Does crashing birthrate and aging society spell doom for Thailand?

[spidermike007]

13 minutes ago, SoilSpoil said:

Only people of minor intellect would make such generalizations about the population of entire countries.

Well, I may be a big dummy. But, it can't be argued that those nations are amongst the top ten in the world in birth rates. And I call that an issue. For everyone, not just them. 

[JensenZ]

6 minutes ago, madmitch said:

I wonder what the usual retirment age is where you come from? In the UK it's now 66, rising to 57. 60 is too young, especially for most government employees. MPs are the exception of course!

The problem is the labour force. There are already too many government employees getting fat on bloated salaries. That doesn't help the economy.

[spidermike007]

2 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

This reasoning is flawed. In practice, what happens after a couple of decades of declining birth rates is that migrants are presented as the solution to compensate for it, as is happening in Europe. The same leaders who encouraged us to stop making babies are now telling us we need more immigration. And it doesn't result in increased wealth, quite the contrary.

Without immigrants in the US, the country would be lazy, unproductive and a pale shadow of the nation it became. Very few Americans are willing to do the work many immigrants will do, and if anything, the quota system needs to be increased to allow more highly talented people to live and work there. One of the reasons the system is broken, is the lack of reform and the very old quota system. The best and the brightest from around the world get a degree at MIT, then can't work in the US, because of the broken system. So, where do they go? Brazil, Germany, and other nations civilized enough to know their value. 

[JensenZ]

13 minutes ago, ozimoron said:

Might work if there was no social security or health benefits. Who pays for them when the percentage of elderly rises?

If the social welfare systems collapse, or should I say when they do, we'll probably go back to the old days of history when life expectancy was short and there wasn't a problem looking after an elderly population which for the most part didn't exist. Mother Nature will take care of the 8 billion plus current population, but not necessarily in the way many might hope.

 

Life Expectency through the ages

 

Quote

 

Longevity has increased steadily through history. Life expectancy at birth was a brief 25 years during the Roman Empire, it reached 33 years by the Middle Ages and raised up to 55 years in the early 1900s.1 In the Middle Ages, the average life span of males born in landholding families in England was 31.3 years and the biggest danger was surviving childhood.2 Once children reached the age of 10, their life expectancy was 32.2 years, and for those who survived to 25, the remaining life expectancy was 23.3 years. Such estimates reflected the life expectancy of adult males from the higher ranks of English society in the Middle Ages,3 and were similar to that computed for monks of the Christ Church in Canterbury during the 15th century.4

 

They were talking about the life expectency of a better fed population, not the common folk.

Edited August 26, 2023 by JensenZ

[Lacessit]

2 hours ago, brianthainess said:

I agree< I couldn't eat a whole one. ????

Someone has been reading Ray Bradbury.

[CartagenaWarlock]

6 hours ago, mfd101 said:

No different from the rest of the world outside Africa (and THEIR turn will come as their economies are clawing their way up the status ladder).

Outside Africa and India. India is the best poised for this. After conquering the US with high quality CEOs of fortune 100 companies, lawyers, doctors, engineers, authors, journalists, etc. by the First generation Indian-Americans, the economy is surging and they give middle fingers to the Western countries whenever they want to dictate any terms, just like in the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It will take time but by 2050, it may be the thirst largest economy. 

[Jelli]

The world outside southern Africa will be populated by their nation states. The upper caste will be a mix of in utero and wholly artificial wombs. CRISPR, eugenics, bionics. It is simply not worth the blood, toil and treasure to have a child. That is a very, very sad truth

 

The hoi palloi will be anything from mistakenly pregnant upper middle class fallen thru the cracks to outright peasants. The two groups will not mix. That is the freeborn with the highborn. Expect a scrum that will mirror every well made dystopian book and movie.* if populations dwindle too far it is possible that the elite might pull from the best of this bottom lot. I'm no soothsayer...

 

Between the incomes vs expense and what a disaster (legal and otherwise) marriage has become no one will willingly have children.

 

Look at what a ghost nation Japan has become. Much of the USA, rural Europe.

 

Look at issarn. Case study... bring in the machines.

Edited August 26, 2023 by Jelli

[jaideedave]

3 hours ago, JensenZ said:

Unless you needed to travel there was no coercion to be vaccinated in Thailand "as a Farang". I had no problems at all remaining unvaccinated. I did consider the possibility that they might force foreigners to be vaccinated in order to get visa extensions, but there was no reason to rush to it.

 

We couldn't discuss the science on here or anywhere, because if we did, we would have been labelled conspiracy nuts, but there was plenty of good information available online if you had opened your mind to the possibility that vaccinations were not necessarily a good idea.

Thanks very much I apprecite your response.

[mfd101]

Life expectancy figures are nearly always based on expectancy at birth. But most of the large increase in 'life expectancy' in Western countries over the last 120 years came from the virtual elimination of child mortality.  Which means that, if you were to take the figures for life expectancy at, say, age 10 or 15 or even 20, the improvement over the last 120 years would be nowhere near as great as is usually quoted.

 

There have always been people who lived to a ripe old age (Thomas Hobbes was one: 1588-1679). Just not many of them.

[JensenZ]

4 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

This reasoning is flawed. In practice, what happens after a couple of decades of declining birth rates is that migrants are presented as the solution to compensate for it, as is happening in Europe. The same leaders who encouraged us to stop making babies are now telling us we need more immigration. And it doesn't result in increased wealth, quite the contrary.

Eventually, after many decades and generations the original habitants will die out and new migrant populations will take over as the migrants from poorer countries have a much higher fertility rate than the original inbabitants. They get an education, become politicians and eventually start making the rules. They take full advantage of the Democratic process and social security systems in place in Europe.

[LukKrueng]

10 hours ago, observer90210 said:

Not to worry for the infrastructures left empty. Make the visa and immigration procedures easier, and all us quality posters of AN will flock the BTS, MRT, the malls, pool villa developpments and the banks with good foreign money-money.

ummm, the reason Thailand's median age is 10 years older than the rest of the world might be all the old retirees coming here at a late age... 

Edited August 26, 2023 by LukKrueng

[GammaGlobulin]

Here is the projected Thailand population pyramid for the year 2030.

Looks GOOD to me...

https://www.populationpyramid.net/thailand/2030/

 

This is an excellent site, with great graphics for computing and visualizing future of population in many countries...

 

 

 

[SoilSpoil]

2 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Well, I may be a big dummy. But, it can't be argued that those nations are amongst the top ten in the world in birth rates. And I call that an issue. For everyone, not just them. 

That is indeed a big problem, you are correct.

[Srikcir]

"Not only would the flow of immigrants into countries whose population is declining serve the purpose of avoiding depopulation, it would also help with the countries' age structures."

From the International Monetary Fund (IMF):  "Immigration solve the demographic dilemma-but not without the right policies." March 2020;

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2020/03

Zenophobic, nationality and racial discriminatory nations need not apply. 

[rattlesnake]

6 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Without immigrants in the US, the country would be lazy, unproductive and a pale shadow of the nation it became. Very few Americans are willing to do the work many immigrants will do, and if anything, the quota system needs to be increased to allow more highly talented people to live and work there. One of the reasons the system is broken, is the lack of reform and the very old quota system. The best and the brightest from around the world get a degree at MIT, then can't work in the US, because of the broken system. So, where do they go? Brazil, Germany, and other nations civilized enough to know their value. 

The vast majority of immigrants to Western countries are neither talented nor bright. Anyone claiming this is very far removed from reality.

Edited August 26, 2023 by rattlesnake

[redwood1]

Well Thailand will be rolling out the red carpet for retired expats and doing every thing they can to make visas more easy for us and trying to make our life better every day and speaking highly of us....To keep us in Thailand..

[Lacessit]

7 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

The vast majority of immigrants to Western countries are neither talented nor bright. Anyone claiming this is very far removed from reality.

If anyone looks at the racial composition of doctors in Australia, they will find a very high proportion of them are of Chinese or Indian origin. My GP and urologist are both Chinese.

[jacko45k]

51 minutes ago, redwood1 said:

Well Thailand will be rolling out the red carpet for retired expats and doing every thing they can to make visas more easy for us and trying to make our life better every day and speaking highly of us....To keep us in Thailand..

Supreme optimism......

[metisdead]

A post with a trolling image in violation of our Community Standards has been removed.

[save the frogs]

old population = a country is less capable of defending itself if another country invades

 

[BritManToo]

19 hours ago, mfd101 said:

Nonsense. Give them a decent wage and the education to plan a future and they stop breeding like rabbits. As has happened in every First and Second World country.

 

It's not rocket science.

More to do with food and housing IMHO.

Give women other options than breeding, and they'll take them.

 

But 'there are too many people on the planet' is a worthless old trope.

There's no shortages of anything, and unlikely to be any shortages in the future.

Obviously farmers aren't going to work for nothing, and will need to be paid to produce.

Unlike in the past where there were few people, and a war, disease or crop failure could kill them all.

I always wonder why some people think there are too many on the planet, they can never answer why they think that. Apart from some globalist told them that.

[jaideedave]

10 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

The vast majority of immigrants to Western countries are neither talented nor bright. Anyone claiming this is very far removed from reality.

For example Canada is currently being flooded with Africans claiming to being persecuted because they are gay. The fly in from Nigeria and claim they are gay and file for asylum which automatically provides them with shelter,food,medical and other benefits not available in their home country. Some end up on the streets because there is no housing for them all. <deleted> situation for them and the generous taxpayers. A very basic IQ ( barely literate) is what they offer. 

>According to Canadian CBC News, 60-70 per cent of Nigerian asylum claims made since April cited persecution as a result of their sexual orientation<

[mfd101]

31 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

More to do with food and housing IMHO.

Give women other options than breeding, and they'll take them.

 

But 'there are too many people on the planet' is a worthless old trope.

There's no shortages of anything, and unlikely to be any shortages in the future.

Obviously farmers aren't going to work for nothing, and will need to be paid to produce.

Unlike in the past where there were few people, and a war, disease or crop failure could kill them all.

I always wonder why some people think there are too many on the planet, they can never answer why they think that. Apart from some globalist told them that.

Well, whether you approve or not, the world's population will be declining steadily after the middle of this century. And no doubt panic will set in, the opposite kind from what we currently have.

 

We love panics. Without them journalists & politicians would have little to do.

 

 

[mfd101]

14 hours ago, LukKrueng said:

ummm, the reason Thailand's median age is 10 years older than the rest of the world might be all the old retirees coming here at a late age... 

Rubbish. Old Falangs are nothing but a pimple on the backside of Thailand.

[Ralf001]

Certainly means doom for future sex pest coming to visit two weeks at a time !

[LukKrueng]

1 hour ago, mfd101 said:

Rubbish. Old Falangs are nothing but a pimple on the backside of Thailand.

You should read the post I replied to before you reply to me. Otherwise you just take my reply out of contest

[mfd101]

37 minutes ago, LukKrueng said:

You should read the post I replied to before you reply to me. Otherwise you just take my reply out of contest

Not sure how that helps. My point is that expats here invariably overestimate their own importance in the scheme of things.

[Lacessit]

2 hours ago, mfd101 said:

Rubbish. Old Falangs are nothing but a pimple on the backside of Thailand.

A pimple which seems to be eagerly sought after by many Thai women, as soon as said women get into the thirties and forties.

[KhunLA]

Crashing ... that's a bit of a stretch, as actually up, 2023 vs 2022.

The current population of Thailand is:

2023 is 71,801,279, a 0.15% increase from 2022.

2022 was 71,697,030, a 0.13% increase from 2021.

2021 was 71,601,103, a 0.18% increase from 2020.

2020 was 71,475,664, a 0.24% increase from 2019.

 

Still in the positive, so more people here next year, probably than this year.

source

That they prefer a different lifestyle, instead of following the family path, may or may not be an issue.  Especially farming, but with better farming & higher production and yields per rai/hectare, I don't think it's really going to matter.

 

[spidermike007]

14 hours ago, rattlesnake said:

The vast majority of immigrants to Western countries are neither talented nor bright. Anyone claiming this is very far removed from reality.

Your claim may or may not be true. Being poor does not mean you are without talent, nor bright, though many Westerners and conservatives would make that claim. 

 

Many immigrants are talented mechanics, landscapers, framers, carpenters, roofers, cooks, designers, musicians, etc, etc. Many are very hard workers and work far harder than their counterparts in the nations they settle in. Many pay taxes and make substantial contributions to society. They contribute alot more than you give them credit for. For example, where would the Thai construction industry be without the excellent Burmese carpenters?