World fertility rates in ‘unprecedented decline’, UN says – BBC News

19 comments

1. Submission statement: global fertility rates are tanking. With the most cited cause being the increase cost of having kids. This is especially true in heavily urbanized developed countries. This trend will shape global geopolitics for the next century.

2. Imo: the fertility crisis is the biggest threat to global stability in the comming century. We are currently in the transition phase from having a majority under 50 population in most of the world to a majority over 50 population. This is already hitting east asia. Europe and Canada have about 5-10 years . Then the rest of the Americas, south asia, and africa.

   It’s already started. And there’s nothing we can do about it in the short term, anything we try will take 16 years minimum to show an impact.

   No economic system or policy is designed for a world where the economy gets smaller every year, no system to keep standards of living up through a permanent depression. But what is guaranteed is that the powers who are facing demographic collapse are Done. Atleast for a century, but if the demographic collapse doesn’t get reversed then they will literally vanish off the world map. You can’t patch this with immigration, there aren’t enough immigrants

3. Good. We have too many people destroying the earth already.

4. Universal income and healthcare will boost fertility rates, but unfortunately capitalism and profit requires modern slaves.

5. Children of Men

6. The only ways to fix the demographic decline are to either regress to a previous stage (kids = beneficial), or to achieve such a huge increase in lifespan, that the replacement rate drops way down. 

   I don’t see the former being possible without extensive destruction of society at all levels, so hopefully it’ll be the latter. 

7. Nature had a way, but then we invented birth control. Now we need to invent a way around birth rate. Think we will see some strange stuff in the coming years.

8. It seems to me likely that increasing urbanization, where rural areas are depopulating in favor of large cities, will also reduce fertility rates. Women will have more career opportunities, and thus defer childbearing, rental costs will be high, schools will cost more and other factors will push down having children. Big cities lead to smaller population growth.

9. This is one of those problems that evolution is really good at solving.

10. Who wants to raise an iPad kid devoid of confidence, afflicted by mental disorders and social anxiety? You try to protect them from it, but then they are bullied as the only kid in class who doesn’t keep up with the YouTubers and games.

11. It’s not like authoritarian regimes like China and Russia are doing any better. The West would really be in big trouble if that was the case. The way things are, it’s not so much a geopolitical issue it’s something higher level.

    My view is that things will balance out in the long run because countries will be unable to maintain their social safety nets to support all these “unproductive” older people. People will revert to having children when they see them as necessary for their own security. You can’t make people have kids, they’ll have them when it’s in their interest.

12. I agree it’s going to be a driving force of political instability for the next 50+ years. Additionally though on the biggest macro scale – the long term survival of the human race and sustainability of the rest of the planet – it’s actually good news. 8+ billion humans doesn’t leave much room for anything else. At expected consumption of resource rates if all 8 billion got what they “want” it would be much worse. The only reason certain things were coming back (before the recent moves away from environmental protection globally) was because of both great leaps in new technology application and heavy government regulations. The root problem we seek to solve with all that regulation and technology scales with population more than anything else.

13. I would argue that’s a good thing, assuming AI becomes what people say it will

14. Remember when overpopulation was an issue? Pepperidge farms remembers

15. Ever wonder how much of this is linked to general mental health?

    South Korea has done some pretty progressive things to get birthrates up, and it hasn’t moved the needle. Europe gives generous benefits and they face the same problems.

    Maybe folks just aren’t feeling good about bringing new people onto the world. And that’s an even bigger societal problem than what benefits may or may not be available.

16. My decision not to have children is rooted in two things: cost and pessimism.
    The cost problem is self explanatory.

    The bigger problem is just that I’m not willing to bring a child into a world this bleak. Between the climate collapse and the political collapse in this country – nope. That’s too damned cruel.

    I’ll stick to pets.

17. Canada here: I just saw this reported on the local news channel at 6pm. They mentioned that the cost to raise a child today is ~$300,000 dollars from birth to 18 years old, averaging about ~$17,000 a year and this is Canadian dollars.

    So, although having the 2025 $ costs listed is informative, there was little to no mention about what the next 5-10-15-20 years will look like for said children.

    That’s where my issue is with reports like this. Little to no mention or acknowledgement about what the kids will be inheriting. Anyone 45 years and younger *today* know what’s up, and I just wish we’d stop lying about it.

18. We have been trying for a while to no avail. Prob IVF. Very frustrating

19. I suspect we are only just starting to see the impacts of this. The impact is gonna be very catastrophic for the world, assuming climate change doesn’t decimate us first. It’s a sign of rising inequality, which is going to be very odd to see how it plays out, seeing as many wealthy people need someone to sell products and services too. Maybe the system just collapses in its own weight.

Comments are closed.