What happens as we see a first world country's demographic crisis

[Tigers!]

Japan appears to be heading for a demographic crisis as deaths outnumber births by 2:1.
Japan's falling population

There are many here who would welcome a falling population and only see it as a blessing but I wonder if that is as rosy as conceived?
With an increasing elderly population, decreasing tax payer and worker base what would be the consequences?
More immigration might help but is that only delaying the inevitable problems?

 

[Bomb#20]

The trend will be self-limiting as subcultures with higher birthrates become a larger fraction of the population. Also, sex-selective sperm sorting technology is becoming more available, which will cause the trend to become self-limiting as misogynist subcultures become a smaller fraction while subcultures that value girls become a larger fraction.

 

[rousseau]

Japan is a unique case because they're not a fan of foreigners. In Canada we have the same problem but there's been a big immigration push, which is mitigating the effect.

It's interesting to watch here as we become even more multi-cultural.

 

[lostone]

Sooner or later nations have to limit their population growth. Stabilizing the population will undeniably cause some short term problems which may be severe, but it a pill that must be swallowed at some point.

 

[bilby]

Sooner or later nations have to limit their population growth. Stabilizing the population will undeniably cause some short term problems which may be severe, but it a pill that must be swallowed at some point.

I don't think nations get much of a say; It's a decision that's already been made in an almost purely democratic way by individual women, who are deciding for themselves to swallow the pill.

 

[lostone]

Sooner or later nations have to limit their population growth. Stabilizing the population will undeniably cause some short term problems which may be severe, but it a pill that must be swallowed at some point.

I don't think nations get much of a say; It's a decision that's already been made in an almost purely democratic way by individual women, who are deciding for themselves to swallow the pill.

The declining standard of living for younger people who have the babies is doing the trick in many places. If you can't afford them, don't have them.

 

[bilby]

Sooner or later nations have to limit their population growth. Stabilizing the population will undeniably cause some short term problems which may be severe, but it a pill that must be swallowed at some point.

I don't think nations get much of a say; It's a decision that's already been made in an almost purely democratic way by individual women, who are deciding for themselves to swallow the pill.

The declining standard of living for younger people who have the babies is doing the trick in many places. If you can't afford them, don't have them.

That's a popular hypothesis, but the observation that birth rates are negatively correlated with wealth strongly suggests that it's false.

What appears to be most effective in reducing birth rates is the provision of primary education for girls, coupled with the ready availability of oral contraceptives. Wherever both of these factors exist, birth rates plummet.

Making people wealthier also seems to have an impact, albeit slightly less of one.

Of course, it's quite possible that the correlation between poverty and high birth rates is due (or mostly due) to the impact of children on wealth, rather than to the impact of wealth on child bearing. But my strong suspicion is that the underlying cause of both high birth rates and poverty is a lack of educational opportunities, and that it's education that's the major factor.

Widespread quality primary education for girls is a fairly new phenomenon. Education beyond primary school for girls, with the exception of vocational education in traditionally "female" work, is even newer.

And of course, contraception that is controlled by women, who can use it without their partner even knowing about it, is something that's only existed for about seventy years, and only been widely available for maybe fifty. That alone has been the biggest factor in falling birth rates.

 

[rousseau]

Sooner or later nations have to limit their population growth. Stabilizing the population will undeniably cause some short term problems which may be severe, but it a pill that must be swallowed at some point.

I don't think nations get much of a say; It's a decision that's already been made in an almost purely democratic way by individual women, who are deciding for themselves to swallow the pill.

The declining standard of living for younger people who have the babies is doing the trick in many places. If you can't afford them, don't have them.

That's a popular hypothesis, but the observation that birth rates are negatively correlated with wealth strongly suggests that it's false.

You keep saying this like birth rates are only affected by one variable. And the logic doesn't really add up. Yes, wealthy countries are negatively correlated with birth rate, but that's not because people have more money, it's because raising kids in those countries is exorbitantly expensive, so only the ultrawealthy in those countries can afford them.

I'm literally seeing this first hand as about 50% of the people I know can't afford children and aren't having them. They need a house that's too expensive, childcare that's too expensive, a car that's too expensive, postsecondary school that's too expensive. Most of them just want to make sure they don't starve after they retire. But yes.. they live in a wealthy country.

I'm currently putting away more money per month for my kids education, than (probably most) families in many African nations earn in a year. And that's just a small part of our expenses.

 

[bilby]

You keep saying this like birth rates are only affected by one variable.

Given that the post it came from was mostly a discussion of two completely different variables which I explicitly identified as being of far greater importance, I would argue that I absolutely and demonstrably do not do that.

 

[rousseau]

You keep saying this like birth rates are only affected by one variable.

Given that the post it came from was mostly a discussion of two completely different variables which I explicitly identified as being of far greater importance, I would argue that I absolutely and demonstrably do not do that.

That's fine but you really need to move away from this point on wealth. A nation being wealthy has little to do with the impact of finance on child-rearing.

In my immediate circle there's almost a direct correlation between wealth and number of children. The wealthy usually, but not always, have more children. Those with less money have fewer because they can't afford more.

Contraception is obviously a factor too, but the wealth of a nation only leads to childcare costs, not enlightened people deciding not to have kids.

 

[bilby]

You keep saying this like birth rates are only affected by one variable.

Given that the post it came from was mostly a discussion of two completely different variables which I explicitly identified as being of far greater importance, I would argue that I absolutely and demonstrably do not do that.

That's fine but you really need to move away from this point on wealth.

I was never particularly close to it; It's (as I explicitly said) a minor factor.

It's clearly very locally important to you; But then, the first world is a rather small minority of the entire world, and Canada a rather small minority of the first world, so I am not at all convinced that your personal experience is globally applicable.

 

[rousseau]

You keep saying this like birth rates are only affected by one variable.

Given that the post it came from was mostly a discussion of two completely different variables which I explicitly identified as being of far greater importance, I would argue that I absolutely and demonstrably do not do that.

That's fine but you really need to move away from this point on wealth.

I was never particularly close to it; It's (as I explicitly said) a minor factor.

It's clearly very locally important to you; But then, the first world is a rather small minority of the entire world, and Canada a rather small minority of the first world, so I am not at all convinced that your personal experience is globally applicable.

Ok, then can you demonstrate the mechanism by which the wealth of a nation leads to a lower birthrate, if not by making childcare costs much more expensive?

Being able to feed your children, to me, seems like it'd be an important factor in the decision to become a parent. This isn't just Canada by any means.

 

[bilby]

Ok, then can you demonstrate the mechanism by which the wealth of a nation leads to a lower birthrate, if not by making childcare costs much more expensive?

I already suggested a mechanism by which a third factor could be causal in both, leading to a correlation that is not causal.

my strong suspicion is that the underlying cause of both high birth rates and poverty is a lack of educational opportunities, and that it's education that's the major factor.

The wealth of a nation may well NOT lead to a lower birth rate; Rather, the availability of education may lead BOTH to a wealthy nation, AND to lower birth rates.

You're asking me to suggest a mechanism by which increased ice-cream consumption leads to more murders*, when I merely noted that the two were correlated, and explicitly said that they likely were not cause and effect.









*Clearly that's absurd; It's obvious that the correlation is due to the fact that successfully murdering someone is usually celebrated with an ice-cream.

 

[rousseau]

Ok, then can you demonstrate the mechanism by which the wealth of a nation leads to a lower birthrate, if not by making childcare costs much more expensive?

I already suggested a mechanism by which a third factor could be causal in both, leading to a correlation that is not causal.

my strong suspicion is that the underlying cause of both high birth rates and poverty is a lack of educational opportunities, and that it's education that's the major factor.

The wealth of a nation may well NOT lead to a lower birth rate; Rather, the availability of education may lead BOTH to a wealthy nation, AND to lower birth rates.

You're asking me to suggest a mechanism by which increased ice-cream consumption leads to more murders*, when I merely noted that the two were correlated, and explicitly said that they likely were not cause and effect.









*Clearly that's absurd; It's obvious that the correlation is due to the fact that successfully murdering someone is usually celebrated with an ice-cream.

I don't disagree that education is a factor, but to call it the main factor seems unlikely to me. The reality is that most people do want children, and they'll have as many as they can afford.

In poorer nations it's easier to have more because there are fewer associated costs. In wealthy nations having too many is dangerous.

I don't think you're really understanding how big of an impact finance is having on my generation. Contrast that to the baby boomers who had huge amounts of children, when the money was there.

 

[bilby]

The reality is that most people do want children, and they'll have as many as they can afford.

The 1960s called; They want their unfounded assumption back.

The reality is that most people want sex, and they'll have as many children as they want, plus a random number implied by the quality of contraception available.

When the quality of available contraception becomes sufficiently high, we observe that women, on average, choose to have fewer than two children, regardless of their level of wealth. So while most people probably do want children, the average size of that want, globally, is somewhat less than two.

There are, of course, plenty of individual exceptions, and plenty of local exceptions too, due to random variations in personal preference, and/or the use of large families as symbols of religious belief, wealth, or social status, for example.

Where having children is particularly expensive and family size is easily managed, you would expect to see some people having larger families as a way of advertising their wealth. Your membership of such a sub-set of humanity is not, however, evidence of its universality; And the global birth rate numbers demonstrate that it's not, currently, a global circumstance.

 

[bilby]

In poorer nations it's easier to have more because there are fewer associated costs. In wealthy nations having too many is dangerous.

Are you kidding??

In poorer nations, having children is not just dangerous financially, it's literally life-threatening.

I mean, it's far from being risk-free even with the best of modern medical care; But when you can't afford (or your country can't afford) the best, having another child entails a non-trivial risk of death.

To blithely assume that financial risk is the most significant factor here is the height of blissful ignorance. Your privilege is showing.

I don't think you're really understanding how big of an impact finance is having on my generation.

Yeah, your generation is the poorest in history, apart from literally all of the others.

Contrast that to the baby boomers who had huge amounts of children, when the money was there.

The baby boomers had huge amounts of children because there were huge numbers of baby boomers, at a time before the widespread availability of effective contraception.

There were huge numbers of boomers because their parents were busy fighting a war, and so in many cases had to defer starting a family (it's astonishingly difficult to get your wife pregnant when she's in Toronto, and you're in a shell hole in Normandy, even if she's not on the pill).

 

[rousseau]

In poorer nations it's easier to have more because there are fewer associated costs. In wealthy nations having too many is dangerous.

Are you kidding??

In poorer nations, having children is not just dangerous financially, it's literally life-threatening.

I mean, it's far from being risk-free even with the best of modern medical care; But when you can't afford (or your country can't afford) the best, having another child entails a non-trivial risk of death.

To blithely assume that financial risk is the most significant factor here is the height of blissful ignorance. Your privilege is showing.

I still don't think you're quite grasping that if the money doesn't add up it doesn't add up. For almost everyone in my generation it doesn't add up. Letting your children die in North America means a prison term, not being able to afford rent means homelessness.

Certainly having children entails risks elsewhere too, but the entire social framework is apples and oranges.

 

[bilby]

I still don't think you're quite grasping that if the money doesn't add up it doesn't add up.

I still don't think you're grasping that that's not only not a new phenomenon, but it's actually less of an issue now than at any previous time in history.

You're standing too close to the issue to be able to see the big picture. Times are hard for you, and your friends. But that doesn't mean they weren't even harder for your parents generation, and their parents generation, and so on for many generations.

You need to go back to the Medieval period to find a time when the latest generation weren't (on average) wealthier than their immediate ancestors.

And yet, almost everyone has always felt that they were struggling financially. And not without good reason.

 

[rousseau]

I still don't think you're quite grasping that if the money doesn't add up it doesn't add up.

I still don't think you're grasping that that's not only not a new phenomenon, but it's actually less of an issue now than at any previous time in history.

You're standing too close to the issue to be able to see the big picture. Times are hard for you, and your friends. But that doesn't mean they weren't even harder for your parents generation, and their parents generation, and so on for many generations.

You need to go back to the Medieval period to find a time when the latest generation weren't (on average) wealthier than their immediate ancestors.

And yet, almost everyone has always felt that they were struggling financially. And not without good reason.

My generation is most definitely (much) poorer than our parents, and subsequent generations have it even worse. I could list all the reasons why but you can safely assume that it's 'all of them'.

Most of all we live in a social framework where we need to fund our own retirement, but almost none of us have the means or support to do that. Which makes kids a non-starter.

 

[lostone]

I still don't think you're quite grasping that if the money doesn't add up it doesn't add up.

I still don't think you're grasping that that's not only not a new phenomenon, but it's actually less of an issue now than at any previous time in history.

You're standing too close to the issue to be able to see the big picture. Times are hard for you, and your friends. But that doesn't mean they weren't even harder for your parents generation, and their parents generation, and so on for many generations.

You need to go back to the Medieval period to find a time when the latest generation weren't (on average) wealthier than their immediate ancestors.

And yet, almost everyone has always felt that they were struggling financially. And not without good reason.

My generation is most definitely (much) poorer than our parents, and subsequent generations have it even worse. I could list all the reasons why but you can safely assume that it's 'all of them'.

Most of all we live in a social framework where we need to fund our own retirement, but almost none of us have the means or support to do that. Which makes kids a non-starter.

That is true. We live in an era in which each generation has seen their expectations lowered, since 1980 or so. All the wealth generated by our technological advances and increased productivity has flowed into the coffers of those who are already wealthy and who rule industry. OTOH, Marxism has also proven to be a failure for the same reasons.