Isn't today's low birth rate exactly what people of the 1980s were clamoring for?

Great Debates
1

As a Millennial, maybe I’m misremembering my childhood, but I remember reading on multiple occasions the books of my era warning that the planet’s population was on a steep upwards rise - soon going to be 7 billion, 9 billion, 15 billion, etc. - and that everyone needed to have fewer babies. And it seemed to be pretty well acknowledged that if such a low birth rate were ever achieved, the unavoidable side effect was that the populace would get more and more proportionally elderly, but that was considered the acceptable price to pay.

And now, much of the world (except for Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East) has indeed gotten to a low birth rate. But instead of celebration, it’s panic, and governments trying their best to pull up the birth rate by offering all kinds of fertility incentives.

So, my question is, why isn’t the aging of the population just considered the acceptable price to pay for a low birth rate? Isn’t the low birth rate reducing human congestion, reducing carbon emission and resource consumption, exactly what people from the 1980s-1990s kept saying the planet needed?

It’s like demographers want to have a global population that is both young in age and small in numbers at the same time. That’s impossible unless there were some mass campaign of euthanasia of elderly people against their will, which is obviously immoral.

2

The main issue is that it happened so suddenly. Many countries have gone from 7+ kids per family to just over 1 in a single generation. In many ways it’d have been better to taper off.

Me, I agree with you, I don’t think we can afford to taper off. But it’s going to be painful.

3

People don’t like it because the aging population are the ones in control.

4

I don’t think it’s demographers who are looking for the impossible - they are just documented what’s happening.

But certainly in the 1970s and 1980s population growth was seen as a big problem by many, and these days there’s a bit of talk about the opposite issue.

5

As the population ages, it’s no longer contributing to retirement benefits but instead is drawing down these benefits. Meanwhile there are fewer people paying into the retirement system. Also there’s the question of who will be available to provide elder care.

6

What we really meant was that the Third World needs to have fewer babies.

7

Some industrialized First-World countries welcome immigrants from those Third World countries who can work in child care, elder care, nursing and other professions that their own people don’t want to do.

8

Yep, and I still believe it. There are problems caused by the low birth rate, but overall, I think it’s necessary and good.

9

Low birth rate is needed. It is a good thing with some serious issues along the way.

A peaceful descent to less than 2 billion is what the world really needs. A billion is probably ideal.

But the economic pains and care for the elderly will be a issue.

10

South Korea has one of the lowest fertility rates among industrialized nations, with a rate below one child per woman. So it might serve an example of what other countries can expect. There is a Wikipedia article on the aging of the South Korean population; here is a link to the section on the effects of this.

11

If only it was that simple.

12

Yes, and Acid Rain, the Ozone Layer, the Population Bomb, the Coming Ice Age, and probably a few I’ve forgotten.

13

What was the nature of the emergency that prevented you from elaborating?

14

We dealt with the problem of the Ozone layer and acid rain. Great successes.

We’re talking about the population bomb in this thread.

The ice age stuff barely came up to my knowledge.

Now please stay on topic.

As a moderator.

Moderating:

15

Because if there aren’t enough young people, there won’t be enough workers to work to keep society functioning.

In some of the nations with the lowest birth rates in europe and east asia, around 40-45% of the population will be age 60+ in the year 2050. That means that 40-45% of the population aren’t working, but they need pensions, healthcare and people to take care of them. Then you have maybe 10% as kids. You end up in a society where 40-50% of the population is working adults who have to take care of the other 50-60%.

Of that working population, a significant % will need to work to care for the kids and care for the elderly. There won’t be enough workers to keep the economy functioning.

Thats the main reason. I’m not saying people should have kids just so they can live as wage slaves in an oligarchy full of billionaires funneling wealth upwards. But it is a serious concern. Hopefully advances in robotics and AI reduces the demand for physical and cognitive labor performed by humans to deal with the labor shortage. The demand for labor will outstrip the supply due to the low fertility rate.

But I also remember when people worried about overpopulation. As per capita income grows the reproduction rate drops. From $0 to $10,000 in per capita income, fertility rate drops from about 6 kids per woman down to 2-3 kids per woman. But once you get above 20k or so in per capita income, fertility tends to drop below replacement levels of 2.1 kids per woman.

Its like blood pressure. We went from one extreme of too much to the other extreme of too little. Both have their negative effects.

16

I do find it odd how swiftly the discourse on this has flipped, among left-leaning people at least, and the cynic in me feels like it’s mostly the professional fretting class realizing that they need to find something new to fret about. (Sometimes alongside fretting that AI is going to destroy all of our jobs, and … well, which is it? Is the future gonna need more workers or fewer workers?)

17

First Principle: Nobody Knows the Future.

People can only extrapolate from the past. If something is rising, then the expectation is that it will continue to rise. If it is falling, then it will continue to fall. If it is dangerous, then it will continue to be dangerous unless something is done. This has been true since Malthus.

The past they were extrapolating from in the 1980s was the baby boom, an enormous swell of the population that changed the landscape. They did not, unless they were very stupid, expect birthrates to continue at that level. The crude birth rate had settled at about 14-15 per 1000 live births in 1977 and stayed that way through 2003. It has been 12-13 for the last decade. Note that the rate is smaller and the population base is smaller, giving us a rapidly aging population.

The combination means that all of the consequences given above - fewer workers, smaller revenues, larger social security payments, greater need for health care and health care workers - are hitting at once.

Something can be done. Something had historically been done. Immigrants to this country were on average much younger than the residents, willing to work at lower wages, contributors to social security, and producing somewhat higher birthrates. That ameliorated the changes.

The worst possible reaction would be to stop immigration and deport millions of immigrants. Guess what the government’s intention is. Exactly the same thing can be said about climate change. Something could be done and the government is doing the exact opposite. We are watching multiple crises unfold in front of our eyes, but not the one predicted in 1980s. Nobody then predicted such complete idiocy.

I’m using the U.S. as my example, but a similar mindset appears around all developed countries. No more immigrants and get rid of the ones already there. No climate mitigation. No cutbacks. No sacrifices for our children. Total and complete me, me, me now, now, now.

18

I agree; hostility towards immigrants is exactly what we don’t need.

19

To answer the above question to me and to add to this list;
Complain about fewer people paying into the retirement system. A system they, et al., have been payed to make sure stays broken after generations of opposing such programs including their very creation.

20

Good point.

But we can do that through immigration. Those South of the Border farm workers are younger, they aint senior citizens.

Some 25% or so of workers aged 65+ are still in the workforce. I worked quite some years after retirement age myself. And, those “illegal aliens” many people hate" ? they pay INTO Social Security, but can not take out.

Excellent point. The US can absorb millions of younger, fit workers.