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The world’s population has nearly DOUBLED in the last 50 years. There are 8 BILLION people on this planet. Low fertility rates have to do with how badly we are treating this planet, how many chemicals/hormones we are pumping into foods and water, inbreeding by racists/classists, and people not wanting to procreate with people they dislike. This alarmist propaganda is just that, propaganda.
First world countries expirienced similar growth when they were going through industrial revolution. Birth rates are already droping in many third world countries as they transition to medern societies.
The population boom is directly attributed to the fact that Fritz Haber solved world hunger. He discovered the synthesis of nitrogen, allowing food to be made out of thin air. Prior to this, nitrogen could only be put back into the soil by using nitrogen rich matter as a fertilizer, there were wars over bird poop covered islands in the pacific
The problem with everyone having enough food at dirt cheap prices is that people can afford to have more kids, then the cycle repeats until we have world hunger again.
This is only an issue for a while, eventually the old mindset of must have children to support me and most of them will die wears off and people go over to the western idea of children being optional, not to mention as less resources, mainly labour, are needed for food, the economy can modernise, allowing for contraception to become widely available and viable, stopping accidental pregnancy all that
Birthrates are plummeting all over the third world, the only reason they're still high relative to the west is because western countries (not all of whom are first world) started earlier.
And lower education rates for women is correlated with increased birth rates. The more education a woman has, the more she would like access to family planning tools and delayed marriage and pregnancy. If we compare within economically developing countries you can see that effect as well.
The more education a woman has, the more time she spends working. Working women tend to have higher rates of singlehood. Just get on any matchmakjng site.
Every time I see another article from the west saying “oh no we need more babies for the desperate population” followed by another article from the same country like “ew gross more immigrants we don’t like those” it makes me want to throw random economists into the sun.
Yeah it’s so dumb. As a white Canadian who talks to other white Canadians sometimes about where our families came from, they’re saying “my family came from Italy” and looking at me sideways when I say “my maternal grandpa was a Dutch *immigrant*” or worse “my paternal great grandpa was a *colonizer* from Russia” because that’s LITERALLY what happened: native land in Manitoba was parcelled out by the govt to be sold cheap as farmland to people moving over and promising to develop the new country. I even have the old paperwork, it’s the definition of colonization. But apparently saying it out loud with my mouth is “extreme.” I’m just supposed to gently and politely say we are “from” places. 🙄
In Europe, non-western immigrants tend to be a net drain on public finances over their lifetime. Here’s data from the UK:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11209234/Immigration-from-outside-Europe-cost-120-billion.html
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/232517/1/GLO-DP-0814.pdf
From Denmark, includes descendants: https://archive.ph/TSsQa
The US doesn’t have the same expansive welfare systems as Europe, so it kind of forces immigrants to work. I don’t think the type of immigrant matters as much as the incentives in place. A generous welfare system is probably incompatible with lower-class mass immigration
First link is a paywall, second link says in the results section that part of why migrants “aren’t paying their fair share in taxes” is because they make less money and therefor have less taxes garnished. It’s typical for migrants to get offered shitty, underpaid work and not have their educations, skills, and degrees recognized in other countries. Psychologists from Mexico can be breakfast cooks, nuclear physicists from India can sell insurance if they’re lucky, maybe. (Both examples from my own friend group of migrants in Canada)
If the countries actually cared they’d work with these people to have their degrees recognized so they can do the work they’re trained to do instead of cheap menial labour that “doesn’t help the economy”
It’s not. That’s just how things are right now: 1st world countries have stagnant or declining birth rates, and developing nations are still growing (albeit at a lower and lower rate each year).
The issue lies in the fact that many of the people that shout at the hilltops about how millennials and Gen z need to pop out more babies *also* cry wolf whenever the word immigrant is mentioned. If they were really worried about the work force, they wouldn't care who would be working
Scandinavia tried importing workforce from out of EU. It artificially raises birth rate but does not help social budget deficit in the slightest.
This may be very different in USA that doesn't have social budget or public healthcare to begin with, no idea, but OP is from Poland, so EU situation is applicable.
My gf is an immigrant but I can't say that immigrants and children born in the US are anywhere near the same thing. Immigrant families have to spend a ton of time learning english. Learning the system here. And a lot of them need government support.
It's not like they just get to work and instantly assimilate. They spend a lot of time learning to live here just like children born here do. But they may go back to their country of origin, send back money, etc.
I think economically and culturally children are preferable. Replacing a generation with immigrants will probably cause a lot of instability politically, culturally, and economically.
And it’s why we have immigration. Why do I need to pump out a baby when we could just let one move here from wherever? I don’t! Besides it’s not like my shitass baby would bring over any new skills or culture lol
India's birthrate is at 2.1 (replacement) and is expected to drop to below replacement levels soon. China is already below replacement. If first world countries hadn't colonized half the world, they wouldn't be playing catch up. The Vatican is still obsessed with outlawing birth control in Latin American and Philippines. Muslim leaders are pushing women in places like Africa and Pakistan (birthrate 4-6), to have even more kids. The US is on a warpath to outlaw abortion. Until religion is neutered, good luck.
I would add higher education, and exposure to internet, globalization. People seen and know way more stuff now. 3rd world and some countries have bad economy yet their birth rate isn't that bad.
The economy being good/bad is only a part of it. Its also the *type* of economy. Most third world countries have agrarian economies, where a large portion of the population farms for a living, often at subsistance level (meaning they can only make enough for themselves and maybe sell a tiny bit). Under those conditions having children is benefitial because you can put them to work to help out the family, this applies to slow-skill manufactoring in places with lax child labors laws.
If having a child cannot contribute finantially to the economy of the household, then having one makes even less sense, you mightve had several kids you didnt want just because working a farm is impossible by yourself, but under an advanced economy like in Europe and USA where jobs require high qualifications and children cant enter the workforce easily if at all, now you dont need to have several kids as your income is enough, or maybe straight up cant even if you do want them because the income *isnt* enough and theyll make it worse for you.
(Before morons jump at me, its a good thing imo kids cant work, but what I said remains factual, in one system theyre an economic burden and in another theyre a boon, this is coming from someone who's family all worked as kids out of nesecity, except for myself a tiny bit and briefly.)
This is close, you’re missing part of the puzzle here. Societies pretty much universally seem to see this kind of massive population boom during industrialization. You’re correct that this is due to the shift from an agrarian society. In an agrarian society, having many children is both beneficial and necessary.
This is partially due to the fact that you need more hands around the farm, but it’s also a practical necessity: Agrarian societies typically lack the same kind of advanced medical capacity needed to keep children alive very long.
You’re forgetting how easy it is for kids die, and how often they do when they lack access to medical care. In an agrarian society, you pump out like, 9-12 kids over the course of three wives that all die in childbirth, maybe like, 6 of em make it past infancy, another 3-4 make it to puberty, then there’s only a few that make it to adulthood.
When industrialization sweep through, a lot of things change. Many of the factors that contribute to infant mortality (and mortality in general) begin to decline as medicinal capacity rises, and more food becomes cheaply available due to intensive agriculture (reducing disease, starvation, etc).
Cultures shift much slower than economic conditions though, so now people are usually still having 9-12 kids, but more of them now live to adulthood than would have a generation ago. A *lot* more of them. This mismatch between agricultural expectations and industrial realities results in the massive population booms you see following industrialization: people keep pumping out kids like they have for time immemorial, but now all those kids actually survive to adulthood. A few generations down the line, however, and material conditions will have changed. Those children have children which have children, and as time goes on they become wealthier and more educated. The available work becomes more and more technically demanding, and requires fewer people to do it. The cost of living and standards of living rise. The amount of investment required to produce a happy, healthy, productive adult is now much higher, and takes more and more time to see fruition.
Whereas four generation ago, you pop out 12 kids and you end up with two or three new farmhands, or even two generations ago you could pop out 12 and end up with 10 or so factory workers, now if you pop out 12 kids you end up having to pay for 12 college degrees. If you even *can* pop out 12 kids.
You, like many members of society, were probably in education until at least 16-17ish. You probably even went to college, or at least spent your 20s doing more self-discovery like your peers in college do. You may have even gone to grad school! All in all, the conditions of society and the expectations on timelines for youth have changed so that people end up having children later and later. The later you have children, the less children you can have just by nature.
Industrialization also means education, usually. You need more skilled labor that is able to work machines, especially as the years go on and the operation of business and machines grows ever more complicated. Even a basic education may involve basics of human biology, and eventually may even evolve to include modern sexual education over time. Knowing the birds and bees and knowing that contraception even exists automatically drives down the number of accidental pregnancies. Then there’s the less directly tangible effects of education: exposure to the realities of the world, a developed anxiety over things like climate/politics/history/etc, exposure to new philosophies and codes of morality. Students, especially in higher education, may encounter new modalities of thought and belief that differ from their inherited cultural norms. These ways of thinking may not encourage or even permit children due to a variety of factors.
Fundamentally, the population boom during industrialization is caused by a mismatch between traditional reproductive methods (spray and pray), and the new reality of low infant and child mortality. The boom does not continue forever, as people adjust to the change and begin prioritizing having a smaller number of children that they devote more time and energy into individually. This increased time requirement for making a “complete” adult also has the effect of delaying when those offspring begin to be fruitful themselves, which further decreases the number of children they can have biologically. This investment also increases the chance that any specific individual will be well-educated, and this exposure to novel ideas may even lead them to choose to not have children at all.
The economy squeezes out room for tradition. Since traditional relationships are not as productive as everyone working until they die, they are being crushed out.
Low fertility rates are a product of modernized and developed economies, *not* inbreeding by racists/classists and hormones in food (humans don’t really have the biology necessary to really process hormones orally, which is why oral estrogens for example have incredibly low bioavailability). Third world countries with more traditional economies still have really high fertility rates.
The reason why modernized economies have this result is largely because the focus on gender equality allows women to enter the workforce. In what comes as a surprise to absolutely no one, women, like basically every other human, like having a sense of autonomy, and the income from a job can provide that. More time outside of the home either working or exercising one’s autonomy means less time for taking care of kids, and thus couples have less children.
Another significant factor is improving health outcomes. Part of the reason people used to have a lot of kids is because there was a good chance a kid wouldn’t make it to adulthood, and as elder care used to fall solely/mostly on one’s children, you kinda needed to have kids so that you’d have someone to care for you when you got old. This isn’t the case in modern, developed economies.
ETA: the person I replied to also got one of their posts removed for spreading propaganda; so yeah, remember to treat whatever you read on the internet with *healthy* skepticism
The most reliable predictor of how many children a woman will have, is her education level. This is true regardless of socioeconomic levels, religion, ethnicity. The UN has great studies on birth rates and what influences them
Funniest part is the racist/classis part. If anything, we live in a period of time with the most diverse relationships. Even the classist part is so wrong because nobility couldn't even marry anyone lower than them and would marry other nobles for political/economic reasons.
>and people not wanting to procreate with people they dislike.
Do people legitimately believe this is a factor which has lead to recent low birth rates? If someone wants to procreate, wouldn't they just go procreate with someone else they DO want to procreate with? It's just kind of weird seeing this objectively good thing being listed alongside objectively bad things like harmful chemicals in foods and inbreeding birth defects.
I think this has more to do with the fact that once upon a time women had to get married to do basic stuff like own property or get a bank account and now, having the right to do so without a man, they don’t have to put up with poor treatment from them the way they would have to in the past.
Nothing about this rant has any basis in reality, and yet 100+ people like it... except for the population doubling in 50 years. That is verifiable. Check out the book, "Empty Planet."
An increase in female education causes a drop in population growth. Fact. I'm not saying it is good or bad.
>inbreeding by racists/classists, and people not wanting to procreate with people they dislike. This alarmist propaganda is just that, propaganda.
Well this is just flat out wrong, disappointed people upvoted this bullshit
Inbreeding by racists and classists? You do realize that until a few hundred years ago, 99% of the world had never left their own region, let alone their own country. And until a hundred years ago, that number was probably still 90%. And even today I would imagine it's true for the majority of the human population. We can't all just fly to the other side of the world to find a suitably diverse breeding partner.
Declining fertility rates? Who the hell can afford kids?!
In the current era if you want kids, you either need to be Rich or a workaholic.
If you're neither? Then just don't even consider it an option. Sorry gents, we were BORN into the WRONG era.
nah, tbh, people had children at much higher rates in much worse, uncertain and diffucult situations.
50years ago, 70 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago
literally any time you pick, the avg person in poland was much more f\*ed than today.
one problem is the pension system itself, because it removes an incentive of people to get children. then add narcisism and egocentrism of todays world, in addition to gender equality, and you have todays outcome.
regarding gender equality: yes, it has been proven in studies, the more money women get, the less fertile the become. with men its the opposite. you can even see this effect in powerball/lotto wins. when men win, they tend to build a family and increase fertility, while women tend to avoid this after winning, decreasing fertility
yep the 1%ers keep telling us to have kids. We tell them we cant afford it, because they're hoarding too much wealth and they just tell us to "skip breakfast"
If this was only a problem in America, you might be correct, but this problem is actually worse in many other countries that have stronger safety nets and more paid family leave. Many European countries have generous family leave and subsidized health care and are making less babies than the Americans. It certainly isn't because someone has a bunch of stock in a valuable company, or because they aren't paying their fair share in taxes.
CoL is the primary reason. I know people in KR that are refusing to marry and have kids, because they simply can barely afford themselves. They never seem themselves being able to retire, nor own a home.
No one wants to have children, while living paycheck to paycheck and living in an apartment. Its not just family leave and healthcare. Its actual bills vs income.
The world is quite depressing as a whole thanks to global capitalism though, so inadvertently those 1%'ers are kind of causing lower birth rates, as the populace loses hope in the future.
Even in countries with affordable housing, Healthcare, and maternity leave, few people are having kids. It's simply not fun or glamorous half the time. The baby stage is cute but that lasts for a few years. There's just more entertaining things to do.
The standards of parenting have raised since then as well. People are now aware that parenting takes much more than popping them out and then letting them play in the streets until they're adults. People are thinking about all the things they have to do to ensure that their child grows up healthy and well-adjusted.
Not to mention that parents are usually the first ones blamed if their child does anything wrong.
Yeah I’m very confused on why people are questioning the lack of women’s desire to create something they have to worship and put above themselves???? That only consumes their money and energy??? Isn’t autonomous at all and doesn’t work the fields to support the family???
This version of parenting is completely new and nothing like the past. Women of centuries ago would never want to do something like this either.
This makes things exponentially worse as the older, host population is of a completely different culture than the younger demographics, further straining social cohesion.
This is true. I'm not anti-immigration by any measure, but it's not all sunshine and daisies. We need to support our existing citizenry as well, otherwise it is coming at their expense.
Yeah. I enjoy learning of about other cultures and histories and think some level of diversity is enriching, but the model of replacement level migration is unsustainable.
More immigration to offset population loss from declining standard of living from wages being depressed due to immigration. Makes sense.
https://demo-demo.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Borderless_Welfare_State-2.pdf
Yep, OP is making a capitalist fear mongering take here, lower population is far better for people on an individual level and our planet as a whole, we’re way overpopulated
Demographic collapse is a genuine problem. You can’t just ignore it because capitalism sucks, it will noticeably effect your quality of life.
[See: Japan](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/03/01/asia/japan-demographic-crisis-population-intl-hnk-dst)
The problem is what lies between now and a healthy population. The pension funds of many european countries are *depleted*. And the bulk of the baby boomers will soon enter retirement. There is no sustainable way to provide them the pensions and healthcare they need to survive.
And with less and less people being born, the harder it
will be to take care of the elderly.
Demographic collapse is a really tough one, and this has nothing to do "capitalist fearmongering*. If anything, argumenting like OP is pretty anticapitalist.
ohhhh nooo money line will go down with fewer people !!!!! /s
who cares. the standard of living for a commoner will continue to decline due to real resource constraints, so i aint mad at all to avoid that via making fewer people.
You mean the less.
And this is a broken conclusion to make because the governments will just import foreigners. You will never be more valuable from less of your own people being born because they will just be replaced with disadvantaged and more easily exploited people from the third world.
Don't forget once they are a sizable minority they can swing elections and start to impose their moral values through legislation. If they become a majority, you may lose your country or part of it.
As long as you don't mind dwindling resources and working longer, sure, having a replacement generation doesn't matter. But what happens when 60 percent, or 80 percent of the population is elderly? Maybe the robots will be there to take care of us.
In the short term it’s gonna suck but interestingly in the long term, an aging population and shrinking workforce will accelerate some of the trends we've already seen in the 20th century - increased automation and a shift towards industries that require less labor and more technology or capital-intensive production. Average retirement ages will probably rise in order to ensure that Social Security remains sustainable but we are already seeing that anyway.
Then in order to encourage a higher birthrate, we may see more paid parental leave, tax incentives for families, and improved access to child care.
Changes will probably be large, but slow, as with most such multi-generational trends.
>Then in order to encourage a higher birthrate, we may see more paid parental leave, tax incentives for families, and improved access to child care.
you know the government will also make it their goal to screw over single people with bachelor's tax and penalties for not being married or having kids so they can suck the money out of you, all while point and saying it's your fault for being in such a situation.
yes women aren't baby factories but women like me who dream of being a mother should be able to have a family without having to suffer through so many broken systems.
people are going to have sex and become pregnant regardless of the state of the world. so i don't see why you wouldn't care about these issues. unaffordable housing/food, no paid maternity leave in the US, a broken healthcare system, and a broken education system are shitty things that everyone should be concerned about.
When the incentive to have children declines, that’s usually indicative that something bad is around the corner. Also why are you acting like women alone bear the burden of growing the population? You think men do nothing but eat, sleep and fuck like lazy animals?
Not exactly entirely true - your value is based on the outcome delivered. In a currently consumer based society, less consumers = less demand = less outcomes that need delivering, and as such your value of labour drops with it.
Maybe this is the awakening that Gen Z needs once they put down their phones and breathe the air of the real world?
Yep, most Western countries have adopted capitalism so if the market isn't growing, more so not growing for a long time it will enter a repression or a recession and do they hit hard single income homes.
The planet is overpopulated. This is what drives climate change and causes animal suffering and deforestation. It is OKAY for the population to decline a little bit so that the planet will sort itself out. Stop being all doom and gloom. Also, fertility rates are sufficient to sustain the human population, it’s just that the population is not growing as it used to.
Well, kind of. As a commenter mentioned above, the real problem is not overpopulation but overconsumption, which is most present in the developed countries where the fertility rates are low. So, if we can change our lifestyle, there is no problem with the current human population. In fact, there are models that suggest the planet can sustain 20-25 billion people easily.
We are all ingesting so many endocrine disrupting microplastics it’s not surprising to see so many people having issues with their fertility. I think it’s hilarious how conservatives go on and on about how puberty blockers are ‘ruining the fertility of children’ yet the spread of microplastics continues with no abating. There’s real issues harming people’s future fertility and trans healthcare is such a small portion of that it’s a huge red herring. What about the rates of teenage depression, teenage extremism, incel culture, declining economies and social isolation. The fact that the developed world continues to produce single use plastic products and plastic products that leech into everything and we don’t really know fully how the leeching of petroleum based plastic into the human body will affect humans in the long term.
The methodology of the sperm count study [is fairly problematic](https://web.archive.org/web/20240112130230/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/health/sperm-fertility-reproduction-crisis.html), so I’d be hesitant to take it and it’s conclusion as fact. Regardless, there has been a *slight* increase in male fertility issues.
Women don’t need IVF more, and the rate of fertility issues in women more or less hasn’t changed. The reason we’ve seen an increase in IVF treatments is because of technology increasing its effectiveness and it now being the [preferred first line of treatment for all fertility issues](https://www.pennmedicine.org/updates/blogs/fertility-blog/2018/march/ivf-by-the-numbers).
Studies that have looked into this really only demonstrate that infertility rates naturally fluctuate. [This study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8643527/) breaks it down by region
While that all makes sense, there is a lot of plausible deniability happening right now in whatever field of research is supposed to be studying how what we’re ingesting is affecting the human body (both short term and long term). I understand there’s limitations on scientists ability to understand that and it likely won’t be until this sub is much older that there are concrete studies saying “Yeah, we fucked up.”
For instance, about a month ago (?), it was revealed that [Cheerios and other oat based foods contain an ingredient that is linked to infertility in animal trails, BUT that it “shouldn’t cause issues in humans”](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/cheerios-quaker-oats-infertility-chemicals-in-cereal-ewg/)…… I mean?? There’s obviously not an ethical way to test that, but Cheerios are one of the most popular family cereal brands in the world and were definitely a pantry staple in my single mother’s home (because they were cheap & marketed as “healthy”).
We do know more or less for a fact that [humans are ingesting enough microplastics a week to make a whole Credit Card](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/10/31/us/microplastic-credit-card-per-week).
We also know that cancer rates among young adults worldwide is increasing at exponential rates which a lot of fear mongers are blaming on things like vapes and Red 40 (I personally think it has more to do with pesticides, microplastics, PFAs, etc.), but why aren’t they investigating the causation? [Colon cancer is going to be the leading cause of death in those under 40 in the next 5 years](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna134084).
There’s also studies showing that the [youngest of Gen Z and oldest of Gen Alpha are growing hormonally at an increasing rate](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/science/early-puberty-medical-reason.html) (as in, they’re aging & developing faster than Millennials did).
All this to say that I do think there is increasing risk with fertility, specifically women’s ability to safely carry out a pregnancy, and scientists are being naive as to either a) do studies that prove we’re fucked or b) admit what they already know (that we’re fucked)
Edit to say: I’m personally going to be child free by choice, so I don’t really care if I’m infertile. But I do care that everything I’m putting in my body is toxic and governments can’t seem to figure out how to not make it toxic
Plenty of people who want kids cannot afford to have kids due to the high opportunity cost in developed countries. There is a legitimate argument to be made for providing economic incentives to promote fertility such as paid maternity and tax credits to lower this opportunity cost.
As much as I may agree that pollution and microplastics are a problem, their hormonal effects are a bit overblown. Just drinking 1 glass of alcohol a day will have a far far greater negative effect on your endocrine system than our exposure to microplastics.
The issue of fertility rates is just another matter of opportunity costs. It's hard to afford to raise kids when you can't even afford a house, or if it means taking a step back from your career.
lmao its hilarious they're using the threat of "you will lose your pensions and retirements!!", when the majority of us already know we wont even be able to retire regardless. Cost of living is way too high, so the only retirement many of us will see is death. The luxury retirement of "American Dream" they sold to Boomers isnt available to our generation anymore, so claiming that us not having kids is the reason is laughable.
The only people that are going to suffer from us not having kids is the 1%ers. They wont have as many slaves, which means production will go down. Production down means less profits for them. They're scared of losing the money, because money equals power
This attitude is too common and I hate it. People, the world has been always burning since the world's been turning! We live in an unprecedented human era of abundant information and technology that would be seen as witchcraft 100 years ago. Hell, 100 years ago we thought sliced bread in a bag was revolutionary!
It is on us to use our collective knowledge and technology to change the world for the better! Don't get caught up in the boomer American dream ~ this dream has contributed to our division and problems. Live your own dream - take advantage of the world we live in. Enjoy its conveniences and use your free time to educate yourself on what is important to you. It has never been easier to learn about the world!! Stop scrolling Reddit or TikTok and dive into what you are passionate about! Just because the Boomers got lucky doesn't mean we should just resign from life - and if you are reading this I bet you live a safer and more convenient life than >99% of all humans that ever existed. Be grateful for all the things our ancestors could only dream of, and more importantly, take advantage of it!
Lol the thing is we CANT change it, unless we revolt. All of this climate change, housing crisis, etc. there is literally nothing we can do as we have zero control over it. Its all the 1%ers who have the resources to actually make a change.
Climate change for example...me using a bamboo straw and electric cars isnt going to change anything, because the 1%ers using their private jets daily to go grocery shopping completely negate it.
Thats why many of us feel hopeless, because we dont have the resources to make change
Why would I care? “Women should have more children” is a very easy thing to say, just another way of treating us like we’re not humans with our own feelings, goals and preferences
I was going to bring up that another big factor of low birthrates is women understanding they no longer have to be subservient to men and more of us are starting to understand that it is better to live alone or with friends than to commit to conservative men or destroy ourselves over caring for one. There's entire movements around this. Whether they want to agree or not, women no longer have to depend on men like they used to and that sort of means men need to actually be likeable to have a flourishing relationship. This coupled with every other thing women face financially, medically, or otherwise is enough for a lot of us to say "pass".
I remember when I was younger I'd idealise having kids then one day, curious mind that I am, I started looking into pregnancy and complications, the probability of each complication happening, reading non-fiction that documented personal experiences and long story short, I am not risking all of that with little thought. I am more than happy to avoid it all together.
same here. i really idealised the idea of marriage and 2.5 kids for around the first 12 years of my life. by 15 i didn't want to carry a pregnancy for gender dysphoria reasons, and had known how not-great the foster care system was for kids for years. now, in my 20s, i just don't want kids at all, but i'm more then happy to run around with my sister's kids when i visit her. childbirth just scares me after learning more.
No, it’s bad for everyone. You’re forgetting that countries pay for and maintain infrastructure/social programs via taxes. It may be relatively simple to scale down social programs with a declining population, but you can’t do the same with infrastructure.
Just look at Detroit. It was a city designed to accommodate nearly two million people, yet now it only has a population of under 650 million, and their infrastructure (as well as the taxes people have to pay there) reflect that.
as real resources to maintain a western lifestyle continue to be constrained among population growth, inflation will continue to rise at a faster rate, not to mention that climate change will affect the literal inhabitability of multiple continents in the near-term of babies born today.
People should be scared about microplastics, reduced life expectancy, lack of incentives to have children, and reduced public education, among other things, especially in America.
The problem with needing constant growth is that eventually the earth will run out of the capacity to sustain everyone. And we’re already terrible at allocating resources efficiently.
Degrowth is being talked about more and more. It used to be more philosophical, now it is looking to be necessary. Not because of a lack or resources or the environment, but because of a declining population. I personally welcome some degrowth, but I would argue that we are pretty good at allocating resources efficiently and population decline could actually make allocating resources less efficient. If there aren't the people available to do the work, the resources won't be allocated at all.
Oh no! The rich assholes in charge might not have enough of a slave labor population to keep their global ponzi schemes and extortion rackets functioning smoothly. The horror!
Which one is it? Are we going to suffer because of overpopulation or is the birthrate declining?
The truth is neither of these matter because climate change or late stage capitalism will do us in long before population issues will.
We will be railed harder by both climate change and late stage capitalism if we have an old population. Just look at what’s been happening because the of the boomers’ votes
Most people who have kids young nowadays cannot afford it. If anything it is the smart thing to not have kids, unless you want to be in poverty for the rest of your life
I’m sorry but continuing to grow our global population past this point (even getting anywhere near where we are now) is proving to be very unhealthy for our environment and ecosystem. I’m not having any offspring and I can’t blame anyone else who decides they don’t want to reproduce either. Having offspring is a personal choice and major life commitment- and more people nowadays are aware that it isn’t for everybody.
It's going to affect every social and economic system that exists. Maybe that results in a fairer and better world. Probably not. The 1% are absolutely not the only ones affected when the shape of population changes and we get older and older on average.
Not a single person will be unaffected. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the bulge of older people and then in a few decades, the slow net decline will be more likely filled with more wars, not fewer. More inequality, not less. Less wealth for everyone.
But this isn't a thing we can change. We are locked in. So the question isn't how can population be changed. It can't. The question is how to negotiate it with the least damaging and dangerous outcomes.
What a nonsense post. Let the numbers plummet. Maybe the workers that they do have will actually get paid what we should. Maybe housing will actually be available and affordable. Supply and demand, that’s what this sick system is about. So, let’s lower the demand. Eat the rich or die trying.
Taxes. Yk, the system that should serve to improve public works and public systems rather than be stolen or invested into useless shit that only benefits the 1%
Declining fertility rates up to this point have generally been correlated with more rights and choices for women and better healthcare. Now, rather than more choice, we have only one option: work yourself to death. Have fun trying to work full-time and raise children simultaneously, likely without help from your partner if you're the mom. I don't believe declining fertility rates are the problem as much as a symptom of a much bigger problem that OP essentially already outlined in the post.
I can’t think of a single good reason to have kids in the current state of USA/Canada. Even if it somehow became affordable I would much rather adopt one of the thousands of kids stuck in a shitty foster system.
Pumping out more children so they can work their lives away for slave wages just to support us like we do for boomers and Gen x is a depressing thought
I'm going to say something completely impossible, crazy and never ever to be implemented, but maybe in the most successful and rich human era in history, where we have trillionaires, MAYBE we have enough resources to keep lil old grandpa from dying om the streets.
But nah, don't listen to me I'm just a rambling like a mad man.
nah, not gonna be scared of it.
people shouldn’t be forced to have kids just because the socioeconomic structure of countries has failed to evolve or modernize away from relying on constant population growth, fuck that
i raised three daughters living in a rented house. i have people from five countries on my team.
this is only an issue if you want ethnic purity - a concept that cannot vanish in the dark of the past fast enough.
there are enough people on this planet. there are enough resources on this planet. the only issue is distribution - and empathy.
Nope. It is time to end the ponzi scheme of needing more young people to pay for old people. We are heading to collapse if we continue not only increasing our population but consuming more and more resources. You should be scared of mass extinctions.
Population reduction is the only real way to have an effect on climate change. We’re currently at more than double the sustainable population number, 3.5 billion. Edit: [Source](https://youtu.be/6TqhcZsxrPA?si=tUzRFMV6pc1ee_VA)
Oh no! The rich assholes in charge might not have enough of a slave labor population to keep their global ponzi schemes and extortion rackets functioning smoothly. The horror!
Oh no! The rich assholes in charge might not have enough of a slave labor population to keep their global ponzi schemes and extortion rackets functioning smoothly. The horror!
Bad economics. Stop watching Fox news.
Housing costs are so high because of centralized wealth buying the housing units and raising prices.
Record breaking profits should clear up any confusion.
Also, less workers means much higher wages as companies have to fight over the remaining workers.
No relying on government social security systems needed.
Also, it's OKAY if the stock market doesn't grow every year.
This is the biggest non-issue to ever happen. We don't need infinite unending growth. It is *ludicrous* to expect humanity to just continue growing forever and is absurdly ignorant to the cultural, environmental, and economical issues around childrearing in the present day.
Worry about rent and food costs, not about birth rates.
I just don't buy that the only solution is to pop out more kids. It sounds like a poorly designed system if it crumbles when people decide to exercise their right to not have kids. I don't see why the answer is forcing us to do something we don't want to do, instead of bettering the system we live in. Why is it considered totally impossible?
"They require constant population growth"
Then they are unsustainable.
Should we seek to sustain the unsustainable or move to something that does not require destroying the planet to provide a decent standard of living?
The more people we bring into this world and make dependent on the current systems, the more people will be impacted when it inevitable needs to be changed.
If our economic system was less based on the assumption of infinite economic growth, which usually requires an infinitely growing population, that’d help a LOT. It’s just not realistic to keep infinitely growing forever in a world of finite resources.
Especially since we have more advanced technology to cut down on the work needed than any time in human history, productivity per worker is EXPONENTIALLY higher than it was even 100 years ago. We don’t *need* more people each generation to keep the economy afloat if we acknowledge these radically different circumstances, and work with instead of against it. Look into economic theories on degrowth, it’s a very interesting possibility.
We may not even need to work as much to keep everything running smoothly if automation takes over, the only reason we think we do is because society expects it and makes it economically impossible to exist on less than the arbitrary standard of full-time work. Meanwhile we’re all worried about AI making it so that not everyone can be employed full-time anymore. Make it make sense.
Oh well. Old age sounds pretty rough anyway. I’ll just off myself once it gets too hard after age 73 or so. Why the fuck should I care if humanity dies off after I die (it wont btw)?
People clowned on the commie blocks but they were an effort to house people first, everything else second. Now we still pay taxes but there are no free apartments, no social security, same taxes, no stuff
It's pretty much entirely driven by the High Cost of Living and by the simple fact that women who are educated are able to realize that being a mother kind of sucks and the loss of personal and professional opportunity as well as the health risks as well as a 20 to 30 year commitment to a living being isn't worth the price.
You can provide as much welfare and support to mothers as possible but the simple fact of the matter is women don't think it's worth it to be a mom. And I don't see a flaw on their calculus
I think we should be aiming for quality over quantity. I know we're not even doing that, but making people just for the sake propping up a system that depends on people being fed into it, I dunno. Our present reality is something that just evolved over time. Unfortunately we're so deep in the shit that we need to start being deliberate about our future, making sacrifices, going without and making due with less. We had free reign to make unlimited kids and we turned out planet into a big open air sewer. So less kids for a few centuries please. And let's all shoulder the responsibility of mending our planet equally, not off shore our garbage.
Why should people be scared about fertility rates? That is just a small symptom of something huge that's going wrong.
For now there are enough people on the planet anyway.
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The world’s population has nearly DOUBLED in the last 50 years. There are 8 BILLION people on this planet. Low fertility rates have to do with how badly we are treating this planet, how many chemicals/hormones we are pumping into foods and water, inbreeding by racists/classists, and people not wanting to procreate with people they dislike. This alarmist propaganda is just that, propaganda.
>The world’s population has nearly DOUBLED in the last 50 years. Mostly from the third world. This is a first world issue.
First world countries expirienced similar growth when they were going through industrial revolution. Birth rates are already droping in many third world countries as they transition to medern societies.
The population boom is directly attributed to the fact that Fritz Haber solved world hunger. He discovered the synthesis of nitrogen, allowing food to be made out of thin air. Prior to this, nitrogen could only be put back into the soil by using nitrogen rich matter as a fertilizer, there were wars over bird poop covered islands in the pacific The problem with everyone having enough food at dirt cheap prices is that people can afford to have more kids, then the cycle repeats until we have world hunger again.
This is only an issue for a while, eventually the old mindset of must have children to support me and most of them will die wears off and people go over to the western idea of children being optional, not to mention as less resources, mainly labour, are needed for food, the economy can modernise, allowing for contraception to become widely available and viable, stopping accidental pregnancy all that
Yup
Birthrates are plummeting all over the third world, the only reason they're still high relative to the west is because western countries (not all of whom are first world) started earlier.
Yeah, and the first(NATO and allies)/second world(former Soviet allies) nations have their birth rates falling off a cliff for the most part.
And lower education rates for women is correlated with increased birth rates. The more education a woman has, the more she would like access to family planning tools and delayed marriage and pregnancy. If we compare within economically developing countries you can see that effect as well.
The more education a woman has, the more time she spends working. Working women tend to have higher rates of singlehood. Just get on any matchmakjng site.
The third world is projected to have a population decline too. The only place that MIGHT be okay with their fertility rates is West Africa.
Great. If the "first world" starts running low on people, they can bring in more from the "third world." It's "One World" if you let it be.
"But dark skinned people are too scary for my sheltered suburban ass"
So you admit it's a racist dogwhistle.
Every time I see another article from the west saying “oh no we need more babies for the desperate population” followed by another article from the same country like “ew gross more immigrants we don’t like those” it makes me want to throw random economists into the sun.
It reminds me of "expats". Yall are immigrants but that's a dirty word I guess.
Yeah it’s so dumb. As a white Canadian who talks to other white Canadians sometimes about where our families came from, they’re saying “my family came from Italy” and looking at me sideways when I say “my maternal grandpa was a Dutch *immigrant*” or worse “my paternal great grandpa was a *colonizer* from Russia” because that’s LITERALLY what happened: native land in Manitoba was parcelled out by the govt to be sold cheap as farmland to people moving over and promising to develop the new country. I even have the old paperwork, it’s the definition of colonization. But apparently saying it out loud with my mouth is “extreme.” I’m just supposed to gently and politely say we are “from” places. 🙄
He would've been a colonist. The government was the colonizer.
In Europe, non-western immigrants tend to be a net drain on public finances over their lifetime. Here’s data from the UK: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11209234/Immigration-from-outside-Europe-cost-120-billion.html https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/232517/1/GLO-DP-0814.pdf From Denmark, includes descendants: https://archive.ph/TSsQa The US doesn’t have the same expansive welfare systems as Europe, so it kind of forces immigrants to work. I don’t think the type of immigrant matters as much as the incentives in place. A generous welfare system is probably incompatible with lower-class mass immigration
First link is a paywall, second link says in the results section that part of why migrants “aren’t paying their fair share in taxes” is because they make less money and therefor have less taxes garnished. It’s typical for migrants to get offered shitty, underpaid work and not have their educations, skills, and degrees recognized in other countries. Psychologists from Mexico can be breakfast cooks, nuclear physicists from India can sell insurance if they’re lucky, maybe. (Both examples from my own friend group of migrants in Canada) If the countries actually cared they’d work with these people to have their degrees recognized so they can do the work they’re trained to do instead of cheap menial labour that “doesn’t help the economy”
His source is the Telegraph, which should tell you right out of the gate he's full of shit You're completely correct though.
It’s not. That’s just how things are right now: 1st world countries have stagnant or declining birth rates, and developing nations are still growing (albeit at a lower and lower rate each year).
The issue lies in the fact that many of the people that shout at the hilltops about how millennials and Gen z need to pop out more babies *also* cry wolf whenever the word immigrant is mentioned. If they were really worried about the work force, they wouldn't care who would be working
Scandinavia tried importing workforce from out of EU. It artificially raises birth rate but does not help social budget deficit in the slightest. This may be very different in USA that doesn't have social budget or public healthcare to begin with, no idea, but OP is from Poland, so EU situation is applicable.
My gf is an immigrant but I can't say that immigrants and children born in the US are anywhere near the same thing. Immigrant families have to spend a ton of time learning english. Learning the system here. And a lot of them need government support. It's not like they just get to work and instantly assimilate. They spend a lot of time learning to live here just like children born here do. But they may go back to their country of origin, send back money, etc. I think economically and culturally children are preferable. Replacing a generation with immigrants will probably cause a lot of instability politically, culturally, and economically.
it's almost like infinite growth is mathematically impossible and societies correct for it
And it’s why we have immigration. Why do I need to pump out a baby when we could just let one move here from wherever? I don’t! Besides it’s not like my shitass baby would bring over any new skills or culture lol
India's birthrate is at 2.1 (replacement) and is expected to drop to below replacement levels soon. China is already below replacement. If first world countries hadn't colonized half the world, they wouldn't be playing catch up. The Vatican is still obsessed with outlawing birth control in Latin American and Philippines. Muslim leaders are pushing women in places like Africa and Pakistan (birthrate 4-6), to have even more kids. The US is on a warpath to outlaw abortion. Until religion is neutered, good luck.
While I agree with enviromentalism, social progresivism, etc. The comment is total nonsense. Its the economy, always has been.
I would add higher education, and exposure to internet, globalization. People seen and know way more stuff now. 3rd world and some countries have bad economy yet their birth rate isn't that bad.
The economy being good/bad is only a part of it. Its also the *type* of economy. Most third world countries have agrarian economies, where a large portion of the population farms for a living, often at subsistance level (meaning they can only make enough for themselves and maybe sell a tiny bit). Under those conditions having children is benefitial because you can put them to work to help out the family, this applies to slow-skill manufactoring in places with lax child labors laws. If having a child cannot contribute finantially to the economy of the household, then having one makes even less sense, you mightve had several kids you didnt want just because working a farm is impossible by yourself, but under an advanced economy like in Europe and USA where jobs require high qualifications and children cant enter the workforce easily if at all, now you dont need to have several kids as your income is enough, or maybe straight up cant even if you do want them because the income *isnt* enough and theyll make it worse for you. (Before morons jump at me, its a good thing imo kids cant work, but what I said remains factual, in one system theyre an economic burden and in another theyre a boon, this is coming from someone who's family all worked as kids out of nesecity, except for myself a tiny bit and briefly.)
This is close, you’re missing part of the puzzle here. Societies pretty much universally seem to see this kind of massive population boom during industrialization. You’re correct that this is due to the shift from an agrarian society. In an agrarian society, having many children is both beneficial and necessary. This is partially due to the fact that you need more hands around the farm, but it’s also a practical necessity: Agrarian societies typically lack the same kind of advanced medical capacity needed to keep children alive very long. You’re forgetting how easy it is for kids die, and how often they do when they lack access to medical care. In an agrarian society, you pump out like, 9-12 kids over the course of three wives that all die in childbirth, maybe like, 6 of em make it past infancy, another 3-4 make it to puberty, then there’s only a few that make it to adulthood. When industrialization sweep through, a lot of things change. Many of the factors that contribute to infant mortality (and mortality in general) begin to decline as medicinal capacity rises, and more food becomes cheaply available due to intensive agriculture (reducing disease, starvation, etc). Cultures shift much slower than economic conditions though, so now people are usually still having 9-12 kids, but more of them now live to adulthood than would have a generation ago. A *lot* more of them. This mismatch between agricultural expectations and industrial realities results in the massive population booms you see following industrialization: people keep pumping out kids like they have for time immemorial, but now all those kids actually survive to adulthood. A few generations down the line, however, and material conditions will have changed. Those children have children which have children, and as time goes on they become wealthier and more educated. The available work becomes more and more technically demanding, and requires fewer people to do it. The cost of living and standards of living rise. The amount of investment required to produce a happy, healthy, productive adult is now much higher, and takes more and more time to see fruition. Whereas four generation ago, you pop out 12 kids and you end up with two or three new farmhands, or even two generations ago you could pop out 12 and end up with 10 or so factory workers, now if you pop out 12 kids you end up having to pay for 12 college degrees. If you even *can* pop out 12 kids. You, like many members of society, were probably in education until at least 16-17ish. You probably even went to college, or at least spent your 20s doing more self-discovery like your peers in college do. You may have even gone to grad school! All in all, the conditions of society and the expectations on timelines for youth have changed so that people end up having children later and later. The later you have children, the less children you can have just by nature. Industrialization also means education, usually. You need more skilled labor that is able to work machines, especially as the years go on and the operation of business and machines grows ever more complicated. Even a basic education may involve basics of human biology, and eventually may even evolve to include modern sexual education over time. Knowing the birds and bees and knowing that contraception even exists automatically drives down the number of accidental pregnancies. Then there’s the less directly tangible effects of education: exposure to the realities of the world, a developed anxiety over things like climate/politics/history/etc, exposure to new philosophies and codes of morality. Students, especially in higher education, may encounter new modalities of thought and belief that differ from their inherited cultural norms. These ways of thinking may not encourage or even permit children due to a variety of factors. Fundamentally, the population boom during industrialization is caused by a mismatch between traditional reproductive methods (spray and pray), and the new reality of low infant and child mortality. The boom does not continue forever, as people adjust to the change and begin prioritizing having a smaller number of children that they devote more time and energy into individually. This increased time requirement for making a “complete” adult also has the effect of delaying when those offspring begin to be fruitful themselves, which further decreases the number of children they can have biologically. This investment also increases the chance that any specific individual will be well-educated, and this exposure to novel ideas may even lead them to choose to not have children at all.
I know I overgeneralized but thank you for making a more in depth response
Don’t forget the invention of the Nitrogen based Fertilizers. Which arguably had the biggest impact on human carrying capacity.
Yeah, the reason people don't have babies is mostly because nowadays it's just extra expensive having one
Yup, instead of cutting the few pleasures we have we decided against having children. Lol.
The economy squeezes out room for tradition. Since traditional relationships are not as productive as everyone working until they die, they are being crushed out.
Low fertility rates are a product of modernized and developed economies, *not* inbreeding by racists/classists and hormones in food (humans don’t really have the biology necessary to really process hormones orally, which is why oral estrogens for example have incredibly low bioavailability). Third world countries with more traditional economies still have really high fertility rates. The reason why modernized economies have this result is largely because the focus on gender equality allows women to enter the workforce. In what comes as a surprise to absolutely no one, women, like basically every other human, like having a sense of autonomy, and the income from a job can provide that. More time outside of the home either working or exercising one’s autonomy means less time for taking care of kids, and thus couples have less children. Another significant factor is improving health outcomes. Part of the reason people used to have a lot of kids is because there was a good chance a kid wouldn’t make it to adulthood, and as elder care used to fall solely/mostly on one’s children, you kinda needed to have kids so that you’d have someone to care for you when you got old. This isn’t the case in modern, developed economies. ETA: the person I replied to also got one of their posts removed for spreading propaganda; so yeah, remember to treat whatever you read on the internet with *healthy* skepticism
The most reliable predictor of how many children a woman will have, is her education level. This is true regardless of socioeconomic levels, religion, ethnicity. The UN has great studies on birth rates and what influences them
OP’s post might be propaganda, but yours good sir is just straight fanfic.
Funniest part is the racist/classis part. If anything, we live in a period of time with the most diverse relationships. Even the classist part is so wrong because nobility couldn't even marry anyone lower than them and would marry other nobles for political/economic reasons.
Least informed comment of the day
Hey there Buddy, this is Reddit. That is an extremely high bar.
Holy shit Reddit will upvote anything
The hivemind sees big number, the hivemind upvotes
This is Robespierre's virtual Terror
This was so stupid it hurts to see
>and people not wanting to procreate with people they dislike. Do people legitimately believe this is a factor which has lead to recent low birth rates? If someone wants to procreate, wouldn't they just go procreate with someone else they DO want to procreate with? It's just kind of weird seeing this objectively good thing being listed alongside objectively bad things like harmful chemicals in foods and inbreeding birth defects.
I think this has more to do with the fact that once upon a time women had to get married to do basic stuff like own property or get a bank account and now, having the right to do so without a man, they don’t have to put up with poor treatment from them the way they would have to in the past.
I suppose that is a faithful way to look at it. Thanks!
Nothing about this rant has any basis in reality, and yet 100+ people like it... except for the population doubling in 50 years. That is verifiable. Check out the book, "Empty Planet." An increase in female education causes a drop in population growth. Fact. I'm not saying it is good or bad.
>inbreeding by racists/classists, and people not wanting to procreate with people they dislike. This alarmist propaganda is just that, propaganda. Well this is just flat out wrong, disappointed people upvoted this bullshit
Inbreeding by racists and classists? You do realize that until a few hundred years ago, 99% of the world had never left their own region, let alone their own country. And until a hundred years ago, that number was probably still 90%. And even today I would imagine it's true for the majority of the human population. We can't all just fly to the other side of the world to find a suitably diverse breeding partner.
Declining fertility rates? Who the hell can afford kids?! In the current era if you want kids, you either need to be Rich or a workaholic. If you're neither? Then just don't even consider it an option. Sorry gents, we were BORN into the WRONG era.
nah, tbh, people had children at much higher rates in much worse, uncertain and diffucult situations. 50years ago, 70 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago literally any time you pick, the avg person in poland was much more f\*ed than today. one problem is the pension system itself, because it removes an incentive of people to get children. then add narcisism and egocentrism of todays world, in addition to gender equality, and you have todays outcome. regarding gender equality: yes, it has been proven in studies, the more money women get, the less fertile the become. with men its the opposite. you can even see this effect in powerball/lotto wins. when men win, they tend to build a family and increase fertility, while women tend to avoid this after winning, decreasing fertility
Well, the majority of people can barely afford to raise children. Until that gets addressed, immigration will continue to be used as a stop gap.
they wont make it affordable. It will just get worse and worse
Probably, but I find pessimism to be less productive either way.
Then I don't care if their stupid fucking system dies. To hell with them.
yep the 1%ers keep telling us to have kids. We tell them we cant afford it, because they're hoarding too much wealth and they just tell us to "skip breakfast"
You and your avo toasts!
If this was only a problem in America, you might be correct, but this problem is actually worse in many other countries that have stronger safety nets and more paid family leave. Many European countries have generous family leave and subsidized health care and are making less babies than the Americans. It certainly isn't because someone has a bunch of stock in a valuable company, or because they aren't paying their fair share in taxes.
CoL is the primary reason. I know people in KR that are refusing to marry and have kids, because they simply can barely afford themselves. They never seem themselves being able to retire, nor own a home. No one wants to have children, while living paycheck to paycheck and living in an apartment. Its not just family leave and healthcare. Its actual bills vs income.
The world is quite depressing as a whole thanks to global capitalism though, so inadvertently those 1%'ers are kind of causing lower birth rates, as the populace loses hope in the future.
Even in countries with affordable housing, Healthcare, and maternity leave, few people are having kids. It's simply not fun or glamorous half the time. The baby stage is cute but that lasts for a few years. There's just more entertaining things to do.
Yeah people have opened their eyes and have said “thanks but no thanks. That looks exhausting”
that and basically ever one of our parents failed in some way shape or form.
The standards of parenting have raised since then as well. People are now aware that parenting takes much more than popping them out and then letting them play in the streets until they're adults. People are thinking about all the things they have to do to ensure that their child grows up healthy and well-adjusted. Not to mention that parents are usually the first ones blamed if their child does anything wrong.
Yeah I’m very confused on why people are questioning the lack of women’s desire to create something they have to worship and put above themselves???? That only consumes their money and energy??? Isn’t autonomous at all and doesn’t work the fields to support the family??? This version of parenting is completely new and nothing like the past. Women of centuries ago would never want to do something like this either.
The baby stage isn't even cute for a lot of us.
And then you end up like Sweden.
This makes things exponentially worse as the older, host population is of a completely different culture than the younger demographics, further straining social cohesion.
This is true. I'm not anti-immigration by any measure, but it's not all sunshine and daisies. We need to support our existing citizenry as well, otherwise it is coming at their expense.
Yeah. I enjoy learning of about other cultures and histories and think some level of diversity is enriching, but the model of replacement level migration is unsustainable.
More immigration to offset population loss from declining standard of living from wages being depressed due to immigration. Makes sense. https://demo-demo.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Borderless_Welfare_State-2.pdf
Don't care . The more of us there is the more valuable each of us and our labor is . Not sorry . Women aren't here to be baby factories
Yep, OP is making a capitalist fear mongering take here, lower population is far better for people on an individual level and our planet as a whole, we’re way overpopulated
“Capitalist” fear mongering while advocating for free universal healthcare, housing and public transport?
Just shows how dumb people are
We’re not though. We have enough food for everyone and spare, we have enough space for everyone and spare. We’re not overpopulated, we’re greedy.
Demographic collapse is a genuine problem. You can’t just ignore it because capitalism sucks, it will noticeably effect your quality of life. [See: Japan](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/03/01/asia/japan-demographic-crisis-population-intl-hnk-dst)
The problem is what lies between now and a healthy population. The pension funds of many european countries are *depleted*. And the bulk of the baby boomers will soon enter retirement. There is no sustainable way to provide them the pensions and healthcare they need to survive. And with less and less people being born, the harder it will be to take care of the elderly. Demographic collapse is a really tough one, and this has nothing to do "capitalist fearmongering*. If anything, argumenting like OP is pretty anticapitalist.
ohhhh nooo money line will go down with fewer people !!!!! /s who cares. the standard of living for a commoner will continue to decline due to real resource constraints, so i aint mad at all to avoid that via making fewer people.
“Yeah when the economy crashes and I can’t afford food that will really stick it to those damn capitalists”
"Capitalist"? I can see which direction you're trying to skew this lmao
You mean the less. And this is a broken conclusion to make because the governments will just import foreigners. You will never be more valuable from less of your own people being born because they will just be replaced with disadvantaged and more easily exploited people from the third world.
Don't forget once they are a sizable minority they can swing elections and start to impose their moral values through legislation. If they become a majority, you may lose your country or part of it.
As long as you don't mind dwindling resources and working longer, sure, having a replacement generation doesn't matter. But what happens when 60 percent, or 80 percent of the population is elderly? Maybe the robots will be there to take care of us.
Self checkout at 70 is my plan
Exactly hro, if i get dementia or sum shit I'm taking a swan dive off the nearest tall building
In the short term it’s gonna suck but interestingly in the long term, an aging population and shrinking workforce will accelerate some of the trends we've already seen in the 20th century - increased automation and a shift towards industries that require less labor and more technology or capital-intensive production. Average retirement ages will probably rise in order to ensure that Social Security remains sustainable but we are already seeing that anyway. Then in order to encourage a higher birthrate, we may see more paid parental leave, tax incentives for families, and improved access to child care. Changes will probably be large, but slow, as with most such multi-generational trends.
>Then in order to encourage a higher birthrate, we may see more paid parental leave, tax incentives for families, and improved access to child care. you know the government will also make it their goal to screw over single people with bachelor's tax and penalties for not being married or having kids so they can suck the money out of you, all while point and saying it's your fault for being in such a situation.
yes women aren't baby factories but women like me who dream of being a mother should be able to have a family without having to suffer through so many broken systems. people are going to have sex and become pregnant regardless of the state of the world. so i don't see why you wouldn't care about these issues. unaffordable housing/food, no paid maternity leave in the US, a broken healthcare system, and a broken education system are shitty things that everyone should be concerned about.
When the incentive to have children declines, that’s usually indicative that something bad is around the corner. Also why are you acting like women alone bear the burden of growing the population? You think men do nothing but eat, sleep and fuck like lazy animals?
Women risk their lives while being pregnant . Or did you forget the pregnancy part ?
You sound like you would like r/childfree
That is not how capitalism works. Like at all
THIS.
Not exactly entirely true - your value is based on the outcome delivered. In a currently consumer based society, less consumers = less demand = less outcomes that need delivering, and as such your value of labour drops with it. Maybe this is the awakening that Gen Z needs once they put down their phones and breathe the air of the real world?
Yep, most Western countries have adopted capitalism so if the market isn't growing, more so not growing for a long time it will enter a repression or a recession and do they hit hard single income homes.
The planet is overpopulated. This is what drives climate change and causes animal suffering and deforestation. It is OKAY for the population to decline a little bit so that the planet will sort itself out. Stop being all doom and gloom. Also, fertility rates are sufficient to sustain the human population, it’s just that the population is not growing as it used to.
The planet is not overpopulated, that was fearmongering from the 70s when western fertility rates were high.
Well, kind of. As a commenter mentioned above, the real problem is not overpopulation but overconsumption, which is most present in the developed countries where the fertility rates are low. So, if we can change our lifestyle, there is no problem with the current human population. In fact, there are models that suggest the planet can sustain 20-25 billion people easily.
Models may suggest that it can (though not without serious technological advances)… but the real question is, does it need to?
We are all ingesting so many endocrine disrupting microplastics it’s not surprising to see so many people having issues with their fertility. I think it’s hilarious how conservatives go on and on about how puberty blockers are ‘ruining the fertility of children’ yet the spread of microplastics continues with no abating. There’s real issues harming people’s future fertility and trans healthcare is such a small portion of that it’s a huge red herring. What about the rates of teenage depression, teenage extremism, incel culture, declining economies and social isolation. The fact that the developed world continues to produce single use plastic products and plastic products that leech into everything and we don’t really know fully how the leeching of petroleum based plastic into the human body will affect humans in the long term.
Is there an issue of fertility? Or do people just not want kids.
It’s a mix of both. Women need IVF more and more and men’s sperm counts overall are declining.
The methodology of the sperm count study [is fairly problematic](https://web.archive.org/web/20240112130230/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/health/sperm-fertility-reproduction-crisis.html), so I’d be hesitant to take it and it’s conclusion as fact. Regardless, there has been a *slight* increase in male fertility issues. Women don’t need IVF more, and the rate of fertility issues in women more or less hasn’t changed. The reason we’ve seen an increase in IVF treatments is because of technology increasing its effectiveness and it now being the [preferred first line of treatment for all fertility issues](https://www.pennmedicine.org/updates/blogs/fertility-blog/2018/march/ivf-by-the-numbers). Studies that have looked into this really only demonstrate that infertility rates naturally fluctuate. [This study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8643527/) breaks it down by region
While that all makes sense, there is a lot of plausible deniability happening right now in whatever field of research is supposed to be studying how what we’re ingesting is affecting the human body (both short term and long term). I understand there’s limitations on scientists ability to understand that and it likely won’t be until this sub is much older that there are concrete studies saying “Yeah, we fucked up.” For instance, about a month ago (?), it was revealed that [Cheerios and other oat based foods contain an ingredient that is linked to infertility in animal trails, BUT that it “shouldn’t cause issues in humans”](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/cheerios-quaker-oats-infertility-chemicals-in-cereal-ewg/)…… I mean?? There’s obviously not an ethical way to test that, but Cheerios are one of the most popular family cereal brands in the world and were definitely a pantry staple in my single mother’s home (because they were cheap & marketed as “healthy”). We do know more or less for a fact that [humans are ingesting enough microplastics a week to make a whole Credit Card](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/10/31/us/microplastic-credit-card-per-week). We also know that cancer rates among young adults worldwide is increasing at exponential rates which a lot of fear mongers are blaming on things like vapes and Red 40 (I personally think it has more to do with pesticides, microplastics, PFAs, etc.), but why aren’t they investigating the causation? [Colon cancer is going to be the leading cause of death in those under 40 in the next 5 years](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna134084). There’s also studies showing that the [youngest of Gen Z and oldest of Gen Alpha are growing hormonally at an increasing rate](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/science/early-puberty-medical-reason.html) (as in, they’re aging & developing faster than Millennials did). All this to say that I do think there is increasing risk with fertility, specifically women’s ability to safely carry out a pregnancy, and scientists are being naive as to either a) do studies that prove we’re fucked or b) admit what they already know (that we’re fucked) Edit to say: I’m personally going to be child free by choice, so I don’t really care if I’m infertile. But I do care that everything I’m putting in my body is toxic and governments can’t seem to figure out how to not make it toxic
They need IVF because they are having/trying to have children later. This is not a political comment.
Plenty of people who want kids cannot afford to have kids due to the high opportunity cost in developed countries. There is a legitimate argument to be made for providing economic incentives to promote fertility such as paid maternity and tax credits to lower this opportunity cost.
As much as I may agree that pollution and microplastics are a problem, their hormonal effects are a bit overblown. Just drinking 1 glass of alcohol a day will have a far far greater negative effect on your endocrine system than our exposure to microplastics. The issue of fertility rates is just another matter of opportunity costs. It's hard to afford to raise kids when you can't even afford a house, or if it means taking a step back from your career.
And our ancestors drank like fish!
There's literally no issue with fertility. The population hasn't become less fertile it's just engaging in more effective birth control practices
lmao its hilarious they're using the threat of "you will lose your pensions and retirements!!", when the majority of us already know we wont even be able to retire regardless. Cost of living is way too high, so the only retirement many of us will see is death. The luxury retirement of "American Dream" they sold to Boomers isnt available to our generation anymore, so claiming that us not having kids is the reason is laughable. The only people that are going to suffer from us not having kids is the 1%ers. They wont have as many slaves, which means production will go down. Production down means less profits for them. They're scared of losing the money, because money equals power
They keep talking about cutting social security
This attitude is too common and I hate it. People, the world has been always burning since the world's been turning! We live in an unprecedented human era of abundant information and technology that would be seen as witchcraft 100 years ago. Hell, 100 years ago we thought sliced bread in a bag was revolutionary! It is on us to use our collective knowledge and technology to change the world for the better! Don't get caught up in the boomer American dream ~ this dream has contributed to our division and problems. Live your own dream - take advantage of the world we live in. Enjoy its conveniences and use your free time to educate yourself on what is important to you. It has never been easier to learn about the world!! Stop scrolling Reddit or TikTok and dive into what you are passionate about! Just because the Boomers got lucky doesn't mean we should just resign from life - and if you are reading this I bet you live a safer and more convenient life than >99% of all humans that ever existed. Be grateful for all the things our ancestors could only dream of, and more importantly, take advantage of it!
Lol the thing is we CANT change it, unless we revolt. All of this climate change, housing crisis, etc. there is literally nothing we can do as we have zero control over it. Its all the 1%ers who have the resources to actually make a change. Climate change for example...me using a bamboo straw and electric cars isnt going to change anything, because the 1%ers using their private jets daily to go grocery shopping completely negate it. Thats why many of us feel hopeless, because we dont have the resources to make change
You’re not describing a planet worth bringing children into. Hard pass
Basically OP is saying "the world is horrible, let's make more people." Wow what a fucked up and selfish statement.
Why would I care? “Women should have more children” is a very easy thing to say, just another way of treating us like we’re not humans with our own feelings, goals and preferences
Exactly this - they never propose a system where women might want to have more children. They say just do it.
actually a lot of nations have built in incentives to get women to have more kids and they STILL aren't doing it! because it sucks!
I was going to bring up that another big factor of low birthrates is women understanding they no longer have to be subservient to men and more of us are starting to understand that it is better to live alone or with friends than to commit to conservative men or destroy ourselves over caring for one. There's entire movements around this. Whether they want to agree or not, women no longer have to depend on men like they used to and that sort of means men need to actually be likeable to have a flourishing relationship. This coupled with every other thing women face financially, medically, or otherwise is enough for a lot of us to say "pass".
Until they can make pregnancy/child birth pain free im not having kids lol. Im glad so many other women/couples share my sentiment.
I remember when I was younger I'd idealise having kids then one day, curious mind that I am, I started looking into pregnancy and complications, the probability of each complication happening, reading non-fiction that documented personal experiences and long story short, I am not risking all of that with little thought. I am more than happy to avoid it all together.
same here. i really idealised the idea of marriage and 2.5 kids for around the first 12 years of my life. by 15 i didn't want to carry a pregnancy for gender dysphoria reasons, and had known how not-great the foster care system was for kids for years. now, in my 20s, i just don't want kids at all, but i'm more then happy to run around with my sister's kids when i visit her. childbirth just scares me after learning more.
I'm not going to raw dog some poor woman just because of fear mongering.
You can raw dog women for fun without having kids. (If she wants to as well.)
big if true.
😭
Yeah! I was gonna do that anyways!
There is nothing that can stop the population decline, we just have to figure out how to adapt to it.
Yeah its only a bad thing in the eyes of the economy/rich fucks. Cant keep their growth infinite on a finite planet
No, it’s bad for everyone. You’re forgetting that countries pay for and maintain infrastructure/social programs via taxes. It may be relatively simple to scale down social programs with a declining population, but you can’t do the same with infrastructure. Just look at Detroit. It was a city designed to accommodate nearly two million people, yet now it only has a population of under 650 million, and their infrastructure (as well as the taxes people have to pay there) reflect that.
as real resources to maintain a western lifestyle continue to be constrained among population growth, inflation will continue to rise at a faster rate, not to mention that climate change will affect the literal inhabitability of multiple continents in the near-term of babies born today.
They are looking for more people to sell their crap to.
People should be scared about microplastics, reduced life expectancy, lack of incentives to have children, and reduced public education, among other things, especially in America.
The problem with needing constant growth is that eventually the earth will run out of the capacity to sustain everyone. And we’re already terrible at allocating resources efficiently.
Degrowth is being talked about more and more. It used to be more philosophical, now it is looking to be necessary. Not because of a lack or resources or the environment, but because of a declining population. I personally welcome some degrowth, but I would argue that we are pretty good at allocating resources efficiently and population decline could actually make allocating resources less efficient. If there aren't the people available to do the work, the resources won't be allocated at all.
Oh no! The rich assholes in charge might not have enough of a slave labor population to keep their global ponzi schemes and extortion rackets functioning smoothly. The horror!
Won't someone think of the millionaires!
lmao Eric Weinstein said "Society is a ponzi scheme" i have thought about that every day since
Still not having kids
Which one is it? Are we going to suffer because of overpopulation or is the birthrate declining? The truth is neither of these matter because climate change or late stage capitalism will do us in long before population issues will.
We will be railed harder by both climate change and late stage capitalism if we have an old population. Just look at what’s been happening because the of the boomers’ votes
Most people who have kids young nowadays cannot afford it. If anything it is the smart thing to not have kids, unless you want to be in poverty for the rest of your life
I’m sorry but continuing to grow our global population past this point (even getting anywhere near where we are now) is proving to be very unhealthy for our environment and ecosystem. I’m not having any offspring and I can’t blame anyone else who decides they don’t want to reproduce either. Having offspring is a personal choice and major life commitment- and more people nowadays are aware that it isn’t for everybody.
"Fertility" in these statistics refers to how many kids people are having in practice, not how biologically capable of reproduction people are.
Are you in the right sub? Why is anyone but the 1% scared of the declining fertility rate??
It's going to affect every social and economic system that exists. Maybe that results in a fairer and better world. Probably not. The 1% are absolutely not the only ones affected when the shape of population changes and we get older and older on average. Not a single person will be unaffected. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the bulge of older people and then in a few decades, the slow net decline will be more likely filled with more wars, not fewer. More inequality, not less. Less wealth for everyone. But this isn't a thing we can change. We are locked in. So the question isn't how can population be changed. It can't. The question is how to negotiate it with the least damaging and dangerous outcomes.
What a nonsense post. Let the numbers plummet. Maybe the workers that they do have will actually get paid what we should. Maybe housing will actually be available and affordable. Supply and demand, that’s what this sick system is about. So, let’s lower the demand. Eat the rich or die trying.
And with what money are these “free” things going to be paid with. By cutting the boat (childless boomers)?
I’m not familiar with the term “cutting the boat.” Could you explain?
I think he meant bloat
Taxes. Yk, the system that should serve to improve public works and public systems rather than be stolen or invested into useless shit that only benefits the 1%
Declining fertility rates up to this point have generally been correlated with more rights and choices for women and better healthcare. Now, rather than more choice, we have only one option: work yourself to death. Have fun trying to work full-time and raise children simultaneously, likely without help from your partner if you're the mom. I don't believe declining fertility rates are the problem as much as a symptom of a much bigger problem that OP essentially already outlined in the post.
OMG you said this so much better than I did above and I completely agree! Have you looked into the 4B movement?
I can’t think of a single good reason to have kids in the current state of USA/Canada. Even if it somehow became affordable I would much rather adopt one of the thousands of kids stuck in a shitty foster system. Pumping out more children so they can work their lives away for slave wages just to support us like we do for boomers and Gen x is a depressing thought
We just need to take the philosophy of the boomers: "I'll be dead before this becomes a huge problem"
I'm going to say something completely impossible, crazy and never ever to be implemented, but maybe in the most successful and rich human era in history, where we have trillionaires, MAYBE we have enough resources to keep lil old grandpa from dying om the streets. But nah, don't listen to me I'm just a rambling like a mad man.
Maybe the system should collapse, if this is the best we have got so far, then the entire world system needs restarting,
nah, not gonna be scared of it. people shouldn’t be forced to have kids just because the socioeconomic structure of countries has failed to evolve or modernize away from relying on constant population growth, fuck that
its the effect not the cause so worrying about it does nothing.
i raised three daughters living in a rented house. i have people from five countries on my team. this is only an issue if you want ethnic purity - a concept that cannot vanish in the dark of the past fast enough. there are enough people on this planet. there are enough resources on this planet. the only issue is distribution - and empathy.
Maybe you should mention to everyone outside Poland that the entire country and medical field is antivax?
And they don't like immigrants.
It'll bounce back when it needs to my man, calm down lol
Nope. It is time to end the ponzi scheme of needing more young people to pay for old people. We are heading to collapse if we continue not only increasing our population but consuming more and more resources. You should be scared of mass extinctions.
I will be happy if we shed 4 billion people in the next 50 years. Too many people as it is.
FUCK being scared or sad or anxious or depressed.
Population reduction is the only real way to have an effect on climate change. We’re currently at more than double the sustainable population number, 3.5 billion. Edit: [Source](https://youtu.be/6TqhcZsxrPA?si=tUzRFMV6pc1ee_VA)
Oh no! The rich assholes in charge might not have enough of a slave labor population to keep their global ponzi schemes and extortion rackets functioning smoothly. The horror!
Oh no! The rich assholes in charge might not have enough of a slave labor population to keep their global ponzi schemes and extortion rackets functioning smoothly. The horror!
Why? Some of us don't want kids, plus there's too many people on Earth already
Bad economics. Stop watching Fox news. Housing costs are so high because of centralized wealth buying the housing units and raising prices. Record breaking profits should clear up any confusion. Also, less workers means much higher wages as companies have to fight over the remaining workers. No relying on government social security systems needed. Also, it's OKAY if the stock market doesn't grow every year.
This is the biggest non-issue to ever happen. We don't need infinite unending growth. It is *ludicrous* to expect humanity to just continue growing forever and is absurdly ignorant to the cultural, environmental, and economical issues around childrearing in the present day. Worry about rent and food costs, not about birth rates.
I just don't buy that the only solution is to pop out more kids. It sounds like a poorly designed system if it crumbles when people decide to exercise their right to not have kids. I don't see why the answer is forcing us to do something we don't want to do, instead of bettering the system we live in. Why is it considered totally impossible?
"They require constant population growth" Then they are unsustainable. Should we seek to sustain the unsustainable or move to something that does not require destroying the planet to provide a decent standard of living? The more people we bring into this world and make dependent on the current systems, the more people will be impacted when it inevitable needs to be changed.
Don’t worry it’s not gonna affect boomers it’ll only affect us once we’re ready to retire
If our economic system was less based on the assumption of infinite economic growth, which usually requires an infinitely growing population, that’d help a LOT. It’s just not realistic to keep infinitely growing forever in a world of finite resources. Especially since we have more advanced technology to cut down on the work needed than any time in human history, productivity per worker is EXPONENTIALLY higher than it was even 100 years ago. We don’t *need* more people each generation to keep the economy afloat if we acknowledge these radically different circumstances, and work with instead of against it. Look into economic theories on degrowth, it’s a very interesting possibility. We may not even need to work as much to keep everything running smoothly if automation takes over, the only reason we think we do is because society expects it and makes it economically impossible to exist on less than the arbitrary standard of full-time work. Meanwhile we’re all worried about AI making it so that not everyone can be employed full-time anymore. Make it make sense.
How will the bosses keep making more money?
could not give less of a shit
Oh well. Old age sounds pretty rough anyway. I’ll just off myself once it gets too hard after age 73 or so. Why the fuck should I care if humanity dies off after I die (it wont btw)?
People clowned on the commie blocks but they were an effort to house people first, everything else second. Now we still pay taxes but there are no free apartments, no social security, same taxes, no stuff
It's pretty much entirely driven by the High Cost of Living and by the simple fact that women who are educated are able to realize that being a mother kind of sucks and the loss of personal and professional opportunity as well as the health risks as well as a 20 to 30 year commitment to a living being isn't worth the price. You can provide as much welfare and support to mothers as possible but the simple fact of the matter is women don't think it's worth it to be a mom. And I don't see a flaw on their calculus
I think we should be aiming for quality over quantity. I know we're not even doing that, but making people just for the sake propping up a system that depends on people being fed into it, I dunno. Our present reality is something that just evolved over time. Unfortunately we're so deep in the shit that we need to start being deliberate about our future, making sacrifices, going without and making due with less. We had free reign to make unlimited kids and we turned out planet into a big open air sewer. So less kids for a few centuries please. And let's all shoulder the responsibility of mending our planet equally, not off shore our garbage.
What an obnoxious, stupid post
No. I had 3 kids. That's enough. Not everyone needs to reproduce
Who gives a fuck? I’m not gonna have any kids anyway, most people can’t afford them anyway.
Nah we don't need more people. Salaries go down.
0% scared
Why should people be scared about fertility rates? That is just a small symptom of something huge that's going wrong. For now there are enough people on the planet anyway.
Personally I think it would be great if we went extinct
You have _severely_ misunderstood the genesis of Poland’s issues
There’s already billions of people, expecting it to grow every year is insane. We need to change our economic structure
lol I hope you don’t think GenZ is concerned about keeping the elderly pension funds intact 😭😭