My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Actually, in the comments underneath that tweet (of global births) which began this debate, a couple of experts suggest Nigeria’s population is vastly over-estimated
I’ve no idea if this is true, or why it should be true, but: worth noting
Andrew Bailey now creating a hostage to fortune by saying rates could come down quickly.
If we have an Israel-Iran war, they’re likely not coming down at all!
Yet oil prices have hardly moved despite the current tension - still in the low $70s - this time last year they were at $90. I suspect the markets have got the hang of the rhetoric and the posturing and as I say so often, once the pattern of behaviour is established, everyone gets used to it.
I wonder if Russia-Ukraine is - amongst other things - the first of The Fertility Wars. Russia has really bad demographics. It only sustains its overall population stats by importing people from ex-Soviet central Asian states. But they are very different from the ideal white, “Christian” Slav that, I imagine, Putin has in mind when he thinks of “a Russian”
However Ukrainians do fit this template. By absorbing much or all of Ukraine Putin solves Russia’s demographic problems, and makes it more Slavic, at least for the medium term
The Ukrainians would, quite literally, rather die.
Putin has failed in his war aims, and things over time will only get worse for him, even if he were somehow to eke out some kind of "victory" in the short/medium term. It is more likely that Ukrainian tanks will end up in Rostov than Russian ones in Lviv. As for Russian demographics, Putin already knows he is staring disaster in the face. Hi repressive attempts to increase the birth rate are almost laughable.
You say that, but birth rates in the Baltic states are even lower than in Russia. Heading south at a remarkable clip - soon you’ll be below 1 child per woman, like Taiwan or Macao
Why are the Balts disappearing?
What's the methodology on that? Are women actually having fewer births there per person, or is it that the birth-per-unit-population is unusually low? Because the latter could well be down to large-scale economic migration among younger adults. Both will have the same effect on population change but the reason matters too.
The TFR is low-ish in the Baltics - roughly the same as ours. So if the birth rate is exceptionally low, that's due to emigration, not fertility rates.
There is probably a bit of interaction between the two if women who are more likely to have children are more likely to move abroad. Or the opposite.
I remember when in Bulgaria having a conversations over lunch about such things that finished with the line
"have you seen what's left of the male population in this country?"
Given that the day before we had seen bouncers beating up a drunk at 5pm in the afternoon we couldn't fault the statement
Any men with brains had left for Europe as soon as they graduated...
I wonder if Russia-Ukraine is - amongst other things - the first of The Fertility Wars. Russia has really bad demographics. It only sustains its overall population stats by importing people from ex-Soviet central Asian states. But they are very different from the ideal white, “Christian” Slav that, I imagine, Putin has in mind when he thinks of “a Russian”
However Ukrainians do fit this template. By absorbing much or all of Ukraine Putin solves Russia’s demographic problems, and makes it more Slavic, at least for the medium term
The Ukrainians would, quite literally, rather die.
Putin has failed in his war aims, and things over time will only get worse for him, even if he were somehow to eke out some kind of "victory" in the short/medium term. It is more likely that Ukrainian tanks will end up in Rostov than Russian ones in Lviv. As for Russian demographics, Putin already knows he is staring disaster in the face. Hi repressive attempts to increase the birth rate are almost laughable.
You say that, but birth rates in the Baltic states are even lower than in Russia. Heading south at a remarkable clip - soon you’ll be below 1 child per woman, like Taiwan or Macao
Why are the Balts disappearing?
What's the methodology on that? Are women actually having fewer births there per person, or is it that the birth-per-unit-population is unusually low? Because the latter could well be down to large-scale economic migration among younger adults. Both will have the same effect on population change but the reason matters too.
The TFR is low-ish in the Baltics - roughly the same as ours. So if the birth rate is exceptionally low, that's due to emigration, not fertility rates.
There is probably a bit of interaction between the two if women who are more likely to have children are more likely to move abroad. Or the opposite.
I remember when in Bulgaria having a conversations over lunch about such things that finished with the line
"have you seen what's left of the male population in this country?"
Given that the day before we had seen bouncers beating up a drunk at 5pm in the afternoon we couldn't fault the statement
Any men with brains had left for Europe as soon as they graduated...
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
When you and I were born, Leon, the world's population was less than 4 billion. Now it is twice that, a long way to go yet.
Yes indeed. There are, simply, far too many humans now, for this one planet
So maybe this is Gaia, rebalancing herself naturally. But we don’t want humans to disappear entirely
We need to somehow go back to a world of 2-3bn humans but at the same time start settling other planets
At the moment UK national public debt is about £2.7tn, for a population of about 68 million. Just under £40k per capita.
If the population falls by three-quarters, and not a penny extra in real terms is borrowed, then the debt power person quadruples, to £160k. That isn't remotely sustainable.
The current debt-based economic model, which has worked in a world of rapidly growing populations able to divide the debt between more people in the future, cannot function in a world of falling populations. What do we do?
Poor Laura. Who hasn't accidentally cced the whole team on an email meant for just one person and then realised with horror that they won't be able to recall before at least one has read it.
Why can't they re-arrange the interview with someone else from BBC.
How about Mishal Husian?
The problem is lack of research time if you want questions on topics that Boris doesn't have stock replies for.
I find it hilarious that Bozo is losing 30 minutes / 1 hour of TV time during which he would remind people he existed and has a book to sell.
And to remind Tory MPs what they've lost as they vote on the fantastic four.
Carrie is backing Jenrick. Who would put Boris back on the parliamentary candidates list I suspect if he did consider a return to frontline politics
Carrie has - how shall we put it? - dubious judgement when it comes to men
I don't know about that. She's done very well out of her relationship with the grifter in chief.
Hang on, we're not supposed to be discussing any rumours about Starmer on here!
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
When you and I were born, Leon, the world's population was less than 4 billion. Now it is twice that, a long way to go yet.
Yes indeed. There are, simply, far too many humans now, for this one planet
So maybe this is Gaia, rebalancing herself naturally. But we don’t want humans to disappear entirely
We need to somehow go back to a world of 2-3bn humans but at the same time start settling other planets
It saves an awful lot of hype and time if we realise the obvious. We are not going to settle other planets/moons as human communities. The entire activity and discussion can be filed under that most boring of genres, science fiction.
People with money to burn (Musk) and programmes/videos/books to make and sell (Prof Brian Cox) will try to fool us. They are wasting our time. Meanwhile the actual exploration of space, solar system etc is wonderful and absorbing.
In some of the places I worked, there was a clear and manifest long hours in the office culture. It was perceived the more you were seen in the office by senior management the more likely it was you would be rewarded when higher grade roles were advertised.
Needless to say, most of those who spent long hours in the office were extraordinarily unproductive as they simply tried to fill the time looking busy. The truth about working from home is it mirrors what goes on in the office itself and the lack of productivity (perceived rather than actual) is no different whether you're suited and booted at a desk or wearing your rupert bear jim-jams in your living room.
The long hours culture needs to be run down and a stake driven through its still beating heart - we had another anti-WFH tirade in the Mail last weekend. I thought, as we moved further into the 21st century, it was about working smarter, not harder but as we see in so many areas, the cultural mores lag far behind the technological and societal realities. The working patterns of the 20th century are anachronistic at best.
Yes one thing I've been amazed by in many of the jobs I've had is how much office life in many (but not all) jobs is just killing time. Obviously in the public sector, that goes without saying, but even in private sector jobs, especially if they are not customer facing and do not have directly observable productivity.
And of course the moment your manager cottons on, you can accuse him of bullying, racism, sexism and so on.
Poor Laura. Who hasn't accidentally cced the whole team on an email meant for just one person and then realised with horror that they won't be able to recall before at least one has read it.
Why can't they re-arrange the interview with someone else from BBC.
How about Mishal Husian?
The problem is lack of research time if you want questions on topics that Boris doesn't have stock replies for.
I find it hilarious that Bozo is losing 30 minutes / 1 hour of TV time during which he would remind people he existed and has a book to sell.
And to remind Tory MPs what they've lost as they vote on the fantastic four.
Carrie is backing Jenrick. Who would put Boris back on the parliamentary candidates list I suspect if he did consider a return to frontline politics
He'll be 65 or so by then won't he? Bit old to start again!
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
At least you’ve done your bit!
I’ve managed two but without going into details it could/should have been several more
When I count my acquaintances it is striking how many are childless (and now going to stay that way). Sadly, I do think most of them regret it
Thanks! If I've achieved nothing else in my 49 years on the planet - and it's arguable that I haven't - I can at least take comfort that I've slightly repopulated the planet (sorry @SandyRentool !)
I have a group of friends from school with whom I am reasonably close - 11 of us: an unusually high 7 have gone down the straightforward married+2 kids (or 3, in or case) route, while the other four don't have kids of their own. There are some stepchildren in there and a shedload of dogs, but also a few regrets. Fertility rate of 1.36 (I know you're supposed to do it per mother and most of us are male, but I think it still works for comparison purposes). And we're the lucky middle class ones from unchaotic backgrounds who have made stable lives for ourselves and who can afford the choices we make.
Poor Laura. Who hasn't accidentally cced the whole team on an email meant for just one person and then realised with horror that they won't be able to recall before at least one has read it.
Why can't they re-arrange the interview with someone else from BBC.
How about Mishal Husian?
The problem is lack of research time if you want questions on topics that Boris doesn't have stock replies for.
I find it hilarious that Bozo is losing 30 minutes / 1 hour of TV time during which he would remind people he existed and has a book to sell.
And to remind Tory MPs what they've lost as they vote on the fantastic four.
Carrie is backing Jenrick. Who would put Boris back on the parliamentary candidates list I suspect if he did consider a return to frontline politics
He'll be 65 or so by then won't he? Bit old to start again!
Still ten years younger than Trump now. If Trump wins again Boris would certainly try to become Tory leader again
I wonder what the practicalities would be of the UK adopting a similar approach for critical infrastructure and projects ?
Hmm. Semiconductor manufacture uses some really nasty chemicals and the bill specifically aims to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from investigating possible pollution incidents or getting the companies to carry out proper cleanups on contaminated land. Given there have been issues with some of these chemicals penetrating the groundwaters in California it is probably not a good idea getting rid of these protections.
I'd have to read the bill in detail to fully comment, but the rubric suggests this is about speeding construction rather than completely exempting from EPA investigation once in operation.
...This bill modifies and limits the review of certain semiconductor (i.e., microchip) projects under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA).
Specifically, the bill exempts from NEPA and NHPA specified semiconductor projects that receive financial assistance under the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.
Next, the bill allows the Department of Commerce to serve as the lead agency for the review of a semiconductor project that receives such financial assistance but is not exempted from review under NEPA. A single environmental document and joint record of decision must be prepared for a semiconductor project. In completing the environmental review, Commerce may adopt a prior study or decision under certain circumstances. The bill also allows a state to assume the responsibility of an environmental review under NEPA for a semiconductor project.
Finally, the bill sets a statute of limitations for certain claims under NEPA...
The ony counterpoint I have been able to find so far - in a very quick scan - is this:
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
Is this a problem, in the wider view of things? If so, why?
(It is a problem from a perpetual-growth viewpoint that our politicians and economists like. But from the viewpoint of the future of mankind?)
It's a problem whenever you have TFR significantly above or below 2.1 (assuming no migration), because you end up with a age distribution with peaks and troughs.
It wouldn't so matter so much at 1.9, 1.8, but when you're down at 1.3 like Scotland... It also depends on why. If it's because women (and indeed men) have more opportunities to work, travel and study, that's great. If it's because housing is so expensive that young couples don't feel they can't afford to have kids (or at least until you run into fertility issues) - terrible.
Housing is a big problem, but I suspect the former reason is much more important than we like to admit.
Yep. And this is definitely true for east Asia. Korea seems to have a particularly toxic mix of patriarchal society and highly educated women who rebel against this and go on fertility-strike
In South Korea women are expected to have a job of equal status to her husband, work the same insanely long (to western eyes) hours and be the chief caregiver for any children...
And the husband's parents, should they require it.
It's fascinating mix of deeply conservative traditions, and rapid transition to liberal western values - with a strong admixture of US culture thanks to the postwar US presence there.
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
When you and I were born, Leon, the world's population was less than 4 billion. Now it is twice that, a long way to go yet.
Yes indeed. There are, simply, far too many humans now, for this one planet
So maybe this is Gaia, rebalancing herself naturally. But we don’t want humans to disappear entirely
We need to somehow go back to a world of 2-3bn humans but at the same time start settling other planets
At the moment UK national public debt is about £2.7tn, for a population of about 68 million. Just under £40k per capita.
If the population falls by three-quarters, and not a penny extra in real terms is borrowed, then the debt power person quadruples, to £160k. That isn't remotely sustainable.
The current debt-based economic model, which has worked in a world of rapidly growing populations able to divide the debt between more people in the future, cannot function in a world of falling populations. What do we do?
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Yes. But that's changing, just as its changing, or has already changed, everywhere else.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
Actually, in the comments underneath that tweet (of global births) which began this debate, a couple of experts suggest Nigeria’s population is vastly over-estimated
I’ve no idea if this is true, or why it should be true, but: worth noting
It's Nigeria. Probably scams on per-head Government payments.
(I went to a polo event at Windosr Great Park a few weeks back. Sponsored by one of the Nigerian banks. The great and the good of the Nigerian diaspora were there. It was a hoot. There were some very sharp minds in that giant marquee. The whole event was about obvious philanthropy. People were conspicuously giving to a huge school. Not just sponsoring a child. But sponsoring a whole classroom. And multiple classrooms at that. Intriguing - and very uplifting.)
In some of the places I worked, there was a clear and manifest long hours in the office culture. It was perceived the more you were seen in the office by senior management the more likely it was you would be rewarded when higher grade roles were advertised.
Needless to say, most of those who spent long hours in the office were extraordinarily unproductive as they simply tried to fill the time looking busy. The truth about working from home is it mirrors what goes on in the office itself and the lack of productivity (perceived rather than actual) is no different whether you're suited and booted at a desk or wearing your rupert bear jim-jams in your living room.
The long hours culture needs to be run down and a stake driven through its still beating heart - we had another anti-WFH tirade in the Mail last weekend. I thought, as we moved further into the 21st century, it was about working smarter, not harder but as we see in so many areas, the cultural mores lag far behind the technological and societal realities. The working patterns of the 20th century are anachronistic at best.
Yes one thing I've been amazed by in many of the jobs I've had is how much office life in many (but not all) jobs is just killing time. Obviously in the public sector, that goes without saying, but even in private sector jobs, especially if they are not customer facing and do not have directly observable productivity.
And of course the moment your manager cottons on, you can accuse him of bullying, racism, sexism and so on.
Yes, there's an element throughout the administrative culture of "when the Manager is away...". You could, I think, derive a direct correlation between Managerial attendance and productivity in both the public and private sectors but that's a historic thing.
There is an argument excessive top-down cultures drain motivation and initiative from individuals and make them less productive - fewer managers and a more motivated workforce is probably a good thing but for organisation trapped in a traditionalist mindset, it just doesn't occur to them to try.
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
When you and I were born, Leon, the world's population was less than 4 billion. Now it is twice that, a long way to go yet.
Yes indeed. There are, simply, far too many humans now, for this one planet
So maybe this is Gaia, rebalancing herself naturally. But we don’t want humans to disappear entirely
We need to somehow go back to a world of 2-3bn humans but at the same time start settling other planets
At the moment UK national public debt is about £2.7tn, for a population of about 68 million. Just under £40k per capita.
If the population falls by three-quarters, and not a penny extra in real terms is borrowed, then the debt power person quadruples, to £160k. That isn't remotely sustainable.
The current debt-based economic model, which has worked in a world of rapidly growing populations able to divide the debt between more people in the future, cannot function in a world of falling populations. What do we do?
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
Is this a problem, in the wider view of things? If so, why?
(It is a problem from a perpetual-growth viewpoint that our politicians and economists like. But from the viewpoint of the future of mankind?)
It's a problem whenever you have TFR significantly above or below 2.1 (assuming no migration), because you end up with a age distribution with peaks and troughs.
It wouldn't so matter so much at 1.9, 1.8, but when you're down at 1.3 like Scotland... It also depends on why. If it's because women (and indeed men) have more opportunities to work, travel and study, that's great. If it's because housing is so expensive that young couples don't feel they can't afford to have kids (or at least until you run into fertility issues) - terrible.
Housing is a big problem, but I suspect the former reason is much more important than we like to admit.
Yep. And this is definitely true for east Asia. Korea seems to have a particularly toxic mix of patriarchal society and highly educated women who rebel against this and go on fertility-strike
Also Korea like much of the west is largely secular now whereas Africa has far higher fertility rates with its adults of child bearing age from 16 to 50 much more religious
Religion is a partial explanation, perhaps. Eg Israel (and Palestine) have notably healthy TFRs. Egypt is high (but falling fast)
But many other Islamic countries are way below 2.1: Iran, Malaysia, Azerbaijan - all dwindling
Yes, I suspect there may be an element of correlation <> causation in there. Birth rates aren't actually higher 'cos of religion (much), they're higher because (in my thesis) they're higher because the society doesn't have to expend huge amounts of its resources on looking after old people. As the country gets richer, the number of old people rises, birth rates fall, and as the country gets richer, secularisation increases.
Though having come up with a good theory I am now falling into the trap of thinking it explains EVERYTHING. Of course, the reality is more complex, and there will be many factors, of which religion will almost certainly be one.
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Yes. But that's changing, just as its changing, or has already changed, everywhere else.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
This will happen in Africa too.
Mum and dad had 7 kids, yet only 8 grandchildren, and I suppose 10 great grandchildren, yet we all came out of 1 house, into 7.
Poor Laura. Who hasn't accidentally cced the whole team on an email meant for just one person and then realised with horror that they won't be able to recall before at least one has read it.
Why can't they re-arrange the interview with someone else from BBC.
How about Mishal Husian?
The problem is lack of research time if you want questions on topics that Boris doesn't have stock replies for.
I find it hilarious that Bozo is losing 30 minutes / 1 hour of TV time during which he would remind people he existed and has a book to sell.
And to remind Tory MPs what they've lost as they vote on the fantastic four.
Carrie is backing Jenrick. Who would put Boris back on the parliamentary candidates list I suspect if he did consider a return to frontline politics
He'll be 65 or so by then won't he? Bit old to start again!
Still ten years younger than Trump now. If Trump wins again Boris would certainly try to become Tory leader again
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
At least you’ve done your bit!
I’ve managed two but without going into details it could/should have been several more
When I count my acquaintances it is striking how many are childless (and now going to stay that way). Sadly, I do think most of them regret it
Thanks! If I've achieved nothing else in my 49 years on the planet - and it's arguable that I haven't - I can at least take comfort that I've slightly repopulated the planet (sorry @SandyRentool !)
I have a group of friends from school with whom I am reasonably close - 11 of us: an unusually high 7 have gone down the straightforward married+2 kids (or 3, in or case) route, while the other four don't have kids of their own. There are some stepchildren in there and a shedload of dogs, but also a few regrets. Fertility rate of 1.36 (I know you're supposed to do it per mother and most of us are male, but I think it still works for comparison purposes). And we're the lucky middle class ones from unchaotic backgrounds who have made stable lives for ourselves and who can afford the choices we make.
I just crunched my numbers
My closest ten male friends (using their initials):
C: 2 H: 0 L: 0 T: 1 P: 1 P: 0 B: 0 G: 2 C: 0 P: 1
Me: 2
So 11 men have produced 9 kids. We are a bohemian bunch with a lot of chaos. But also fairly rich
We’re dying out!
In the next ten friends there’s one guy with 5 (doing his bit) but also several more childless - so the pattern holds
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Yes. But that's changing, just as its changing, or has already changed, everywhere else.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
This will happen in Africa too.
It isn't changing that much in relative terms, the world is becoming more African and less European and American and Chinese population wise and that trend will continue further this century and next
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
When you and I were born, Leon, the world's population was less than 4 billion. Now it is twice that, a long way to go yet.
Yes indeed. There are, simply, far too many humans now, for this one planet
So maybe this is Gaia, rebalancing herself naturally. But we don’t want humans to disappear entirely
We need to somehow go back to a world of 2-3bn humans but at the same time start settling other planets
At the moment UK national public debt is about £2.7tn, for a population of about 68 million. Just under £40k per capita.
If the population falls by three-quarters, and not a penny extra in real terms is borrowed, then the debt power person quadruples, to £160k. That isn't remotely sustainable.
The current debt-based economic model, which has worked in a world of rapidly growing populations able to divide the debt between more people in the future, cannot function in a world of falling populations. What do we do?
Assets per person would also increase.
And that debt is both owed and owned.
Asset prices could be expected to collapse too. How many burgers will McDonald's be able to sell to a population one-quarter the size? What does that do to the value of McDonald's?
Land prices, similarly, would be expected to collapse. Asset values could fall faster than the population, but the debt would remain.
And, as you say, the debt is all owned by someone, who would expect to receive the interest on it, but it becomes increasingly difficult to service the debt as the population shrinks.
I wonder if Russia-Ukraine is - amongst other things - the first of The Fertility Wars. Russia has really bad demographics. It only sustains its overall population stats by importing people from ex-Soviet central Asian states. But they are very different from the ideal white, “Christian” Slav that, I imagine, Putin has in mind when he thinks of “a Russian”
However Ukrainians do fit this template. By absorbing much or all of Ukraine Putin solves Russia’s demographic problems, and makes it more Slavic, at least for the medium term
The Ukrainians would, quite literally, rather die.
Putin has failed in his war aims, and things over time will only get worse for him, even if he were somehow to eke out some kind of "victory" in the short/medium term. It is more likely that Ukrainian tanks will end up in Rostov than Russian ones in Lviv. As for Russian demographics, Putin already knows he is staring disaster in the face. Hi repressive attempts to increase the birth rate are almost laughable.
You say that, but birth rates in the Baltic states are even lower than in Russia. Heading south at a remarkable clip - soon you’ll be below 1 child per woman, like Taiwan or Macao
Why are the Balts disappearing?
What's the methodology on that? Are women actually having fewer births there per person, or is it that the birth-per-unit-population is unusually low? Because the latter could well be down to large-scale economic migration among younger adults. Both will have the same effect on population change but the reason matters too.
The TFR is low-ish in the Baltics - roughly the same as ours. So if the birth rate is exceptionally low, that's due to emigration, not fertility rates.
There is probably a bit of interaction between the two if women who are more likely to have children are more likely to move abroad. Or the opposite.
I remember when in Bulgaria having a conversations over lunch about such things that finished with the line
"have you seen what's left of the male population in this country?"
Given that the day before we had seen bouncers beating up a drunk at 5pm in the afternoon we couldn't fault the statement
Any men with brains had left for Europe as soon as they graduated...
Where they often ended up picking vegetables from fields or picking online orders from warehouse shelves.
Perhaps not the best use of their educations and skillsets.
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
Is this a problem, in the wider view of things? If so, why?
(It is a problem from a perpetual-growth viewpoint that our politicians and economists like. But from the viewpoint of the future of mankind?)
It's a problem whenever you have TFR significantly above or below 2.1 (assuming no migration), because you end up with a age distribution with peaks and troughs.
It wouldn't so matter so much at 1.9, 1.8, but when you're down at 1.3 like Scotland... It also depends on why. If it's because women (and indeed men) have more opportunities to work, travel and study, that's great. If it's because housing is so expensive that young couples don't feel they can't afford to have kids (or at least until you run into fertility issues) - terrible.
Housing is a big problem, but I suspect the former reason is much more important than we like to admit.
Yep. And this is definitely true for east Asia. Korea seems to have a particularly toxic mix of patriarchal society and highly educated women who rebel against this and go on fertility-strike
And housing like rabbit hutches doesn't help.
Also, can the family live easily and well on one salary?
The reaction to this question is always interesting, in the UK.
If only one partner in a couple worked full time house prices would also be cheaper
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
On schools - we are already seeing this in the UK - and the private school industry was aware that this was coming even before the VAT raid. There are far more school places than there are babies to fill them in 4-18 years' time.
Irritatingly, the people who make policies on schools all live in London, where school places are plentiful, and who therefore assume that parents throughout the land have a choice of schools - whereas there are still places across the country where demand exceeds supply and your choice is therefore limited to the only school you are within catchment for. (And indeed there are some people - and I am increasingly worried I might be one in the case of my third daughter - who aren't actually in any catchment areas at all. Last year, the catchment area for the school I think she will go to was 0.73 miles from the school - we live 0.8 miles away. The second closest school is about 1.8 miles away, but that school too has a catchment of about 0.7 miles. A problem. Hopefully we'll get away with it somehow...)
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
When you and I were born, Leon, the world's population was less than 4 billion. Now it is twice that, a long way to go yet.
Yes indeed. There are, simply, far too many humans now, for this one planet
So maybe this is Gaia, rebalancing herself naturally. But we don’t want humans to disappear entirely
We need to somehow go back to a world of 2-3bn humans but at the same time start settling other planets
At the moment UK national public debt is about £2.7tn, for a population of about 68 million. Just under £40k per capita.
If the population falls by three-quarters, and not a penny extra in real terms is borrowed, then the debt power person quadruples, to £160k. That isn't remotely sustainable.
The current debt-based economic model, which has worked in a world of rapidly growing populations able to divide the debt between more people in the future, cannot function in a world of falling populations. What do we do?
Assets per person would also increase.
And that debt is both owed and owned.
Asset prices could be expected to collapse too. How many burgers will McDonald's be able to sell to a population one-quarter the size? What does that do to the value of McDonald's?
Land prices, similarly, would be expected to collapse. Asset values could fall faster than the population, but the debt would remain.
And, as you say, the debt is all owned by someone, who would expect to receive the interest on it, but it becomes increasingly difficult to service the debt as the population shrinks.
Affordable housing and much reduced infrastructure problems.
It would be a change, with both positive and negative aspects and with both winners and losers.
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
Is this a problem, in the wider view of things? If so, why?
(It is a problem from a perpetual-growth viewpoint that our politicians and economists like. But from the viewpoint of the future of mankind?)
It's a problem whenever you have TFR significantly above or below 2.1 (assuming no migration), because you end up with a age distribution with peaks and troughs.
It wouldn't so matter so much at 1.9, 1.8, but when you're down at 1.3 like Scotland... It also depends on why. If it's because women (and indeed men) have more opportunities to work, travel and study, that's great. If it's because housing is so expensive that young couples don't feel they can't afford to have kids (or at least until you run into fertility issues) - terrible.
Housing is a big problem, but I suspect the former reason is much more important than we like to admit.
Yep. And this is definitely true for east Asia. Korea seems to have a particularly toxic mix of patriarchal society and highly educated women who rebel against this and go on fertility-strike
And housing like rabbit hutches doesn't help.
Also, can the family live easily and well on one salary?
The reaction to this question is always interesting, in the UK.
If only one partner in a couple worked full time house prices would also be cheaper
In theory, yes. I'm certainly convinced by the theory that having both parents working has driven house prices up. I think the reverse would take a long time to filter though, though, in which time I'm not sure how all those single income families would afford to live.
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Yes. But that's changing, just as its changing, or has already changed, everywhere else.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
This will happen in Africa too.
Mum and dad had 7 kids, yet only 8 grandchildren, and I suppose 10 great grandchildren, yet we all came out of 1 house, into 7.
One set of my grandparents had 11 children and, IIRC, 20 grandchildren. However, several of those grandchildren are childless. My other grandparents had 3 children and 4 grandchildren. Those four grandchildren have produced 10 great-grandchildren, but, so far at any rate only 12 further descendants.
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
When you and I were born, Leon, the world's population was less than 4 billion. Now it is twice that, a long way to go yet.
Yes indeed. There are, simply, far too many humans now, for this one planet
So maybe this is Gaia, rebalancing herself naturally. But we don’t want humans to disappear entirely
We need to somehow go back to a world of 2-3bn humans but at the same time start settling other planets
At the moment UK national public debt is about £2.7tn, for a population of about 68 million. Just under £40k per capita.
If the population falls by three-quarters, and not a penny extra in real terms is borrowed, then the debt power person quadruples, to £160k. That isn't remotely sustainable.
The current debt-based economic model, which has worked in a world of rapidly growing populations able to divide the debt between more people in the future, cannot function in a world of falling populations. What do we do?
To be blunt, you tear up the model and write off the debt if you need to.
After all, the current model has only been going for about 300 years - before that, the "model" had Malthusian limitations but technology has moved us beyond that.
We are already seeing the implications of a falling birth rate in terms of school provision - as numbers on rolls decline, schools merge or close (the land can be sold off for residential redevelopment). This happened in the 1990s with a big sell off of playing fields for redevelopment.
However, when Freedom of Movement and a wave of new migrants arrived, settled and had children councils had to deal with a sudden demand for school places which meant frantic land acquisitions, school extensions and the return of the demountable classroom buildings.
That work cost councils millions (and is rarely mentioned in the "cost" of immigration) but now those children have gone through the main education system and there are fewer to replace them.
This is part of the whole population issue (which encompasses so many areas). IF you are looking to bring in more people for economic reasons, that has to be planned for in terms of infrastructure including school provision.
In some of the places I worked, there was a clear and manifest long hours in the office culture. It was perceived the more you were seen in the office by senior management the more likely it was you would be rewarded when higher grade roles were advertised.
Needless to say, most of those who spent long hours in the office were extraordinarily unproductive as they simply tried to fill the time looking busy. The truth about working from home is it mirrors what goes on in the office itself and the lack of productivity (perceived rather than actual) is no different whether you're suited and booted at a desk or wearing your rupert bear jim-jams in your living room.
The long hours culture needs to be run down and a stake driven through its still beating heart - we had another anti-WFH tirade in the Mail last weekend. I thought, as we moved further into the 21st century, it was about working smarter, not harder but as we see in so many areas, the cultural mores lag far behind the technological and societal realities. The working patterns of the 20th century are anachronistic at best.
Yes one thing I've been amazed by in many of the jobs I've had is how much office life in many (but not all) jobs is just killing time. Obviously in the public sector, that goes without saying, but even in private sector jobs, especially if they are not customer facing and do not have directly observable productivity.
And of course the moment your manager cottons on, you can accuse him of bullying, racism, sexism and so on.
Yes, there's an element throughout the administrative culture of "when the Manager is away...". You could, I think, derive a direct correlation between Managerial attendance and productivity in both the public and private sectors but that's a historic thing.
There is an argument excessive top-down cultures drain motivation and initiative from individuals and make them less productive - fewer managers and a more motivated workforce is probably a good thing but for organisation trapped in a traditionalist mindset, it just doesn't occur to them to try.
I wonder how many commenting on here are "at work" while pleasantly diverting themselves with discussions on economics and demographics? (Awkwardly raises hand...)
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Yes. But that's changing, just as its changing, or has already changed, everywhere else.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
This will happen in Africa too.
It isn't changing that much in relative terms, the world is becoming more African and less European and American and Chinese population wise and that trend will continue further this century and next
It is not just down to housing costs, as they reduce as the population falls and houses become empty. Eastern Europe has many empty homes and still a falling population. It is down to social trends and the impact of social media.
In the longer term falling populations will cause industries to shut down as markets get smaller and the labour force dwindles. This will include the computer chip industry, so computers will eventually disappear and the internet and mobile phones too. Mankind will revert to a pre-technological world, but we will be very poorly prepared to live in it. Not many people know how to butcher a rabbit, plant crops etc. Thus the population will continue to fall. However, eventually some groups will survive and grow and things will stabilise. Evolution will also play a part. Homo Sapiens thinks it rules the world, but it too is subject to the laws of nature and is not exempt from them.
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
At least you’ve done your bit!
I’ve managed two but without going into details it could/should have been several more
When I count my acquaintances it is striking how many are childless (and now going to stay that way). Sadly, I do think most of them regret it
Thanks! If I've achieved nothing else in my 49 years on the planet - and it's arguable that I haven't - I can at least take comfort that I've slightly repopulated the planet (sorry @SandyRentool !)
I have a group of friends from school with whom I am reasonably close - 11 of us: an unusually high 7 have gone down the straightforward married+2 kids (or 3, in or case) route, while the other four don't have kids of their own. There are some stepchildren in there and a shedload of dogs, but also a few regrets. Fertility rate of 1.36 (I know you're supposed to do it per mother and most of us are male, but I think it still works for comparison purposes). And we're the lucky middle class ones from unchaotic backgrounds who have made stable lives for ourselves and who can afford the choices we make.
I just crunched my numbers
My closest ten male friends (using their initials):
C: 2 H: 0 L: 0 T: 1 P: 1 P: 0 B: 0 G: 2 C: 0 P: 1
Me: 2
So 11 men have produced 9 kids. We are a bohemian bunch with a lot of chaos. But also fairly rich
We’re dying out!
In the next ten friends there’s one guy with 5 (doing his bit) but also several more childless - so the pattern holds
That's quite startling. I set off wondering whether there is some element of self-selection here - that the sorts of people you hang out with are more likely to be childless or at least without onerous childcare responsibilities. I mean, I could look at the people I spend the most time with, who are, almost necessarily, those with kids at my kids' schools. But even then it would add up to a fertility rate of less than 2. And I think the overall stats point towards your group being - if not totally representative - at least certainly not wildly atypical.
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
Is this a problem, in the wider view of things? If so, why?
(It is a problem from a perpetual-growth viewpoint that our politicians and economists like. But from the viewpoint of the future of mankind?)
It's a problem whenever you have TFR significantly above or below 2.1 (assuming no migration), because you end up with a age distribution with peaks and troughs.
It wouldn't so matter so much at 1.9, 1.8, but when you're down at 1.3 like Scotland... It also depends on why. If it's because women (and indeed men) have more opportunities to work, travel and study, that's great. If it's because housing is so expensive that young couples don't feel they can't afford to have kids (or at least until you run into fertility issues) - terrible.
Housing is a big problem, but I suspect the former reason is much more important than we like to admit.
Yep. And this is definitely true for east Asia. Korea seems to have a particularly toxic mix of patriarchal society and highly educated women who rebel against this and go on fertility-strike
And housing like rabbit hutches doesn't help.
Also, can the family live easily and well on one salary?
The reaction to this question is always interesting, in the UK.
If only one partner in a couple worked full time house prices would also be cheaper
In theory, yes. I'm certainly convinced by the theory that having both parents working has driven house prices up. I think the reverse would take a long time to filter though, though, in which time I'm not sure how all those single income families would afford to live.
Certainly government could subsidise stay at home mothers more, as Meloni's government in Italy is now doing
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Yes. But that's changing, just as its changing, or has already changed, everywhere else.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
This will happen in Africa too.
It isn't changing that much in relative terms, the world is becoming more African and less European and American and Chinese population wise and that trend will continue further this century and next
It is not just down to housing costs, as they reduce as the population falls and houses become empty. Eastern Europe has many empty homes and still a falling population. It is down to social trends and the impact of social media.
In the longer term falling populations will cause industries to shut down as markets get smaller and the labour force dwindles. This will include the computer chip industry, so computers will eventually disappear and the internet and mobile phones too. Mankind will revert to a pre-technological world, but we will be very poorly prepared to live in it. Not many people know how to butcher a rabbit, plant crops etc. Thus the population will continue to fall. However, eventually some groups will survive and grow and things will stabilise. Evolution will also play a part. Homo Sapiens thinks it rules the world, but it too is subject to the laws of nature and is not exempt from them.
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Yes. But that's changing, just as its changing, or has already changed, everywhere else.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
This will happen in Africa too.
Mum and dad had 7 kids, yet only 8 grandchildren, and I suppose 10 great grandchildren, yet we all came out of 1 house, into 7.
One set of my grandparents had 11 children and, IIRC, 20 grandchildren. However, several of those grandchildren are childless. My other grandparents had 3 children and 4 grandchildren. Those four grandchildren have produced 10 great-grandchildren, but, so far at any rate only 12 further descendants.
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
Is this a problem, in the wider view of things? If so, why?
(It is a problem from a perpetual-growth viewpoint that our politicians and economists like. But from the viewpoint of the future of mankind?)
It's a problem whenever you have TFR significantly above or below 2.1 (assuming no migration), because you end up with a age distribution with peaks and troughs.
It wouldn't so matter so much at 1.9, 1.8, but when you're down at 1.3 like Scotland... It also depends on why. If it's because women (and indeed men) have more opportunities to work, travel and study, that's great. If it's because housing is so expensive that young couples don't feel they can't afford to have kids (or at least until you run into fertility issues) - terrible.
Housing is a big problem, but I suspect the former reason is much more important than we like to admit.
Yep. And this is definitely true for east Asia. Korea seems to have a particularly toxic mix of patriarchal society and highly educated women who rebel against this and go on fertility-strike
And housing like rabbit hutches doesn't help.
Also, can the family live easily and well on one salary?
The reaction to this question is always interesting, in the UK.
If only one partner in a couple worked full time house prices would also be cheaper
In theory, yes. I'm certainly convinced by the theory that having both parents working has driven house prices up. I think the reverse would take a long time to filter though, though, in which time I'm not sure how all those single income families would afford to live.
Certainly government could subsidise stay at home mothers more, as Meloni's government in Italy is now doing
Well it could do. But how would it afford that? Presumably by taxing the childless more. Which doesn't really help with them being able to start families. But it would certainly start to reduce house prices such that the next, much smaller generation, might be able to manage on one income.
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Yes. But that's changing, just as its changing, or has already changed, everywhere else.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
This will happen in Africa too.
It isn't changing that much in relative terms, the world is becoming more African and less European and American and Chinese population wise and that trend will continue further this century and next
It is not just down to housing costs, as they reduce as the population falls and houses become empty. Eastern Europe has many empty homes and still a falling population. It is down to social trends and the impact of social media.
In the longer term falling populations will cause industries to shut down as markets get smaller and the labour force dwindles. This will include the computer chip industry, so computers will eventually disappear and the internet and mobile phones too. Mankind will revert to a pre-technological world, but we will be very poorly prepared to live in it. Not many people know how to butcher a rabbit, plant crops etc. Thus the population will continue to fall. However, eventually some groups will survive and grow and things will stabilise. Evolution will also play a part. Homo Sapiens thinks it rules the world, but it too is subject to the laws of nature and is not exempt from them.
Ha, no.
Much more likely is investment in *more* automation.
See French domestic building site, where the first thing you put up is a mini crane. As opposed to the UK, where I've seen a literal 11 Eastern European blokes trying to lift a giant piece of glass up a scaffold. The firm I'm involved in has an electric mini-digger - lower it into the basement and it does the job of x blokes digging manually, for the prices of about x/2.
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Yes. But that's changing, just as its changing, or has already changed, everywhere else.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
This will happen in Africa too.
It isn't changing that much in relative terms, the world is becoming more African and less European and American and Chinese population wise and that trend will continue further this century and next
It is not just down to housing costs, as they reduce as the population falls and houses become empty. Eastern Europe has many empty homes and still a falling population. It is down to social trends and the impact of social media.
In the longer term falling populations will cause industries to shut down as markets get smaller and the labour force dwindles. This will include the computer chip industry, so computers will eventually disappear and the internet and mobile phones too. Mankind will revert to a pre-technological world, but we will be very poorly prepared to live in it. Not many people know how to butcher a rabbit, plant crops etc. Thus the population will continue to fall. However, eventually some groups will survive and grow and things will stabilise. Evolution will also play a part. Homo Sapiens thinks it rules the world, but it too is subject to the laws of nature and is not exempt from them.
The quality of the labour force will improve due to better antenatal screening and post birth medicine. That, combined with greater automation, will get us much more for our labour-hour of time.
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Yes. But that's changing, just as its changing, or has already changed, everywhere else.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
This will happen in Africa too.
Mum and dad had 7 kids, yet only 8 grandchildren, and I suppose 10 great grandchildren, yet we all came out of 1 house, into 7.
One set of my grandparents had 11 children and, IIRC, 20 grandchildren. However, several of those grandchildren are childless. My other grandparents had 3 children and 4 grandchildren. Those four grandchildren have produced 10 great-grandchildren, but, so far at any rate only 12 further descendants.
My stepfather was the eldest of 9.
His mother was the youngest of 22.
TWENTY-TWO!!!!
My father was of the view that his father-in-law (the father of the 11) would rather have sons on his farm than farm-labourers. Which was a bit unfair as all four sons who survived ran, for a while at least, their own farms.
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Yes. But that's changing, just as its changing, or has already changed, everywhere else.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
This will happen in Africa too.
Mum and dad had 7 kids, yet only 8 grandchildren, and I suppose 10 great grandchildren, yet we all came out of 1 house, into 7.
One set of my grandparents had 11 children and, IIRC, 20 grandchildren. However, several of those grandchildren are childless. My other grandparents had 3 children and 4 grandchildren. Those four grandchildren have produced 10 great-grandchildren, but, so far at any rate only 12 further descendants.
My stepfather was the eldest of 9.
His mother was the youngest of 22.
TWENTY-TWO!!!!
We have very large generational gaps in my paternal family. My grandfather was born in 1899, my father a baby boomer born in 1950, 11 years after his nearest sibling. I was born in 1990. Grandfather was one of 11, Dad one of 6, I'm one of three and neither I nor my sisters have children. But if previous generations are anything to go by, we tend to leave it late anyway.
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
At least you’ve done your bit!
I’ve managed two but without going into details it could/should have been several more
When I count my acquaintances it is striking how many are childless (and now going to stay that way). Sadly, I do think most of them regret it
Thanks! If I've achieved nothing else in my 49 years on the planet - and it's arguable that I haven't - I can at least take comfort that I've slightly repopulated the planet (sorry @SandyRentool !)
I have a group of friends from school with whom I am reasonably close - 11 of us: an unusually high 7 have gone down the straightforward married+2 kids (or 3, in or case) route, while the other four don't have kids of their own. There are some stepchildren in there and a shedload of dogs, but also a few regrets. Fertility rate of 1.36 (I know you're supposed to do it per mother and most of us are male, but I think it still works for comparison purposes). And we're the lucky middle class ones from unchaotic backgrounds who have made stable lives for ourselves and who can afford the choices we make.
I just crunched my numbers
My closest ten male friends (using their initials):
C: 2 H 0 L: 0 T: 1 P: 1 P: 0 B: 0 G: 2 C: 0 P: 1
Me: 2
So 11 men have produced 9 kids. We are a bohemian bunch with a lot of chaos. But also fairly rich
We’re dying out!
In the next ten friends there’s one guy with 5 (doing his bit) but also several more childless - so the pattern holds
That's quite startling. I set off wondering whether there is some element of self-selection here - that the sorts of people you hang out with are more likely to be childless or at least without onerous childcare responsibilities. I mean, I could look at the people I spend the most time with, who are, almost necessarily, those with kids at my kids' schools. But even then it would add up to a fertility rate of less than 2. And I think the overall stats point towards your group being - if not totally representative - at least certainly not wildly atypical.
It’s quite an interesting game. I’ve just added up the next ten male friends
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
At least you’ve done your bit!
I’ve managed two but without going into details it could/should have been several more
When I count my acquaintances it is striking how many are childless (and now going to stay that way). Sadly, I do think most of them regret it
Thanks! If I've achieved nothing else in my 49 years on the planet - and it's arguable that I haven't - I can at least take comfort that I've slightly repopulated the planet (sorry @SandyRentool !)
I have a group of friends from school with whom I am reasonably close - 11 of us: an unusually high 7 have gone down the straightforward married+2 kids (or 3, in or case) route, while the other four don't have kids of their own. There are some stepchildren in there and a shedload of dogs, but also a few regrets. Fertility rate of 1.36 (I know you're supposed to do it per mother and most of us are male, but I think it still works for comparison purposes). And we're the lucky middle class ones from unchaotic backgrounds who have made stable lives for ourselves and who can afford the choices we make.
I just crunched my numbers
My closest ten male friends (using their initials):
C: 2 H 0 L: 0 T: 1 P: 1 P: 0 B: 0 G: 2 C: 0 P: 1
Me: 2
So 11 men have produced 9 kids. We are a bohemian bunch with a lot of chaos. But also fairly rich
We’re dying out!
In the next ten friends there’s one guy with 5 (doing his bit) but also several more childless - so the pattern holds
That's quite startling. I set off wondering whether there is some element of self-selection here - that the sorts of people you hang out with are more likely to be childless or at least without onerous childcare responsibilities. I mean, I could look at the people I spend the most time with, who are, almost necessarily, those with kids at my kids' schools. But even then it would add up to a fertility rate of less than 2. And I think the overall stats point towards your group being - if not totally representative - at least certainly not wildly atypical.
It’s quite an interesting game. I’ve just added up the next ten male friends
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
At least you’ve done your bit!
I’ve managed two but without going into details it could/should have been several more
When I count my acquaintances it is striking how many are childless (and now going to stay that way). Sadly, I do think most of them regret it
Thanks! If I've achieved nothing else in my 49 years on the planet - and it's arguable that I haven't - I can at least take comfort that I've slightly repopulated the planet (sorry @SandyRentool !)
I have a group of friends from school with whom I am reasonably close - 11 of us: an unusually high 7 have gone down the straightforward married+2 kids (or 3, in or case) route, while the other four don't have kids of their own. There are some stepchildren in there and a shedload of dogs, but also a few regrets. Fertility rate of 1.36 (I know you're supposed to do it per mother and most of us are male, but I think it still works for comparison purposes). And we're the lucky middle class ones from unchaotic backgrounds who have made stable lives for ourselves and who can afford the choices we make.
I just crunched my numbers
My closest ten male friends (using their initials):
C: 2 H 0 L: 0 T: 1 P: 1 P: 0 B: 0 G: 2 C: 0 P: 1
Me: 2
So 11 men have produced 9 kids. We are a bohemian bunch with a lot of chaos. But also fairly rich
We’re dying out!
In the next ten friends there’s one guy with 5 (doing his bit) but also several more childless - so the pattern holds
That's quite startling. I set off wondering whether there is some element of self-selection here - that the sorts of people you hang out with are more likely to be childless or at least without onerous childcare responsibilities. I mean, I could look at the people I spend the most time with, who are, almost necessarily, those with kids at my kids' schools. But even then it would add up to a fertility rate of less than 2. And I think the overall stats point towards your group being - if not totally representative - at least certainly not wildly atypical.
It’s quite an interesting game. I’ve just added up the next ten male friends
So that’s 15 kids from 10 men. But it’s that guy with 5 doing all the work (he’s also worth about £400m - some connection there?)
So that’s 21 men (20 plus me) with 24 kids, TFR: 1.2 - very similar to Estonia, better than Poland
If my fathers brother were still alive he would have four grandchildren and NO (so far, anyway) great-grandchildren. All the grandchildren are over 30.
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Yes. But that's changing, just as its changing, or has already changed, everywhere else.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
This will happen in Africa too.
It isn't changing that much in relative terms, the world is becoming more African and less European and American and Chinese population wise and that trend will continue further this century and next
It is not just down to housing costs, as they reduce as the population falls and houses become empty. Eastern Europe has many empty homes and still a falling population. It is down to social trends and the impact of social media.
In the longer term falling populations will cause industries to shut down as markets get smaller and the labour force dwindles. This will include the computer chip industry, so computers will eventually disappear and the internet and mobile phones too. Mankind will revert to a pre-technological world, but we will be very poorly prepared to live in it. Not many people know how to butcher a rabbit, plant crops etc. Thus the population will continue to fall. However, eventually some groups will survive and grow and things will stabilise. Evolution will also play a part. Homo Sapiens thinks it rules the world, but it too is subject to the laws of nature and is not exempt from them.
Take a pair of meta raybans - they have a camera in them
connect that to a piece of software that recognises the face and returns a link
Use the data within the link to pull peoples name and address back in say 10 seconds and as you walk round you can collect people's name and address instantly..
Ironic we're discussing the problem of a declining population when the UK's population has been increasing rapidly in recent years.
Due entirely to immigration, as Farage and Jenrick would no doubt tell you
Which is why the right wing needs to accept that the debate is a hell of a lot more nuanced than their loudly expressed views (and those of their little helpers in the press) allows for.
Not just Nigeria, whose birthrate is low compared to some nations there. Africa as a whole. Niger is nearly 7.
They still have to make stuff and not end up fighting each other. China wasn't anything like the power it potentially could have been until the last 30 years or so, despite its population.
Ironic we're discussing the problem of a declining population when the UK's population has been increasing rapidly in recent years.
Population is one of those fascinating subjects where it is perfectly possible to have overpopulation and underpopulation at the same time, sometimes in the same state. Also with the trend up or down being the reverse of the present reality. (The UK as a whole is up WRT population, but bigly down at the same time WRT birthrate. Bonkers but true).
Scotland is hugely underpopulated, while many would argue that London/south east is the reverse. Russia has a population (slightly reduced each day by war deaths) of 144m in a more or less unlimited space. Despite the image, Africa as a whole is very thinly populated.
Poor Laura. Who hasn't accidentally cced the whole team on an email meant for just one person and then realised with horror that they won't be able to recall before at least one has read it.
Why can't they re-arrange the interview with someone else from BBC.
How about Mishal Husian?
The problem is lack of research time if you want questions on topics that Boris doesn't have stock replies for.
I find it hilarious that Bozo is losing 30 minutes / 1 hour of TV time during which he would remind people he existed and has a book to sell.
And to remind Tory MPs what they've lost as they vote on the fantastic four.
Carrie is backing Jenrick. Who would put Boris back on the parliamentary candidates list I suspect if he did consider a return to frontline politics
He'll be 65 or so by then won't he? Bit old to start again!
Not really starting again though would he? He'd be pretty well straight back in as Leader with maybe just a few years to go to the GE.
If the Tories fail to recover under new leader it's all too easy to see attention turning towards BJ. He gets back in to the Commons via a triumphant by-election success and is thus "exonerated" of past sins by the voters. And then...
Ironic we're discussing the problem of a declining population when the UK's population has been increasing rapidly in recent years.
Population is one of those fascinating subjects where it is perfectly possible to have overpopulation and underpopulation at the same time, sometimes in the same state.
Scotland is hugely underpopulated, while many would argue that London/south east is the reverse. Russia has a population (slightly reduced each day by war deaths) of 144m in a more or less unlimited space. Despite the image, Africa as a whole is very thinly populated.
Scotland is not hugely underpopulated
It has a pretty grim climate and very high latitude - it is arguably OVER populated compared to similar latitudes elsewhere which are basically empty
I wonder if Russia-Ukraine is - amongst other things - the first of The Fertility Wars. Russia has really bad demographics. It only sustains its overall population stats by importing people from ex-Soviet central Asian states. But they are very different from the ideal white, “Christian” Slav that, I imagine, Putin has in mind when he thinks of “a Russian”
However Ukrainians do fit this template. By absorbing much or all of Ukraine Putin solves Russia’s demographic problems, and makes it more Slavic, at least for the medium term
If they keep killing each other it will become even less white
Putin has been very careful to bolster his army so far with criminals, mercenaries and volunteers from the back end of beyond - none of which matter very much to him or indeed the Russian people in general. But that well is running dry. Russia will have to change strategy soon, or mobilise more visible parts of the population, or win. At the moment, he's banking on winning, via political pressure from DC after January.
But yes, he's been obsessed with Russia's demographics for a long time. Indeed, a core part of his nationalist-authoritarian philosophy comes from the collapse in Russia's birth rate through the chaos and uncertainties of the 1990s.
Part of his obsession with Ukraine (and the other Russian ultra-nationalists) is lots of "Russian culture/race" (as they see it) people. To add to the empire.
Yes. They don't accept it as not-Russia. Hence their continual reference to 'the Kiev Regime', as if it's a rebel breakaway province, rather than a sovereign country. And Kyiv is the mother city of Russia, going back to Rurik. They hate with a vengeance the fact that such a symbolically and culturally important city is separated from them.
Well, on the main topic, so far, of this thread: number four is about half cooked for us (had the 20 week scan recently) so we're doing our bit!
Doing our bit too, two grandchildren due on the same day (not twins) later this month. One will be born in Scotland where apparently they are specially short of babies.
I wonder if Russia-Ukraine is - amongst other things - the first of The Fertility Wars. Russia has really bad demographics. It only sustains its overall population stats by importing people from ex-Soviet central Asian states. But they are very different from the ideal white, “Christian” Slav that, I imagine, Putin has in mind when he thinks of “a Russian”
However Ukrainians do fit this template. By absorbing much or all of Ukraine Putin solves Russia’s demographic problems, and makes it more Slavic, at least for the medium term
If they keep killing each other it will become even less white
Putin has been very careful to bolster his army so far with criminals, mercenaries and volunteers from the back end of beyond - none of which matter very much to him or indeed the Russian people in general. But that well is running dry. Russia will have to change strategy soon, or mobilise more visible parts of the population, or win. At the moment, he's banking on winning, via political pressure from DC after January.
But yes, he's been obsessed with Russia's demographics for a long time. Indeed, a core part of his nationalist-authoritarian philosophy comes from the collapse in Russia's birth rate through the chaos and uncertainties of the 1990s.
Part of his obsession with Ukraine (and the other Russian ultra-nationalists) is lots of "Russian culture/race" (as they see it) people. To add to the empire.
Yes. They don't accept it as not-Russia. Hence their continual reference to 'the Kiev Regime', as if it's a rebel breakaway province, rather than a sovereign country. And Kyiv is the mother city of Russia, going back to Rurik. They hate with a vengeance the fact that such a symbolically and culturally important city is separated from them.
If you go to Kyiv you can see why Russians feel this way. Kyiv is the root stock of Russia
Live births in Chile fell from 90,000 to 70,000 in one half year. A 22% fall. Chile’s Total Fertility Rate is 0.88 - less than one child per woman. Chile is also the richest, most developed nation in S America. But it is running out of Chileans
East Asia is a horror show of course. Korea is dying. China is not far behind. I had no idea Thailand is similar - when you go there you see kids everywhere but that’s probably because I mainly go to youthful Bangkok
Schools worldwide will start closing down
When you and I were born, Leon, the world's population was less than 4 billion. Now it is twice that, a long way to go yet.
Yes indeed. There are, simply, far too many humans now, for this one planet
So maybe this is Gaia, rebalancing herself naturally. But we don’t want humans to disappear entirely
We need to somehow go back to a world of 2-3bn humans but at the same time start settling other planets
At the moment UK national public debt is about £2.7tn, for a population of about 68 million. Just under £40k per capita.
If the population falls by three-quarters, and not a penny extra in real terms is borrowed, then the debt power person quadruples, to £160k. That isn't remotely sustainable.
The current debt-based economic model, which has worked in a world of rapidly growing populations able to divide the debt between more people in the future, cannot function in a world of falling populations. What do we do?
To be blunt, you tear up the model and write off the debt if you need to.
After all, the current model has only been going for about 300 years - before that, the "model" had Malthusian limitations but technology has moved us beyond that.
We are already seeing the implications of a falling birth rate in terms of school provision - as numbers on rolls decline, schools merge or close (the land can be sold off for residential redevelopment). This happened in the 1990s with a big sell off of playing fields for redevelopment.
However, when Freedom of Movement and a wave of new migrants arrived, settled and had children councils had to deal with a sudden demand for school places which meant frantic land acquisitions, school extensions and the return of the demountable classroom buildings.
That work cost councils millions (and is rarely mentioned in the "cost" of immigration) but now those children have gone through the main education system and there are fewer to replace them.
This is part of the whole population issue (which encompasses so many areas). IF you are looking to bring in more people for economic reasons, that has to be planned for in terms of infrastructure including school provision.
That bulge is working through the secondary system, but, particularly in London, the expansion and contraction has left the less popular schools struggling. 3 classes / year group to 1 class is a reality.
In some of the places I worked, there was a clear and manifest long hours in the office culture. It was perceived the more you were seen in the office by senior management the more likely it was you would be rewarded when higher grade roles were advertised.
Needless to say, most of those who spent long hours in the office were extraordinarily unproductive as they simply tried to fill the time looking busy. The truth about working from home is it mirrors what goes on in the office itself and the lack of productivity (perceived rather than actual) is no different whether you're suited and booted at a desk or wearing your rupert bear jim-jams in your living room.
The long hours culture needs to be run down and a stake driven through its still beating heart - we had another anti-WFH tirade in the Mail last weekend. I thought, as we moved further into the 21st century, it was about working smarter, not harder but as we see in so many areas, the cultural mores lag far behind the technological and societal realities. The working patterns of the 20th century are anachronistic at best.
Yes one thing I've been amazed by in many of the jobs I've had is how much office life in many (but not all) jobs is just killing time. Obviously in the public sector, that goes without saying, but even in private sector jobs, especially if they are not customer facing and do not have directly observable productivity.
And of course the moment your manager cottons on, you can accuse him of bullying, racism, sexism and so on.
Not sure about that last bit but I agree that if you take white collar jobs (private or public sector) you will find a fair amount of killing time is involved. It's certainly my experience and it’s ok so long as you don’t have to pretend to be busy. If you can kick back with a book, or a podcast, maybe bring a guitar in like David Brent, fine. More than fine really.
But if you have to look busy that’s a kind of low grade hell. You end up staring with unseeing eyes at documents, sending emails to yourself, going to the loo when you don’t need to, disappearing off with jacket on chair. Soul destroying really. You kid yourself you’re ‘beating the system’ but you’re not. The system is beating you.
Then again, life is largely about killing time (you’d explode otherwise) so I suppose it’s only a matter of degree. And although it’s white collar occupations where it’s manifested the most it can apply in all endeavours, even the creative arts. Charlie’s quote about being in the Stones comes to mind. “Five years work, twenty years hanging around”. That’s most careers probably. Indeed it’s not such a bad ratio.
Poor Laura. Who hasn't accidentally cced the whole team on an email meant for just one person and then realised with horror that they won't be able to recall before at least one has read it.
Why can't they re-arrange the interview with someone else from BBC.
How about Mishal Husian?
The problem is lack of research time if you want questions on topics that Boris doesn't have stock replies for.
I find it hilarious that Bozo is losing 30 minutes / 1 hour of TV time during which he would remind people he existed and has a book to sell.
And to remind Tory MPs what they've lost as they vote on the fantastic four.
Carrie is backing Jenrick. Who would put Boris back on the parliamentary candidates list I suspect if he did consider a return to frontline politics
He'll be 65 or so by then won't he? Bit old to start again!
Not really starting again though would he? He'd be pretty well straight back in as Leader with maybe just a few years to go to the GE.
If the Tories fail to recover under new leader it's all too easy to see attention turning towards BJ. He gets back in to the Commons via a triumphant by-election success and is thus "exonerated" of past sins by the voters. And then...
I don't see why Boris can't continue with the interview as proposed with an "Actor" reading the LK part, just like the Beeb used to do in the early 1990s. The Beeb couldn't possibly object to that !
Starmer hands Diego Garcia “back to” Mauritius (they never owned it)
But of course he does. Next the Elgin Marbles, the Benin Bronzes, he will probably try and hand over Stonehenge to Norway
Absolutely insane
Mauritius is a vassal state of China. This is all at the behest of China. Its beyond stupid and soon the Chinese/Mauritians will aim to push America off “Mauritius”
Interesting stuff. Not great for Labour. Even worse for the Tories. Great news for the LibDems and Greens. Middling for Reform.
There's big scope for next May's election to be a big swing away from LabCon to whatever our funky acronym is for everyone else.
Somewhat related to that, the Leeanderthal Man is using his former successful Councillor background to create and drive support to Reform. From his Facebook feed this morning, with added exaggerated racist dog-whistle to groom the gullible:
Protect Our Pensioners.
Whilst illegal migrants are living in 4 Star hotels we have pensioners living in sub-standard council accommodatioin Ashfield.
Today I visited the residents of Summerhill Court in Huthwaite to look at the repairs they need doing ASAP.
I have already intervened once to get the Ashfield Independent led council to make this facility safe and I am doing so again.
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
Even in Africa, birthrates are falling very rapidly. I'd say that a very big driver of high birthrates was (as you say) few people surviving to old age, but also very high infant mortality, and high rates of deaths in childbirth. Child mortality rates are now much lower, everywhere, as are deaths in childbirth. Famine is also much less common too, and children always suffer the worst in famines.
In Africa most women have four to six children so birthrates are still much higher there compared to the far East and West now where most women have one child now if they have children at all
Yes. But that's changing, just as its changing, or has already changed, everywhere else.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
This will happen in Africa too.
It isn't changing that much in relative terms, the world is becoming more African and less European and American and Chinese population wise and that trend will continue further this century and next
It is not just down to housing costs, as they reduce as the population falls and houses become empty. Eastern Europe has many empty homes and still a falling population. It is down to social trends and the impact of social media.
In the longer term falling populations will cause industries to shut down as markets get smaller and the labour force dwindles. This will include the computer chip industry, so computers will eventually disappear and the internet and mobile phones too. Mankind will revert to a pre-technological world, but we will be very poorly prepared to live in it. Not many people know how to butcher a rabbit, plant crops etc. Thus the population will continue to fall. However, eventually some groups will survive and grow and things will stabilise. Evolution will also play a part. Homo Sapiens thinks it rules the world, but it too is subject to the laws of nature and is not exempt from them.
I'm not sure what the smallest population is that would be required to maintain our current level of technological development, but I suspect it's less than the current US population, and so less than 4% of the current global population.
I don't think we have to worry about the falling population causing technological capability loss yet.
Starmer hands Diego Garcia “back to” Mauritius (they never owned it)
But of course he does. Next the Elgin Marbles, the Benin Bronzes, he will probably try and hand over Stonehenge to Norway
Absolutely insane
Here is the official statement on Diego Garcia: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-between-uk-and-mauritius-3-october-2024 (You will notice the word "back" is not used anywhere.) It looks like a deal has been reached between different parties that will help solve the longstanding problem of people having been expelled from their homes. Is that not good news?
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
At least you’ve done your bit!
I’ve managed two but without going into details it could/should have been several more
When I count my acquaintances it is striking how many are childless (and now going to stay that way). Sadly, I do think most of them regret it
Thanks! If I've achieved nothing else in my 49 years on the planet - and it's arguable that I haven't - I can at least take comfort that I've slightly repopulated the planet (sorry @SandyRentool !)
I have a group of friends from school with whom I am reasonably close - 11 of us: an unusually high 7 have gone down the straightforward married+2 kids (or 3, in or case) route, while the other four don't have kids of their own. There are some stepchildren in there and a shedload of dogs, but also a few regrets. Fertility rate of 1.36 (I know you're supposed to do it per mother and most of us are male, but I think it still works for comparison purposes). And we're the lucky middle class ones from unchaotic backgrounds who have made stable lives for ourselves and who can afford the choices we make.
I just crunched my numbers
My closest ten male friends (using their initials):
C: 2 H: 0 L: 0 T: 1 P: 1 P: 0 B: 0 G: 2 C: 0 P: 1
Me: 2
So 11 men have produced 9 kids. We are a bohemian bunch with a lot of chaos. But also fairly rich
We’re dying out!
In the next ten friends there’s one guy with 5 (doing his bit) but also several more childless - so the pattern holds
Doing the same exercise:
D - 2 J - 1 M - 2 A - 0 J - 0 A - 1 W - 0 B - 0 R - 1 Me - 2
So that's 9 kids for 10 blokes, I think there's probably 3 or 4 more left though as J with 0 and A with zero have only recently bought their own houses and W is getting married next summer and had said he wants to have at least one kid. Even with that as a group we're below the replacement rate because all but one of us are married or engaged.
I think I’m only going to get through the next five years if I accept that I am governed by a bunch of venal and idiotic traitors with less brains than a frozen potato, who actively despise the people and nation they “govern”, especially its history and culture
I think I’m only going to get through the next five years if I accept that I am governed by a bunch of venal and idiotic traitors with less brains than a frozen potato, who actively despise the people and nation they “govern”, especially its history and culture
Well we've put up with it for eight years so your turn now.
I think I’m only going to get through the next five years if I accept that I am governed by a bunch of venal and idiotic traitors with less brains than a frozen potato, who actively despise the people and nation they “govern”, especially its history and culture
Well we've put up with it for eight years so your turn now.
Starmer hands Diego Garcia “back to” Mauritius (they never owned it)
But of course he does. Next the Elgin Marbles, the Benin Bronzes, he will probably try and hand over Stonehenge to Norway
Is that the same Diego Garcia ethnically cleansed of Mauritians back in the 1960s?
"Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous."
So, no. There are no permanent residents now, and I doubt the temporary residents of the US navy are ethnically, racially, or religiously homogeneous.
I think I’m only going to get through the next five years if I accept that I am governed by a bunch of venal and idiotic traitors with less brains than a frozen potato, who actively despise the people and nation they “govern”, especially its history and culture
That you voted for them should lubricate the acceptance.
My headline view is that the very big problems of demographic decline are rather smaller than the very big problems of untramelled demographic growth. So on a global scale there's that to be cheery about. But there's no doubt they are big problems. The wikipedia page on Chinese demographics has a little animation of their projected age/sex pyramid, which is quite startling.
The interesting thing is that demographic decline seems to happen everywhere in the developed or almost-developed world, regardless of local culture and politics. It's easy to blame housing costs, and housing costs are certainly a problem, but globally, poverty clearly doesn't stop people having children - all the really high birth rates are in really poor places. It's easy to blame the choices people make, but this seems to hold true across all cultures - and in any case, I think it's the case that people continue to want children in the same numbers they always did. The number of childless women who get to their mid-40s and wish they'd had children is about 90% of the number of childless women who get to their mid-40s. The number of people who wish they'd had more children is almost infinitely higher than the proportion who wish they'd had fewer.
There are all sorts of reasons why children don't happen, but my theory is that they have a common root: across all developed and almost-developed societies, there are many more old people than there used to be, and the more old people you have, the more resources you have to put into looking after that generation, so the less you have for the next generation. Low birth rates are to a large extent a feature of high birth rates a generation or two ago: the steeper the population growth a generation or two ago (e.g. East Asia), the steeper the decline now. This doesn't hold for sub-Saharan Africa because so few people make it to old age. But when they start doing so, we'll see the same pattern there.
At least you’ve done your bit!
I’ve managed two but without going into details it could/should have been several more
When I count my acquaintances it is striking how many are childless (and now going to stay that way). Sadly, I do think most of them regret it
Thanks! If I've achieved nothing else in my 49 years on the planet - and it's arguable that I haven't - I can at least take comfort that I've slightly repopulated the planet (sorry @SandyRentool !)
I have a group of friends from school with whom I am reasonably close - 11 of us: an unusually high 7 have gone down the straightforward married+2 kids (or 3, in or case) route, while the other four don't have kids of their own. There are some stepchildren in there and a shedload of dogs, but also a few regrets. Fertility rate of 1.36 (I know you're supposed to do it per mother and most of us are male, but I think it still works for comparison purposes). And we're the lucky middle class ones from unchaotic backgrounds who have made stable lives for ourselves and who can afford the choices we make.
I just crunched my numbers
My closest ten male friends (using their initials):
C: 2 H 0 L: 0 T: 1 P: 1 P: 0 B: 0 G: 2 C: 0 P: 1
Me: 2
So 11 men have produced 9 kids. We are a bohemian bunch with a lot of chaos. But also fairly rich
We’re dying out!
In the next ten friends there’s one guy with 5 (doing his bit) but also several more childless - so the pattern holds
That's quite startling. I set off wondering whether there is some element of self-selection here - that the sorts of people you hang out with are more likely to be childless or at least without onerous childcare responsibilities. I mean, I could look at the people I spend the most time with, who are, almost necessarily, those with kids at my kids' schools. But even then it would add up to a fertility rate of less than 2. And I think the overall stats point towards your group being - if not totally representative - at least certainly not wildly atypical.
It’s quite an interesting game. I’ve just added up the next ten male friends
Starmer hands Diego Garcia “back to” Mauritius (they never owned it)
But of course he does. Next the Elgin Marbles, the Benin Bronzes, he will probably try and hand over Stonehenge to Norway
Absolutely insane
Here is the official statement on Diego Garcia: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-between-uk-and-mauritius-3-october-2024 (You will notice the word "back" is not used anywhere.) It looks like a deal has been reached between different parties that will help solve the longstanding problem of people having been expelled from their homes. Is that not good news?
A 99-year lease for Diego Garcia. By which point the Chinese population may be less than half its current number.
Rumours of the demise of the base have been greatly exaggerated, and Britain has again asserted its respect for the international rule of law.
Comments
I’ve no idea if this is true, or why it should be true, but: worth noting
"have you seen what's left of the male population in this country?"
Given that the day before we had seen bouncers beating up a drunk at 5pm in the afternoon we couldn't fault the statement
Any men with brains had left for Europe as soon as they graduated...
If the population falls by three-quarters, and not a penny extra in real terms is borrowed, then the debt power person quadruples, to £160k. That isn't remotely sustainable.
The current debt-based economic model, which has worked in a world of rapidly growing populations able to divide the debt between more people in the future, cannot function in a world of falling populations. What do we do?
I saw what you did there...
People with money to burn (Musk) and programmes/videos/books to make and sell (Prof Brian Cox) will try to fool us. They are wasting our time. Meanwhile the actual exploration of space, solar system etc is wonderful and absorbing.
And of course the moment your manager cottons on, you can accuse him of bullying, racism, sexism and so on.
I have a group of friends from school with whom I am reasonably close - 11 of us: an unusually high 7 have gone down the straightforward married+2 kids (or 3, in or case) route, while the other four don't have kids of their own. There are some stepchildren in there and a shedload of dogs, but also a few regrets. Fertility rate of 1.36 (I know you're supposed to do it per mother and most of us are male, but I think it still works for comparison purposes). And we're the lucky middle class ones from unchaotic backgrounds who have made stable lives for ourselves and who can afford the choices we make.
It's fascinating mix of deeply conservative traditions, and rapid transition to liberal western values - with a strong admixture of US culture thanks to the postwar US presence there.
My wife grew up in West Cork as one of four children, which was an unusually small family for the time (80s) in rural Ireland. Families with 6-10 children were common. So far her parents have four grandchildren, and my best guess is that they will end up with five.
This will happen in Africa too.
(I went to a polo event at Windosr Great Park a few weeks back. Sponsored by one of the Nigerian banks. The great and the good of the Nigerian diaspora were there. It was a hoot. There were some very sharp minds in that giant marquee. The whole event was about obvious philanthropy. People were conspicuously giving to a huge school. Not just sponsoring a child. But sponsoring a whole classroom. And multiple classrooms at that. Intriguing - and very uplifting.)
Nigeria is also much more religious than most of the West and Far East and much of Eastern Europe. About half Christian and half Muslim
There is an argument excessive top-down cultures drain motivation and initiative from individuals and make them less productive - fewer managers and a more motivated workforce is probably a good thing but for organisation trapped in a traditionalist mindset, it just doesn't occur to them to try.
And that debt is both owed and owned.
Though having come up with a good theory I am now falling into the trap of thinking it explains EVERYTHING. Of course, the reality is more complex, and there will be many factors, of which religion will almost certainly be one.
My closest ten male friends (using their initials):
C: 2
H: 0
L: 0
T: 1
P: 1
P: 0
B: 0
G: 2
C: 0
P: 1
Me: 2
So 11 men have produced 9 kids. We are a bohemian bunch with a lot of chaos. But also fairly rich
We’re dying out!
In the next ten friends there’s one guy with 5 (doing his bit) but also several more childless - so the pattern holds
Land prices, similarly, would be expected to collapse. Asset values could fall faster than the population, but the debt would remain.
And, as you say, the debt is all owned by someone, who would expect to receive the interest on it, but it becomes increasingly difficult to service the debt as the population shrinks.
Perhaps not the best use of their educations and skillsets.
Irritatingly, the people who make policies on schools all live in London, where school places are plentiful, and who therefore assume that parents throughout the land have a choice of schools - whereas there are still places across the country where demand exceeds supply and your choice is therefore limited to the only school you are within catchment for. (And indeed there are some people - and I am increasingly worried I might be one in the case of my third daughter - who aren't actually in any catchment areas at all. Last year, the catchment area for the school I think she will go to was 0.73 miles from the school - we live 0.8 miles away. The second closest school is about 1.8 miles away, but that school too has a catchment of about 0.7 miles. A problem. Hopefully we'll get away with it somehow...)
It would be a change, with both positive and negative aspects and with both winners and losers.
My other grandparents had 3 children and 4 grandchildren. Those four grandchildren have produced 10 great-grandchildren, but, so far at any rate only 12 further descendants.
After all, the current model has only been going for about 300 years - before that, the "model" had Malthusian limitations but technology has moved us beyond that.
We are already seeing the implications of a falling birth rate in terms of school provision - as numbers on rolls decline, schools merge or close (the land can be sold off for residential redevelopment). This happened in the 1990s with a big sell off of playing fields for redevelopment.
However, when Freedom of Movement and a wave of new migrants arrived, settled and had children councils had to deal with a sudden demand for school places which meant frantic land acquisitions, school extensions and the return of the demountable classroom buildings.
That work cost councils millions (and is rarely mentioned in the "cost" of immigration) but now those children have gone through the main education system and there are fewer to replace them.
This is part of the whole population issue (which encompasses so many areas). IF you are looking to bring in more people for economic reasons, that has to be planned for in terms of infrastructure including school provision.
In the longer term falling populations will cause industries to shut down as markets get smaller and the labour force dwindles. This will include the computer chip industry, so computers will eventually disappear and the internet and mobile phones too. Mankind will revert to a pre-technological world, but we will be very poorly prepared to live in it. Not many people know how to butcher a rabbit, plant crops etc. Thus the population will continue to fall. However, eventually some groups will survive and grow and things will stabilise. Evolution will also play a part. Homo Sapiens thinks it rules the world, but it too is subject to the laws of nature and is not exempt from them.
I set off wondering whether there is some element of self-selection here - that the sorts of people you hang out with are more likely to be childless or at least without onerous childcare responsibilities. I mean, I could look at the people I spend the most time with, who are, almost necessarily, those with kids at my kids' schools. But even then it would add up to a fertility rate of less than 2. And I think the overall stats point towards your group being - if not totally representative - at least certainly not wildly atypical.
His mother was the youngest of 22.
TWENTY-TWO!!!!
But it would certainly start to reduce house prices such that the next, much smaller generation, might be able to manage on one income.
Much more likely is investment in *more* automation.
See French domestic building site, where the first thing you put up is a mini crane. As opposed to the UK, where I've seen a literal 11 Eastern European blokes trying to lift a giant piece of glass up a scaffold. The firm I'm involved in has an electric mini-digger - lower it into the basement and it does the job of x blokes digging manually, for the prices of about x/2.
Which was a bit unfair as all four sons who survived ran, for a while at least, their own farms.
A: 5
D : 0
J: 2
J: 0
S: 2
G: 2
N: 2
M: 1
S: 0
R: 2
So that’s 15 kids from 10 men. But it’s that guy with 5 doing all the work (he’s also worth about £400m - some connection there?)
So that’s 21 men (20 plus me) with 24 kids, TFR: 1.2 - very similar to Estonia, better than Poland
&
Nee jair
for anyone wondering about the pronunciation
It's interesting how fast the TFR in Nigeria is falling.
In 2004 it was 6.023.
That 5.24 is 2021.
In 2024 it is 5.009.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/NGA/nigeria/fertility-rate
I thought it was all going to be robots?
https://x.com/josephfcox/status/1841471656784449590
Take a pair of meta raybans - they have a camera in them
connect that to a piece of software that recognises the face and returns a link
Use the data within the link to pull peoples name and address back in say 10 seconds and as you walk round you can collect people's name and address instantly..
Namely:
Aotearoa
and the most interesting place therein:
TaumatawhakatangihangakoauauoTamateaturipukakapikimaung.
Scotland is hugely underpopulated, while many would argue that London/south east is the reverse. Russia has a population (slightly reduced each day by war deaths) of 144m in a more or less unlimited space. Despite the image, Africa as a whole is very thinly populated.
If the Tories fail to recover under new leader it's all too easy to see attention turning towards BJ. He gets back in to the Commons via a triumphant by-election success and is thus "exonerated" of past sins by the voters. And then...
It has a pretty grim climate and very high latitude - it is arguably OVER populated compared to similar latitudes elsewhere which are basically empty
This is in no way justifies the invasion, natch
But if you have to look busy that’s a kind of low grade hell. You end up staring with unseeing eyes at documents, sending emails to yourself, going to the loo when you don’t need to, disappearing off with jacket on chair. Soul destroying really. You kid yourself you’re ‘beating the system’ but you’re not. The system is beating you.
Then again, life is largely about killing time (you’d explode otherwise) so I suppose it’s only a matter of degree. And although it’s white collar occupations where it’s manifested the most it can apply in all endeavours, even the creative arts. Charlie’s quote about being in the Stones comes to mind. “Five years work, twenty years hanging around”. That’s most careers probably. Indeed it’s not such a bad ratio.
But of course he does. Next the Elgin Marbles, the Benin Bronzes, he will probably try and hand over Stonehenge to Norway
Starmer is an utterly clueless traitor
Protect Our Pensioners.
Whilst illegal migrants are living in 4 Star hotels we have pensioners living in sub-standard council accommodatioin Ashfield.
Today I visited the residents of Summerhill Court in Huthwaite to look at the repairs they need doing ASAP.
I have already intervened once to get the Ashfield Independent led council to make this facility safe and I am doing so again.
Note to local councillors who read this page - get this sorted and stop ignoring these people who pay your wages.
https://www.facebook.com/LeeAndersoninAshfieldMansfield/posts/1057874582677803
Fact check on that 4 star hotels claim:
https://fullfact.org/online/asylum-seeker-free-iphone/#:~:text=Some hotels housing asylum seekers,housed in hotels at all.
Perhaps he's headed for a column in the Telegraph.
I don't think we have to worry about the falling population causing technological capability loss yet.
D - 2
J - 1
M - 2
A - 0
J - 0
A - 1
W - 0
B - 0
R - 1
Me - 2
So that's 9 kids for 10 blokes, I think there's probably 3 or 4 more left though as J with 0 and A with zero have only recently bought their own houses and W is getting married next summer and had said he wants to have at least one kid. Even with that as a group we're below the replacement rate because all but one of us are married or engaged.
So, no. There are no permanent residents now, and I doubt the temporary residents of the US navy are ethnically, racially, or religiously homogeneous.
Rumours of the demise of the base have been greatly exaggerated, and Britain has again asserted its respect for the international rule of law.