care for them, it is not easy.

The idea that because we have dealt with some issues in the past means that we will deal with different issues in the futire is surely the problem of induction writ large?

Running alongside all of this is the change in work patterns. It may be that this will alleviate some of the above - I think for instance that they could certainly help with the retirement age issue. They hold their own challenges though in that we could well see an increase in unemployment arising from Covid 19 being a permanent state of affairs.


The different impacts of Covid and the 'Spanish' flu is an indication of how much the world changed in those 100 years. The change is happening exponentially quicker now. Evolution is a slow  process.

It's a problem, but there's nothing we can do about it. You can't force women to have more children, and, in any case, it would help alleviate several other issues like climate change and limited global resources.

[Roses]

I think the idea of producing kids so they can look after their parents in their old age is distasteful. My in-laws never forgave my husband for being a male, they hoped for a girl to look after them in their dotage.

The smaller the world's population the better where global warming is concerned.

[jeremyp]

I think the idea of producing kids so they can look after their parents in their old age is distasteful.

Do you realise our whole society is based on that? Not on the personal level, for sure, but people in work pay taxes and generate dividends that partly go to support pensioners. Your state pension comes directly from taxes paid by people still working. Your private pension - if you have one - is financed by investments in companies and hence people still working. Your free health service is financed by the taxes of people still working.

As the population gets older, the proportion that has retired increases and this places more of a burden on those who are still economically active. There are two ways to fix this: stop people from retiring and/or make the people who aren't retired more productive.

The smaller the world's population the better where global warming is concerned.

Well it's better for pretty much all of the environmental problems. This is good news as long as we can resolve the issues surrounding demographic change.

[Outrider]

Do you realise our whole society is based on that? Not on the personal level, for sure, but people in work pay taxes and generate dividends that partly go to support pensioners. Your state pension comes directly from taxes paid by people still working.

One of the few things we can look at recent governments getting right was implementing the requirement for private pensions, to try and head off exactly this demographic timebomb - it does burden those of us currently in the early and middle stages of our working lives with paying twice over, but the alternative is to get to old age and find that everyone still working is trying to pay for  three or four of us.

O.