Why we might be getting the birth rate panic wrong (again) | BBC Global

Why would a society reproduce if it cannot provide its weakest members with the opportunity to live a dignified and humane life?

Another report full of half truths and feminin victimhood presented by BBC.

People did not fear overpopulation, because they did not see the falling fertility rates. They feared it, because they did not think it will fall bellow 2. It was unprecedented. No, fertitlity rates historically do not come down, when living standards improve. Hunter gatherers tend to have lower birth rates then farmers.

There is this problem X. X is man made, causes problems with shrinking resources and keeping up with the living standards globally, possibly causing civil unrests and war. Should we do something to avoid X or should we brace ourselves for it, adapt to it. If X is climate change, then we should fight it. If X is depopulation, we should adapt to it. It is funny.

However she is right about one thing. People do not have kids, because they can have other things to do with their lives. But with an aging society more and more resources will go to care about the elderly. This will lower the living standard, and limit the choices. She fears that society will wake up some day and practically limit women to two choices. Caring for children or for the elderly. And she does not like this.

Because of her fear, she wonders into lala land in the last section. Small communities died out, because they were not productive. They actively limit the diversity of carrier choices, push down individual risk taking. So her plan is the join a kibuc, and persuade the productive part of the population to finance it. A typical feminist idea of entitlement.

Overpopulation was and is not wrong. We are experiencing total environmental and social collapse right now. We no longer have resources and carrying capacity. Low birthrates is a blessing right now

Actually, if we are going to continue to ignore the environmental consequences of our industrial civilization, 500 million is a much more sustainable figure. Yes, increased automation will be needed, but we are already hurtling in that direction, anyways. Also, a variety of funding methods for MBI (Minimum Basic Income) and Universal Healthcare will need to be implemented.



But, there are plenty of financial options here: Tax automation, lift the Social Security tax cap on high income earners, tax investment income, definitely tax Billionaires at much higher rates, issue bonds, and expand the money supply just enough to fill any gaps. As long as these measures were used in a balanced way to just met the needs, we would not experience collapse or hyperinflation.



To declare collapse before we have even done anything to adjust to the new reality is just rank political and economic slothfulness.

The Govts of the developed world need to raise the retirement age and fix the diseases of all age groups, not just the under 70s. We won't ever run out of people, as some countries are extremely prolific to this day. If robots and AI are going to do a lot of our jobs, maybe there is not such a big problem as some fear.

I don't think you guys are seeing the bigger picture. What if they manage to replace every manual job? Where do most of the population will get money? Oh wait, that is already happening. Future is grim, no one will have money, except billionaires, which won't care anymore, because machines will solve all their problems. We have always been replaceable to them, now it's clearer than even. So just enjoy live as much as you can, nothing will be better.

There’s STILL WAY too many people right now. Pro-natalists need to get over themselves. And, BTW, young adults have completely tuned you out.

Having one fewer child is cited many times as the SINGLE LOST IMPACTFUL individual action to reduce lifetime greenhouse gas emissions. Influential research suggests adding a child creates an ongoing "carbon legacy," adding over \(9,400\) metric tonnes of \(CO_{2}\) to the atmosphere when accounting for the child's future descendant.

The only people who care are the ones who's benefiting on new babies, stop giving them babies

A world full of aging and sick people is a worry.

Save the Earth, don't give birth.

The war generation made sure the boomers were fed, trained and well-housed. The boomers than enjoyed everything and are now ensuring that they will be cared for as they are old. It always just been one generation that enjoyed all the benefits and determined policy.

A very intelligent conversation, but it has not left me with much optimism. Her solution, to "build strong local communities" seems rather vague to me.

"I had no children, I transmitted to no creature the legacy of our misery." — Machado de Assis, in The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas.

The problem is resource inequality.

Don't worry about it. The population collapse has started. The wealth and prosperity we see now will only exist now, and never again. Reference is J.B. Calhoun's mouse utopia. We are the mice.

I don't believe it's our purpose in life to procreate. The only purpose is the one you give yourself for your own well being & to become your best self.

It's not about re-training it's about having an investment into the economy and that paying you back after 30 years investing. That way you retired with enough to live out your days. Also admit you made mistakes and now those choices cost you a lot of money every day... That's called accountability. And if you are for those who can't work, we can have a system that also supports the injured and disabled, we can put a cap on personal wealth at 250k and give the rest to social programs. Each program focuses on education, health, food, and housing anyone who makes less than 100k a year. Simple.

It's ok not to breed. Not everyone needs to be a parent. It's ok.

Smartest races vanish, lazy ones outbreeds. Sure, we see it all wrong 🙄.
Unless you hope your new iphone or space program being done by africans or arabs

We should welcome a smaller more sustainable population.
The problem is old people, but politians are invariably old and so want to distract!!

Totally agree with the guest. Great common-sense points.

Women were unpaid carers but did't have to pay any BILLS! Their so called financial 'rights' is a strange concept in a Darwinian world. Birth rates are collapsing because women hate their gender role and want to be men.

The alarm bells for overpopulation were not wrong, they were spot on, and most people are living through it. In the urban areas across the world, you see it in the job and housing crises.

This is wonderful. Th3 slaves are not breeding

let it decline.

The problem is very simple, the median couple in their mid 20s don't have enough ressources to start a family. They either live with room mates, or still with their parents. Entry jobs don't pay enough, and if they get better pay, they are probably doing short term contract which keep them in financial precarity. The population is shrinking, because ressources are to get for the average people.

Part of it is due to maxing out the car advantage, pretty much every city are built as far as it is practical to drive in, housing prices are above the average people's pocket, so people in age to get babies are underhoused.

Maybe halt immigration and let ethnic europeans grow instead of go extinct in the long run.

well.... explain mum of threes or more. Oh...that is right. It is a "career" being paid by benefits.

GDP is irrelevant. GDP per capita is the only relevant GDP metric, really. So a shrinking GDP doesn't mean much. Age care will be handled by more and more tech anyway. And decreasing cost of living in a smaller society will probably revert the decrease of the fertility rate from some point onward. The only negative aspect that I could think of is a decreasing rate of innovation if the average workforce age becomes "too high".

Career women justify the great replacement.

Ppl never learn from history and there was nasty birth rate problem in ancient rome during Augustus period. Pretty much the same same problem, same causes.

Definitely gov are worried .. no taxes for the gov to pay trillions in debt

Humanity has already exceeded earth’s limits. Multiple studies show that

Good starting point for this conversation. people are getting wiser though. This sugar coating the situation isn't helping. Being more free to talk in the US it's starting to get out china's population is not much more than 500 million.preporation needs to happen like busting up the WEF and starting over it's going to collapse anyway. People don't own power, power owns people. When the WEF does collapse what meaningful good to society will they be. Glutinous greed for power and money won't mean a thing because people won't care if they starve. Buckle folks what you see looking around will be gone.

women!

Declining birth rates is a good thing actually. In the last century, the global birth rate rose from 2 billion to 8 billion. Compared to the century before, where it only went from 1 billion to 2 billion.
Another 6 billion people or more a century would be catastrophic for the environment. Not to mention, we would run out of the resources to keep billions of mouths fed, which would result in a nasty superfamine.

Good way for a country with a larger population to take over. 😂

Darn it! Have you heard of ecoological overshoot!?! The current population IS a HUGE problem. We currently consume many, many more renewable resources faster than they are able regenerate, and our waste production also far exceeds our planet's absorbtion capacity. In other words humanity's current biological footprint exceeds the earth's biocapacity. I AM SO IRRITATED THAT THIS DISCUSSION COMPLETELY IGNORES THIS ENTIRE AREA OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY WHICH IS CENTRAL TO THIS TOPIC!!!

People got brainwashed to value luxury lifestyle over family, for the sake of making the rich richer...
The West is using migrants as new kids to get cheap labor and tax revenue for a long while, they do not really care about babies... that is why they support killing 6months old unborn babies and make sure all women are high on contraceptive pills..
Your genes will die out soon, but you don't care as you get to buy the latest IPhone every year...

Overpopulation is still a problem.

No population on earth is supposed to naturally grow forever. Birthrates are declining yes, but there's also far less death rates for children under 5 and far less women dying during childbirth. More old people is a natural result of better medical care and many of our systems that were foolishly banking on infinite population growth haven't caught up with that fact.

"overpopulation" was not wrong, there are still many countries in the word (especially in africa) that have a completely unsustainable population growth. on the other hand you cannot underestimate the problems of shrinking populations (in cerain countries and regions of the world): it's not only that there are less people, the real problem is that there are too much old and not enough young people. immigration is one solution. but it's a solution with many and big problems too. not all countries are f*cked, not all are f.... the same way, but aging societies in asia or europe will get hit very hard in the next 20-30 years.