The Guardian view on a demographic paradox: the rebirth of pronatalism

[Scott]

 

As the world marks the birth of its eight billionth inhabitant this week – three times the total in 1950 – the paradox is that many governments are worrying about too few citizens, not too many. About 60% of the global population live in places where fertility rates have dropped below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman, the point at which a country’s population would remain stable. In South Korea, which already had the world’s lowest rate, it fell to just 0.81 this year.

By 2050, populations will be declining in more than half of European countries; in five – Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia and Ukraine – they are projected to drop by more than 20%. China – soon to be overtaken by India as the most populous nation – saw a fifth consecutive fall last year to a new record low, with just 10.62 million births despite a population of 1.4 billion and a sustained push to persuade people to have more children.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/17/the-guardian-view-on-a-demographic-paradox-the-rebirth-of-pronatalism

[ukrules]

I hear that back in the 1950's things were ticking along just fine with such a low population, what's all the worry about?

[Credo]

3 hours ago, ukrules said:

I hear that back in the 1950's things were ticking along just fine with such a low population, what's all the worry about?

I think this has more to do with allowing very gifted people to have large numbers of children to create a sort of 'super race', while the rest not so much.   Elon Musk is heavily into this.   

 

[thaibeachlovers]

23 hours ago, ukrules said:

I hear that back in the 1950's things were ticking along just fine with such a low population, what's all the worry about?

While the 50s were brilliant for western countries ( the rest of the world not so much ), western populations are aging.

However, western countries should be able to use technology to overcome many of the associated problems, though it will probably require an influx of people from poor countries to do the jobs no one else wants to do, and that can cause problems too.

 

Given that many western and some Asian women eg Sth Korean and Japanese, have realised ( quite understandably IMO ) that having lots of, or any babies is not what they want to do, the situation isn't going to change.

[placeholder]

On 11/27/2022 at 4:01 AM, ukrules said:

I hear that back in the 1950's things were ticking along just fine with such a low population, what's all the worry about?

Because the proportion of the old to everyone else was much lower. As the birth rates decline, that ratio has been getting bigger i.e. the numerator is growing faster than the denominator.