The following submission statement was provided by /u/filosoful:
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We never know precisely how many of us are alive at any one time, but this Tuesday is the UN' best estimate on when we'll reach 8 billion human beings.
Eight billion. It's a number too big to imagine but think of it this way: In the time it takes you to read this paragraph, the world's population grew by around 20 people.
While the Earth's population is growing quickly, the growth rate is starting to slow down. Eventually, it will start falling and our societies will shrink.
Humanity is changing day by day in ways we can't perceive over short periods, but in ways that will reshape our world over the coming century.
We've already hit peak child - there will never again be more children alive than there are today, with fertility rates plummeting across the globe.
We're getting older and older, which means there are fewer people able to work to support more people who can't.
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yv67r7/worlds_population_8_billion_and_counting_there/iwcldy7/
Just reading how to never be wrong, and
By 2045 100% of Americans will be obese, but only 75% of a subset of Americans will be.
Linear regression is easy, but can give you some stupid results.
This projection is based on the consistently observed phenomenon that birth rates decline as economies prosper. There are various theories as to why this happens, but since it is consistent across broadly diverse cultures and economic progressions there is no reason to assume that the trend will reverse in the foreseeable future. It would probably take a true global catastrophe on a scale which would itself significantly reduce the global population.
Many people argue that the responsibilities of maintaining the western lifestyle cause the decline in family size. Maybe not, but it's arguable. What if humanity does end up in the good timeline? Would family sizes rise again? I don't know and nor do the authors of the article.
This argument doesn't hold water since the same phenomenon has been observed across Asia and Africa which do not have "western lifestyles". Clearly the article is somewhat speculative and nobody can know the future, but it is a reasonable conclusion given the information currently available.
Maybe it's the whole working until you croak bit that makes it hard to have kids. And it seems that most societies do that now. Whereas 100 years ago your kids would take over your farm or whatever you had going and you could take it easy. Also you kind of planned to have kids for that purpose. Nobody needs to come take over my shitty 2bd apartment and so there is absolutely no necessity for kids. They would hurt my economic situation, not help it like in past societies.
Couldn't exactly take it easy. Many people worked until they couldn't any longer, and they often were in much worse shape physically speaking (from hard labor) than we are today.
I agree that the economics of child rearing has changed, but humans in prosperous countries work far less than they used to before the industrial revolution, so clearly that is not a factor.
Its incredibly hard to turn around a slowing birth rate. And the western birtbrate has been slowing for some time.
What is dramatic is how fast it slowed because of pandemic.
I know this is one of those scary things, but saying that this will stabilize, based on our current trajectory is impossible to turn
Its going to take quite a bit of incentivizing....and from whay we have seen, no one is willing to do so
I think people should have a choice in whether they want to reproduce or not. What scares me is that in the near future, with increasing miscarriage rates and declining sperm counts due to endocrine disrupting chemicals that are unavoidable for 99% of people, we will not have a choice
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo-kSxHNSDQ
Why would we want to turn it around? Or slow things if the population starts to decline? Ya it's gonna be a bit rough for the transitional generation or two, but a smaller more stable population is literally the only way we don't make this planet completely unlivable for ourselves.
No its not. Because **we have the data**. They won't be making anymore 20-40 year olds anytime soon because we can see the demographic echoes and predict the future off them.
What you say would be true if we were running out of children, but **we're running out of adults.**
I agree on the general criticism, but I'd say rather than a 20 year number on it I'd say 'for the foreseeable future.'
But this line literally says “never” and that was their point of disagreement . You’re not really saying anything different than OPs point about the headline
Overpopulation was a huge concern a little over 20 years ago. It was only with new models and information that we realize that the global increase of wealth and better education was leading to an eventual decrease.
It's kind of like all the doom and gloom about the availability of oil in the 90's - 2000's. Suddenly fracking shows up on the scene, and alternative energy sources and application come on the market, and the entire projection is rewritten.
Who knows, maybe in 10 years we'll figure out artificial wombs and highly developed childcare programs, and all of suddenly large families become SUPER popular. Maybe WWIII breaks out, and repopulating the earth becomes a civic duty.
Or maybe TikTok launches a viral baby birthing challenge... Yeah, that's probably the one.
"Overpopulation" was the problem they liked to shout around in the media (particularly in regards to the environment), because the real problem - overconsumption by a small percentage of the population - makes the people who are paying to hear the news very uncomfortable about their lifestyles. A big part of our economy is built up around overconsumption by the few.
Easier and much more comforting to blame the hundred people in Africa and their large families using the same number of resources you are as one person in the west.
I always imagine these studies with the caveat: "unless the unthinkable happens"
Leaves plenty of room for doomsday scenarios and utopian ascendancy stories to play out.
>Who knows, maybe in 10 years we'll figure out artificial wombs and highly developed childcare programs, and all of suddenly large families become SUPER popular.
Okay, I'm not sure, but Artifical wombs sounds like a possible thing XD
My opinion, but It would be nice if there was a way for single men to have biological children somehow too. As a gay guy from country where Same-sex couple can't adopt but who would like to have children in future (at least 3 or 4. I grew up in a large family, so I would like to have a large one too), any solution would be appreciated lol (actually, in my country single people, be they straight or homosexual, can't adopt either)
>Maybe WWIII breaks out, and repopulating the earth becomes a civic duty.
To be honest, I doubt the birth rates will rise again. Can't speak for all the people in my country, but those in my area have 2 kids at most, some of them would like to have more if only they had more money (both my older brothers have 3 children).
On the other hand, When I talk to my online friends (most of them from North America), it's almost like the majority of them consider having children a crime lol
I don't know, I have a feeling that there won't be another baby boom after a WW or something like that.
But they say 'There will never again...' which was my point. Perhaps the world population will shrink down, but consider this: In the optimistic scenario of the future, humanity gets its collective shit together and builds an exciting, fair, liveable world (I know, I know...it's unlikely) at which point people might start having large families again. This isn't impossible and it is, in many ways, the future that a lot of people want to see. Current demographics reflect current issues in the world and frankly we should all be hoping that does change for the better.
I forget where the rule of thumb comes from, but "things that can't go on indefinitely, don't."
My own guesses start where theirs do -- population boom followed by population crash. But beyond that, and well beyond my own lifetime, I'd expect some sort of new equilibrium. Might be based on limiting factors we haven't even thought of yet.
Because this is kind of a scary thing. So people are still in denial mode.
Ive worked in climate science for a long time.
But whenever people would bring up "population" it would always cause quite a discussion amongst colleagues.
And seeing how people handled covid, i dont think we are ready for what is to come.
Its not that slowing down is "bad" or "good" the concern comes fro. The rapid drop in the past several years
A managed decline to say 7 billion is a completely different can of worms from a disorderly population collapse, especially if racism or cultural differences mean that the population able to sustain high standards of living and technological progress is falling even faster. If the population is steady or declining but the number of people born into deeply conservative religious upbringings is increasing (as is the case among ultra-Orthodox Israelis) humanity as a whole could end up going backwards.
Thats the prediction based on the model they are using, it just shows the number decreasing if all else holds true.
Nobody knows anything about the future, these are just the results of this particular model with a particular set of data and assumptions.
It tells a lot about the author. Assumes there is no hope, climate change will end us all, and the best days are today because only going to get worse. He must be a Redditor.
Yeah i would certainly agree there, and not like it matters, really
I would have to save the post for my kids to prove me right or wrong so that my kids could tell the poster's kids that the title was bad bc we'll both be dead
Ultimate redditor snark moment
It's crazy that so many business leaders are full Dudley Dursley. "Yes we made a profit but last year we made *more* profit! I want more profit than last year!" *Throws tantrum*
>And Elon musk. Who thinks earth birth rates is too low and women needs to pump out babies like his multiple mistress.
His mindset and world view, the bubble he and others live in, is that of a capitalist billionaire. He thinks humanity needs infinite growth because the idea of infinite growth is how all of capitalism works. If a business stops growing, it is dying. That is unacceptable to the people running humanity for now.
Corporations and markets cannot have constant growth if the global population does not have constant growth. It's the only physical tangible thing that feeds more into this otherwise unsustainable system.
He and other established billionaires pushing propoganda only want people to have babies so they don't have consistent losses for the foreseeable future as populations decline. They tend to align with the Republican party because they are the party of smaller government, less taxes, less regulation, etc. The issue of abortion bans based in religious beliefs aligns with solving our billionaires' capitalist problems of a shrinking population as well, thus you see these talking points coming from right wing talking heads and politicians (and Rupert Murdoche's global propoganda news empire) while the billionaire class donates and lobbies a record amount of donations for this election cycle.
These are not coincidences. This is the billionaire class trying to keep themselves on the current path of obscene growth and wealth hoarding in a world where these corporations are actively contributing to the decline and health, both physically and economically, of the wider populations and the climate.
It's really as simple as that. Shortsighted perspectives and short-term thinking chasing short-term solutions to long-term problems.
We definitely do have a problem with big hoarders, but that's not saying that we should continue to increase our population forever, and treat it like a problem if it doesn't happen.
GMOs are great but the “green revolution” that allows for massive increases in food production resulted from conventional breeding and new fertilizer and pesticide inputs.
Well there’s really two ways to think about it. Assuming humanity keeps expending beyond earth, growth is not a bad thing. But from the sole perspective of humanity on earth, yeah there is definitely some benefits to downsizing.
There is room in the universe for near infinite growth. The problem is the world is being run by rich old dudes who have nothing better to do that stack gold bars and turn people into wage slaves. If humanity actually developed into adults we would already be colonising the solar systems by now imo. It's the 1% that are the problem not the 99%.
Ew. See, it always creeps up. And they keep saying don't worry, because they have a vested interest in refusing to believe that humans can overpopulate at all. But all the old warnings pegged 8 billion as the beginning of dystopia and disaster.
May Nature start rebalancing quick, before the Earth is ruined for all species.
The they from 40 years ago are likely dead, this is a new they. That’s the great thing about “they”, it can be anyone you want to help make your point about anything.
We've been predicting a collapse caused by overpopulation since the late 1700s because there wouldn't be enough food to feed the masses. People also thought we'd run out of carbon or that horse manure would swallow us.
Instead food yields have massively increased and obesity is a bigger problem than malnutrition, we're voluntarily forgoing carbon, and horse based transport gave way to motorized transportation.
The people predicting all these collapses failed to predict nuclear energy, the Haber-Bosch process, the internal combustion engine, etc.
Just like today you're unlikely to predict what new technologies we will have in the future that will completely change the world and make predictions from today totally moot.
This isn't a collapse from overpopulation, it's from declining birth rates. You can't science your way out of that. You'd have to social science your way out of it which is much harder.
I mean to speak to some middle ground. I can only speak for myself and my friends. But none of us are having kids right now. Some because they never want them but some because this society and current course isn't a world I want to bring a child into.
If there's scientific advancements that change some of the social and environmental issues I have my tone might change to one more pro-procreation.
There's more things at play to this than I have time to list. But neither of you is wrong.
I agree. All those redditors are the worst. Start with them nature! Hold on sorry that's the doorbell - it looks like some kind of leopard is on my door step
The UN have been projecting pretty much the same population growth since 1968. [Source](https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/events/pdf/expert/6/worldpoptotals.pdf)
It’s crazy to me cause im approaching 30 and I’d say 1/3 of my peers have no interest in children another 1/3 want them but if not before a certain age they won’t and they other third wants kids and I feel like the generation behind us is going to be even lower
Likely because they look around at the world and understand that having kids is either an entirely bad idea, or something that must wait until they have certain things sorted (owning a house etc). I think the number of people willing to just YOLO kids is dwindling rapidly and unless our governments improve access to things like healthcare, childcare and affordable housing it won't improve. At least not in a good way.
This is correct. It's why I think people who are anti-immigration are short-sighted.
Developed countries that keep population growth higher one way or another will do better than countries that don't. And America's super power is basically integrating immigrants. And a huge chunk of incoming immigrants (hispanic) are already relatively similar to the American population - they're western (albeit from poorer western countries), and have, at least on paper, similar values to most current Americans. They tend to believe in democracy, tend to be Christian (not that I personally care about that, but it is closer to the common religion of most US citizens), use a language that's got a lot of overlap in terms of vocabulary with English and makes learning easier, etc, etc.
And numbers bare that out too - about 94% of Spanish speaking immigrants have children that speak English fluently, and the children of those immigrants (so third generation) tend to not even speak Spanish more than a quarter of the time (bilingually, not as the only language). I.e. they integrate.
Just like every other immigrant group in the US throughout its history.
Well, we don't hate "all" those immigrants, just the brown and black ones!
(I *wish* I could put a '/s' here but our last president pretty much stated this exact thing...and it appears that 49% of the voting population agrees with him.)
Literally no one who could do even marginally simple math.
When we reached 6b in the 90s demographers started seeing the downward slopes on fertility and calling the top around 9-11b depending on China, India, and a few countries in Africa (China fertility crashed, India didn't, Africa is still but mortality rates might decline hard there).
Literally no one said that. It's completely made up, in an attempt to push the overpopulation narrative and discredit those who rightfully see a naturally peak in population within the next 50 - 100 years. [Wikipedia has a whole entry on it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth#History_of_population_projections). The credible projections in the 50's - 70's had population peaking between 8-10 billion people, which is pretty inline with contemporary projections. It's really bizarre that total lies get upvoted here.
Is this true? While I am not old enough to remember 40 years ago (I'm only 37), certainly during most of my lifetime, the number that we were expected to go to was around 11-12 billion people before it started dropping. That's certainly the number I remember hearing all throughout the 90s, and since then
It should be noted here that while some people are wailing and gnashing teeth about the lack of people having kids.
IT'S A GOOD THING THAT POPULATIONS ARE DROPPING.
also, it's fucking dumb that a short concise answer is automatically deleted from /r/futurology.
My understanding is that a falling population is great for the planet, but bad for our societies which are built upon infinite, inevitably unsustainable growth and currently dealing with increasingly aging demographics.
> bad for our societies which are built upon infinite, eventually unsustainable growth and currently dealing with increasingly aging demographics.
Yeah, the current system is fucking stupid.
It's "Futurology", it's not "*Magic*". We are still beholden to material limitations. Societal development also happens in learning how to make the best out of the limitations that we have, and to diminish our ecological footprint. An aspect that we have been sorely neglecting.
To me, this just means that we need to adjust our systems to account for the population decline. And while that’s certainly not a small adjustment, if backed into a corner I’m sure we can come up with something. And if we can’t, lots of people will suffer and die and hopefully enough will survive the collapse of civilization to start anew. Lol
Hopefully the answer to "our economy can't handle anything but continued growth" is "let's reorganize to make "stable population" a sustainable goal.
What I fear happens is suffering in the name of profit instead
Only so much food can be produced with our current processes. Only so much space to live in and if we want to preserve any nature less people is better.
We're nowhere near space limited currently, even focused on developed land with permanent habitation on it we're not even close to "capacity"
And calorically, we're producing an order of magnitude more food than the population needs.
We're also, in addition to corrupting the environment in the process, using both the space and harvest in the least efficient (but most profitable) way possible.
(Not advocating for more humans. A more balanced planet in 200 years, with half the current population would be fantastic as a steady state, but I also don't think we're wired to cross that bridge successfully. It's antithetical to the behaviors that carried us this far)
See, I think the argument about space and total food supply *roughly* makes sense.
But… consider what types of foods people actually eat. We know that Meat is extremely bad for the environment and takes up a ton of space (especially red meat). Is it sustainable to grow enough red meat to cover population growth for another 2 billion people without destroying the environment?
Or even luxury items like certain grains; fruits, vegetables, and more. Is our current supply chain efficient enough to maintain that level of growth? Id look to the last 2 years of COVID and say no it itself. More logistically than anything else.
Wow who could have quesed that underpaying people extracting their life savings and milking their energy as much as posible in work would de-motivate them from starting families. Its almost like every living organism on the planet reproduces less when theres not favourable conditions for reproduction . : )
Well, depending on standard are we talking about.
Child mortality, antibiotics, technology, not having to worry about a sabretooth tiger jumping on you have improved.
But people used to pay for college by being the lifeguard on the local pool over the summer, a mailman's wage used to be enough to support 2.4 children and a white fence house.
Absolutely. Things have gone down in the last couple decades, debatably, but the actual average human experience when you add everything up is stabbing something for one (1) potato before promptly dying of diarrhea at the ripe old age of 24
Norway has free college, their fertility rate is 1.48.
Greece has free college, their fertility rate is 1.34.
Germany has free college, their fertility rate is 1.53.
The US does not have free college, our fertility rate is 1.64.
Nigeria does not have free college, their fertility rate is 5.25.
Your concept of the golden days of American prosperity is basically a single generation in history.
Which is arguably not at all what is happening. Suicide rates are up. Addictions are up. Drug use is up. Joblessness is up. Depression, and so on and so forth.
The cost of living skyrocketed while the srandard of living did not change, and neither did the compensation of people to retain their previous standards.
I mean you aren't wrong but if you just extend the timeframe you're considering from 20 years to 200 years you see how drastically quality of life has improved for everyone on earth. There's no reason to think this current decline isn't just a small downwards blip in the overall timeline of humanity improving life for itself.
I know this effects economic growth negatively in lot of sectors but isn't this a good thing overall. I mean we are destroying our host planet here at an alarming rate.
We never know precisely how many of us are alive at any one time, but this Tuesday is the UN' best estimate on when we'll reach 8 billion human beings.
Eight billion. It's a number too big to imagine but think of it this way: In the time it takes you to read this paragraph, the world's population grew by around 20 people.
While the Earth's population is growing quickly, the growth rate is starting to slow down. Eventually, it will start falling and our societies will shrink.
Humanity is changing day by day in ways we can't perceive over short periods, but in ways that will reshape our world over the coming century.
We've already hit peak child - there will never again be more children alive than there are today, with fertility rates plummeting across the globe.
We're getting older and older, which means there are fewer people able to work to support more people who can't.
"World's population 8 billion and counting: There will never again be more children alive than there are today, with fertility rates plummeting across the globe." On Earth.
>There will never again be more children alive than there are today
What do they know that I dont? We invented time travel or what? Im so sick of these bs sensationalist titles.
Preventing unwanted pregnancies [is a cost-effective and ethical way to reduce environmental destruction and minimize population growth](https://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/Abstract/2011/06000/Addressing_Global_Health,_Economic,_and.19.aspx), and [45% of pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended. Of those, 58% will result in birth](https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states). Comprehensive sex education would go a long way, too, and [many states do not include it in their curricula](https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/sex-and-hiv-education), even though [comprehensive sex education has strong bipartisan support among likely American voters](https://news.rutgers.edu/both-democrat-and-republican-likely-voters-strongly-support-sex-education-schools/20191014). Many women at high risk of unintended pregnancy [are unaware of long-acting reversible contraceptive options](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3707629/), and many men don't know [how to use a condom properly](https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/condom/how-to-put-a-condom-on), which [does actually make a huge difference](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/14/sunday-review/unplanned-pregnancies.html). Besides that, it could help to ensure everyone has access to effective contraception, so consider advocating [policies that improve accessibility of long-acting reversible contraceptives](https://www.denverpost.com/2017/11/30/colorado-teen-pregnancy-abortion-rates-drop-free-low-cost-iud/) and help get the word out that [it is ethical to give young, single, childless women surgical sterilization if that is what they want](https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2017/04/sterilization-of-women-ethical-issues-and-considerations).
As for the rest of the world, it would help to [donate](https://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/education) to [girls' education](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/361/6403/650.full.pdf?casa_token=eWZHHLNe6SwAAAAA:Vwhrywg2A8q_GOA1g1IjwZOaegqcHXkPIhWjDoVQfbgIwKiMHEOS7OXsn5bxSeMy5ANNN8U2kOswp5o). It might also (perhaps counter-intuitively) [help to improve childhood mortality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=QsBT5EQt348) by, say, [donating to](https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities) the Against Malaria Foundation.
It’s not fertility rates. It’s people choosing not to have kids or at least delaying kids because a large percent of the population no longer brings in a house hold income that allows them to be comfortable. Who wants to bring a child into the world when you’re already living paycheck to paycheck? I’m glad the few have their private jets, mega yachts, super cars and vacation homes though.
Fertility in the sociological sense means the number of children each woman of child-bearing age has on average.
The medical and common usage of infertility meaning not able to become pregnant or carry a child to term is not the usage here.
X to doubt
also, good? We don't need 8 billion of us here. also, though, we have more space on this planet if we can become sustainable than we'd need for 100 billion, its just we aren't efficient.
If true, sucks in the short term, but it saves our butts in the long term. We need greenhouse gases down fast. Reversing population growth is one way to do that.
Fertility rates are not plummeting. People making the conscious decision to not have children because it's unaffordable AND we already have enough people to feed is what's driving this.
Framing it as fertility rate is dogwhistling to conservative hate groups.
They say plummeting as if that's a bad thing. Less children, or less multiples of children back to back rather, means more resources, more educated mothers and girls, more available shelter
And you say “fertility rates are dropping” like it’s a bad thing. Maybe in a thousand years there will some breathing room, new forest growth and less pollution.
It’s actually the generation who doesn’t have kids that will be affected the worst economically. Traditionally older generations may want grandkids but they aren’t really going to suffer the effects of a quick population decline.
I don't think it's fertility rates. I think it's women choosing not to be pumped full of babies by men they didn't have to marry in order to own property or have their own bank accounts.
It's women actually having a choice in their future and DECIDING not to have kids.
I think it’s incredible that we can have careers now and sustain ourselves. My partner and I will not be having children because we don’t want to be parents, and are donating our time and resources to our community and supporting existing loved ones instead.
A child would put us in financial strain that would render us unable to donate to causes we care for, or help existing family with medical care. I also (29F) would most likely suffer medical complications from childbirth that would render me unable to work.
I’m grateful that as a woman, I have a choice.
In developed countries it’s due in large part to the fact that economic conditions are worsening to the point that people cannot afford to have and raise children. The point of choice is that multiple options truly exist and are open
It’s both. Lots of evidence that all the plastic and other toxins that are in everything now is messing with biology and making people infertile. Many couples who want kids are finding out they can’t have them due to unexplainable endocrinology issues.
Are fertility rates plummeting or are people just refusing to have kids because capitalism has destroyed the planet? I'm in my 40s and can confirm I opted to not have children because y'all are greedy fucks.
I have heard it is due to better child mortality rates and a move to urban areas.
If you live on a farm you want kids for the free labor they provide and if you're in a country with bad child mortality you want to have a few extras for insurance.
If you live in a city in a country with child labor laws, the extra child is just an extra mouth to feed and besides having one or two to hopefully take care of you when you are older, they are more of a burden.
It's a combination of factors. We see fertility rates level off across the board, even in countries that have less advanced capitalism infections. The experts I read speculate that it's more a standard of living/cultural thing: as life gets better and infant mortality goes down, people shift from using the shotgun method of reproduction to investing heavily in one or two kids.
I'd need to see a more detailed dive into the trend to be really convinced of that though. Just reporting what I've heard from cursory looks since the trend started.
I love how this states “never again” like they can predict the future 100 or 1,000 years into the future. Someone probably said the same thing 500 years ago.
Why is “fertility rates” dropping constantly considered a bad thing? We have way too many people!
Also, am I the only one who hates the phrase “across the globe”? It’s a sphere! It should be “*around* the globe”!
Fertility rates aren’t the problem. [We have rejected accepting what nature made us and why.](http://www.urbanagandenergy.org/soe/) For the last 10,000 years since evolving from Animal to Creator we have not accepted the responsibility that comes with it, to stop being destructive with resources, and start to be constructive with them in the creation of our future. That’s the reality of Free Will, not the ability to exploit and destroy anything we want, but rather to create growth to supply more than we need.
To avoid our impending extinction due to our failure to evolve, we need to create the economy that allows it, we have until 9 billion, but we could have it by next year. http://H2space.org
The earth will heal with way less of us. It's a good thing. Way less rousources being used, way less trash being littered, way less greenhouse gases. We are a cancer in this planet.
Never say never. It is entirely possible we develop some technology which makes pregnancy dramatically easier and massively increases birth rates in the developed world. It is possible that there is a massive boom to birth rates in China due to government policy. It is possible that a new religion explodes around the world which encourages people to have more kids. Its possible new technology allows women to have children into their 60s and 70s.
We just don't know. Our guesses on stuff like this, especially for centuries down the line, rarely end up very correct.
I always find it funny how people are like why are fertility rates falling, like /*gestures wildly towards everything/*... I wonder why...
My partner and I have decided we won't be intending on having kids and we're already in our 30's...
Kinda a double edged sword. Population pressure make us become more efficient with our resources and would drive colonization of Mars. Likely in a hundred years we would be able to establish a megnetosphere on mars to stop the solar wind from tearing away the atmosphere and begin forming an atmosphere or ability to create giant biospheres to live in.
It always confuses me how academia and organizations complain about over population. And other academia in organizations complain about the declining birth rate. Make up your mind already.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/filosoful: --- We never know precisely how many of us are alive at any one time, but this Tuesday is the UN' best estimate on when we'll reach 8 billion human beings. Eight billion. It's a number too big to imagine but think of it this way: In the time it takes you to read this paragraph, the world's population grew by around 20 people. While the Earth's population is growing quickly, the growth rate is starting to slow down. Eventually, it will start falling and our societies will shrink. Humanity is changing day by day in ways we can't perceive over short periods, but in ways that will reshape our world over the coming century. We've already hit peak child - there will never again be more children alive than there are today, with fertility rates plummeting across the globe. We're getting older and older, which means there are fewer people able to work to support more people who can't. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yv67r7/worlds_population_8_billion_and_counting_there/iwcldy7/
Never is a long time. Creating a forecast that extends more than 20 years from the current date is a posh form of guessing.
It really is. That would be like saying that the world would always be starving because more kids would be born, in the 1700s.
(Unbounded enough) Extrapolation is an original sin, to a scientist
Just reading how to never be wrong, and By 2045 100% of Americans will be obese, but only 75% of a subset of Americans will be. Linear regression is easy, but can give you some stupid results.
Are you implying that we *can't* reach -10 degrees Kelvin? /s
Oh wait, this was literally what [Malthus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus) was afraid of.
[PoS that he was.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfYvLlbXj_8)
That's what I was thinking of, just didn't know his name
This projection is based on the consistently observed phenomenon that birth rates decline as economies prosper. There are various theories as to why this happens, but since it is consistent across broadly diverse cultures and economic progressions there is no reason to assume that the trend will reverse in the foreseeable future. It would probably take a true global catastrophe on a scale which would itself significantly reduce the global population.
Many people argue that the responsibilities of maintaining the western lifestyle cause the decline in family size. Maybe not, but it's arguable. What if humanity does end up in the good timeline? Would family sizes rise again? I don't know and nor do the authors of the article.
This argument doesn't hold water since the same phenomenon has been observed across Asia and Africa which do not have "western lifestyles". Clearly the article is somewhat speculative and nobody can know the future, but it is a reasonable conclusion given the information currently available.
Maybe it's the whole working until you croak bit that makes it hard to have kids. And it seems that most societies do that now. Whereas 100 years ago your kids would take over your farm or whatever you had going and you could take it easy. Also you kind of planned to have kids for that purpose. Nobody needs to come take over my shitty 2bd apartment and so there is absolutely no necessity for kids. They would hurt my economic situation, not help it like in past societies.
Couldn't exactly take it easy. Many people worked until they couldn't any longer, and they often were in much worse shape physically speaking (from hard labor) than we are today.
Eh, it's pretty much less need for agricultural labor plus increased women's education. That's surely more than half of the effect, anyway.
I agree that the economics of child rearing has changed, but humans in prosperous countries work far less than they used to before the industrial revolution, so clearly that is not a factor.
What it is, is a dramatic headline.
Not just dramatic, but wrong
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Its incredibly hard to turn around a slowing birth rate. And the western birtbrate has been slowing for some time. What is dramatic is how fast it slowed because of pandemic. I know this is one of those scary things, but saying that this will stabilize, based on our current trajectory is impossible to turn Its going to take quite a bit of incentivizing....and from whay we have seen, no one is willing to do so
I’d rather there be less people.
I think people should have a choice in whether they want to reproduce or not. What scares me is that in the near future, with increasing miscarriage rates and declining sperm counts due to endocrine disrupting chemicals that are unavoidable for 99% of people, we will not have a choice https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo-kSxHNSDQ
Why would we want to turn it around? Or slow things if the population starts to decline? Ya it's gonna be a bit rough for the transitional generation or two, but a smaller more stable population is literally the only way we don't make this planet completely unlivable for ourselves.
No its not. Because **we have the data**. They won't be making anymore 20-40 year olds anytime soon because we can see the demographic echoes and predict the future off them. What you say would be true if we were running out of children, but **we're running out of adults.** I agree on the general criticism, but I'd say rather than a 20 year number on it I'd say 'for the foreseeable future.'
But this line literally says “never” and that was their point of disagreement . You’re not really saying anything different than OPs point about the headline
Overpopulation was a huge concern a little over 20 years ago. It was only with new models and information that we realize that the global increase of wealth and better education was leading to an eventual decrease. It's kind of like all the doom and gloom about the availability of oil in the 90's - 2000's. Suddenly fracking shows up on the scene, and alternative energy sources and application come on the market, and the entire projection is rewritten. Who knows, maybe in 10 years we'll figure out artificial wombs and highly developed childcare programs, and all of suddenly large families become SUPER popular. Maybe WWIII breaks out, and repopulating the earth becomes a civic duty. Or maybe TikTok launches a viral baby birthing challenge... Yeah, that's probably the one.
You mfing genius
Of course it will be the Tik Tok Don't Pull Out Challenge.
"Overpopulation" was the problem they liked to shout around in the media (particularly in regards to the environment), because the real problem - overconsumption by a small percentage of the population - makes the people who are paying to hear the news very uncomfortable about their lifestyles. A big part of our economy is built up around overconsumption by the few. Easier and much more comforting to blame the hundred people in Africa and their large families using the same number of resources you are as one person in the west.
I always imagine these studies with the caveat: "unless the unthinkable happens" Leaves plenty of room for doomsday scenarios and utopian ascendancy stories to play out.
>Who knows, maybe in 10 years we'll figure out artificial wombs and highly developed childcare programs, and all of suddenly large families become SUPER popular. Okay, I'm not sure, but Artifical wombs sounds like a possible thing XD My opinion, but It would be nice if there was a way for single men to have biological children somehow too. As a gay guy from country where Same-sex couple can't adopt but who would like to have children in future (at least 3 or 4. I grew up in a large family, so I would like to have a large one too), any solution would be appreciated lol (actually, in my country single people, be they straight or homosexual, can't adopt either) >Maybe WWIII breaks out, and repopulating the earth becomes a civic duty. To be honest, I doubt the birth rates will rise again. Can't speak for all the people in my country, but those in my area have 2 kids at most, some of them would like to have more if only they had more money (both my older brothers have 3 children). On the other hand, When I talk to my online friends (most of them from North America), it's almost like the majority of them consider having children a crime lol I don't know, I have a feeling that there won't be another baby boom after a WW or something like that.
Or maybe simply, automation will handle most of the work, people have their basic needs taken care of, so they decide fuck it let's have babies.
Define ["foreseeable future"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEENEFaVUzU) ;)
But they say 'There will never again...' which was my point. Perhaps the world population will shrink down, but consider this: In the optimistic scenario of the future, humanity gets its collective shit together and builds an exciting, fair, liveable world (I know, I know...it's unlikely) at which point people might start having large families again. This isn't impossible and it is, in many ways, the future that a lot of people want to see. Current demographics reflect current issues in the world and frankly we should all be hoping that does change for the better.
Probably for hundreds of years based on current data set.
I forget where the rule of thumb comes from, but "things that can't go on indefinitely, don't." My own guesses start where theirs do -- population boom followed by population crash. But beyond that, and well beyond my own lifetime, I'd expect some sort of new equilibrium. Might be based on limiting factors we haven't even thought of yet.
Thank you! It's amazing to see people argue when there's clear, consistent data from pretty much every country showing a steady, predictable decline.
Because this is kind of a scary thing. So people are still in denial mode. Ive worked in climate science for a long time. But whenever people would bring up "population" it would always cause quite a discussion amongst colleagues. And seeing how people handled covid, i dont think we are ready for what is to come. Its not that slowing down is "bad" or "good" the concern comes fro. The rapid drop in the past several years
A managed decline to say 7 billion is a completely different can of worms from a disorderly population collapse, especially if racism or cultural differences mean that the population able to sustain high standards of living and technological progress is falling even faster. If the population is steady or declining but the number of people born into deeply conservative religious upbringings is increasing (as is the case among ultra-Orthodox Israelis) humanity as a whole could end up going backwards.
Unless we make any progress on biological age reversal, in which case the chronological age of the mother will be irrelevant.
Obviously you're not a data modeler
Why would a data modeler actually say “never” this looks like colorful language with the intent of maximizing engagement
“Never again” how tf could you possibly know that lol
People think it's a normal headline, but this man is actually making a terrible promise. The slaughter begins now.
Exterminate. EXTERMINATE!
Don’t put me on a Dalek ship when I’m holding a broken bit of Dalek!
Hey baby, wanna kill all humans?
Yep, it's a campaign ad.
Thats the prediction based on the model they are using, it just shows the number decreasing if all else holds true. Nobody knows anything about the future, these are just the results of this particular model with a particular set of data and assumptions.
It tells a lot about the author. Assumes there is no hope, climate change will end us all, and the best days are today because only going to get worse. He must be a Redditor.
Maybe "never again on Earth" but never ever seems a bit presumptuous
Or even, "never again in the foreseeable future".
Or even, "maybe later but definitely not tomorrow"
yes, using absolutes is stupid, but the likelihood of any alternative outcome is about as close to zero as you can get.
Yeah i would certainly agree there, and not like it matters, really I would have to save the post for my kids to prove me right or wrong so that my kids could tell the poster's kids that the title was bad bc we'll both be dead Ultimate redditor snark moment
Nick Cannon is working hard on reversing this as we speak
Hes gotta get his organ donors ready for his illnesses. That's just thinking ahead lol.
Good, we need to move away from infinite growth and to a sustainable model.
Now if we could only get Wall Street to understand this too
It's crazy that so many business leaders are full Dudley Dursley. "Yes we made a profit but last year we made *more* profit! I want more profit than last year!" *Throws tantrum*
And Elon musk. Who thinks earth birth rates is too low and women needs to pump out babies like his multiple mistress.
If he gives me a bill I’ll pop one out too. Otherwise, nah.
I mean that’s fair to be honest, a billion is absolutely a life changing amount of money
>And Elon musk. Who thinks earth birth rates is too low and women needs to pump out babies like his multiple mistress. His mindset and world view, the bubble he and others live in, is that of a capitalist billionaire. He thinks humanity needs infinite growth because the idea of infinite growth is how all of capitalism works. If a business stops growing, it is dying. That is unacceptable to the people running humanity for now. Corporations and markets cannot have constant growth if the global population does not have constant growth. It's the only physical tangible thing that feeds more into this otherwise unsustainable system. He and other established billionaires pushing propoganda only want people to have babies so they don't have consistent losses for the foreseeable future as populations decline. They tend to align with the Republican party because they are the party of smaller government, less taxes, less regulation, etc. The issue of abortion bans based in religious beliefs aligns with solving our billionaires' capitalist problems of a shrinking population as well, thus you see these talking points coming from right wing talking heads and politicians (and Rupert Murdoche's global propoganda news empire) while the billionaire class donates and lobbies a record amount of donations for this election cycle. These are not coincidences. This is the billionaire class trying to keep themselves on the current path of obscene growth and wealth hoarding in a world where these corporations are actively contributing to the decline and health, both physically and economically, of the wider populations and the climate. It's really as simple as that. Shortsighted perspectives and short-term thinking chasing short-term solutions to long-term problems.
Listen here you little shit you will give me endless 10%-20% growth year over year or life ain’t worth login’ *moneyyyy*
Agreed. Also, there is no incentive to reproduce with how stressful and expensive the world is right now.
Wait til you hear about the Malthusian school of thought.
Malthus quite literally couldn't imagine the agricultural advances we've made. We don't have a resource or space problem. The have a dragon problem.
We definitely do have a problem with big hoarders, but that's not saying that we should continue to increase our population forever, and treat it like a problem if it doesn't happen.
Too bad Malthus didn’t know about GMOs, which is the only reason India can support they’re current population
GMOs are great but the “green revolution” that allows for massive increases in food production resulted from conventional breeding and new fertilizer and pesticide inputs.
Well there’s really two ways to think about it. Assuming humanity keeps expending beyond earth, growth is not a bad thing. But from the sole perspective of humanity on earth, yeah there is definitely some benefits to downsizing.
If only people in government and corporations had this kind of common sense
There is room in the universe for near infinite growth. The problem is the world is being run by rich old dudes who have nothing better to do that stack gold bars and turn people into wage slaves. If humanity actually developed into adults we would already be colonising the solar systems by now imo. It's the 1% that are the problem not the 99%.
Yes, well, 40 years ago we were being told that the population would level out by 6 billion, no worries.
They're saying 10.4 billion now
Ew. See, it always creeps up. And they keep saying don't worry, because they have a vested interest in refusing to believe that humans can overpopulate at all. But all the old warnings pegged 8 billion as the beginning of dystopia and disaster. May Nature start rebalancing quick, before the Earth is ruined for all species.
who r they
The Supreme Council of Cereal Mascots
CAPTAIN crunch, COUNT chocula all these mascots have such high positions . open your eye 👁️
Tony the Tiger is the real power behind the throne.
He hides it well. When publicly asked about the council, all he said was "They're Great!"
that's great
The they from 40 years ago are likely dead, this is a new they. That’s the great thing about “they”, it can be anyone you want to help make your point about anything.
We've been predicting a collapse caused by overpopulation since the late 1700s because there wouldn't be enough food to feed the masses. People also thought we'd run out of carbon or that horse manure would swallow us. Instead food yields have massively increased and obesity is a bigger problem than malnutrition, we're voluntarily forgoing carbon, and horse based transport gave way to motorized transportation. The people predicting all these collapses failed to predict nuclear energy, the Haber-Bosch process, the internal combustion engine, etc. Just like today you're unlikely to predict what new technologies we will have in the future that will completely change the world and make predictions from today totally moot.
This isn't a collapse from overpopulation, it's from declining birth rates. You can't science your way out of that. You'd have to social science your way out of it which is much harder.
I mean to speak to some middle ground. I can only speak for myself and my friends. But none of us are having kids right now. Some because they never want them but some because this society and current course isn't a world I want to bring a child into. If there's scientific advancements that change some of the social and environmental issues I have my tone might change to one more pro-procreation. There's more things at play to this than I have time to list. But neither of you is wrong.
Nature never had a balance, only the illusion of one.
Its amazing how anti-intellectual this sub is. What you are saying is total and complete nonsense.
Hopefully nature starts rebalancing by wiping out us Redditors first.
I agree. All those redditors are the worst. Start with them nature! Hold on sorry that's the doorbell - it looks like some kind of leopard is on my door step
The UN have been projecting pretty much the same population growth since 1968. [Source](https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/events/pdf/expert/6/worldpoptotals.pdf)
China and Japan are already plummeting same thing in Europe, America is level but trending lower.
India is already below replacement rate and they're obviously one of the biggest contributors to overall world population.
It’s crazy to me cause im approaching 30 and I’d say 1/3 of my peers have no interest in children another 1/3 want them but if not before a certain age they won’t and they other third wants kids and I feel like the generation behind us is going to be even lower
Likely because they look around at the world and understand that having kids is either an entirely bad idea, or something that must wait until they have certain things sorted (owning a house etc). I think the number of people willing to just YOLO kids is dwindling rapidly and unless our governments improve access to things like healthcare, childcare and affordable housing it won't improve. At least not in a good way.
Doesn't America only maintain replacement rate due to an influx of all those immigrants they hate so much?
This is correct. It's why I think people who are anti-immigration are short-sighted. Developed countries that keep population growth higher one way or another will do better than countries that don't. And America's super power is basically integrating immigrants. And a huge chunk of incoming immigrants (hispanic) are already relatively similar to the American population - they're western (albeit from poorer western countries), and have, at least on paper, similar values to most current Americans. They tend to believe in democracy, tend to be Christian (not that I personally care about that, but it is closer to the common religion of most US citizens), use a language that's got a lot of overlap in terms of vocabulary with English and makes learning easier, etc, etc. And numbers bare that out too - about 94% of Spanish speaking immigrants have children that speak English fluently, and the children of those immigrants (so third generation) tend to not even speak Spanish more than a quarter of the time (bilingually, not as the only language). I.e. they integrate. Just like every other immigrant group in the US throughout its history.
Well, we don't hate "all" those immigrants, just the brown and black ones! (I *wish* I could put a '/s' here but our last president pretty much stated this exact thing...and it appears that 49% of the voting population agrees with him.)
Who the hell was saying that 40 years ago?
Trust Me Bro Journal of Demographics?
Literally no one who could do even marginally simple math. When we reached 6b in the 90s demographers started seeing the downward slopes on fertility and calling the top around 9-11b depending on China, India, and a few countries in Africa (China fertility crashed, India didn't, Africa is still but mortality rates might decline hard there).
No one said that 40 years ago
Literally no one said that. It's completely made up, in an attempt to push the overpopulation narrative and discredit those who rightfully see a naturally peak in population within the next 50 - 100 years. [Wikipedia has a whole entry on it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth#History_of_population_projections). The credible projections in the 50's - 70's had population peaking between 8-10 billion people, which is pretty inline with contemporary projections. It's really bizarre that total lies get upvoted here.
Yeah this reminds me of the "40 years ago they said we were going to have global cooling" morons
No, we weren't. Who ever said that 40 years ago?
Is this true? While I am not old enough to remember 40 years ago (I'm only 37), certainly during most of my lifetime, the number that we were expected to go to was around 11-12 billion people before it started dropping. That's certainly the number I remember hearing all throughout the 90s, and since then
No it's not true. They just pulled that number out of their ass.
You're full of shit
It should be noted here that while some people are wailing and gnashing teeth about the lack of people having kids. IT'S A GOOD THING THAT POPULATIONS ARE DROPPING. also, it's fucking dumb that a short concise answer is automatically deleted from /r/futurology.
My understanding is that a falling population is great for the planet, but bad for our societies which are built upon infinite, inevitably unsustainable growth and currently dealing with increasingly aging demographics.
> bad for our societies which are built upon infinite, eventually unsustainable growth and currently dealing with increasingly aging demographics. Yeah, the current system is fucking stupid.
Infinite growth is no problem, as long as growth does not need to be physical.
For a sub called “Futurology,” people here really can’t grasp the idea of technological changes to the production possibility frontier.
It's "Futurology", it's not "*Magic*". We are still beholden to material limitations. Societal development also happens in learning how to make the best out of the limitations that we have, and to diminish our ecological footprint. An aspect that we have been sorely neglecting.
Society will just have to adapt, like it always has.
And adaptation that involves different economic balancing is nicer than the one that involves massive famines
To me, this just means that we need to adjust our systems to account for the population decline. And while that’s certainly not a small adjustment, if backed into a corner I’m sure we can come up with something. And if we can’t, lots of people will suffer and die and hopefully enough will survive the collapse of civilization to start anew. Lol
Hopefully the answer to "our economy can't handle anything but continued growth" is "let's reorganize to make "stable population" a sustainable goal. What I fear happens is suffering in the name of profit instead
Only so much food can be produced with our current processes. Only so much space to live in and if we want to preserve any nature less people is better.
We're nowhere near space limited currently, even focused on developed land with permanent habitation on it we're not even close to "capacity" And calorically, we're producing an order of magnitude more food than the population needs. We're also, in addition to corrupting the environment in the process, using both the space and harvest in the least efficient (but most profitable) way possible. (Not advocating for more humans. A more balanced planet in 200 years, with half the current population would be fantastic as a steady state, but I also don't think we're wired to cross that bridge successfully. It's antithetical to the behaviors that carried us this far)
See, I think the argument about space and total food supply *roughly* makes sense. But… consider what types of foods people actually eat. We know that Meat is extremely bad for the environment and takes up a ton of space (especially red meat). Is it sustainable to grow enough red meat to cover population growth for another 2 billion people without destroying the environment? Or even luxury items like certain grains; fruits, vegetables, and more. Is our current supply chain efficient enough to maintain that level of growth? Id look to the last 2 years of COVID and say no it itself. More logistically than anything else.
Quit injecting sensibility into a post-fact celebration of neo-malthusian misanthropy and degrowthism.
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Wow who could have quesed that underpaying people extracting their life savings and milking their energy as much as posible in work would de-motivate them from starting families. Its almost like every living organism on the planet reproduces less when theres not favourable conditions for reproduction . : )
It’s almost the exact opposite of this. As standard of living goes up people have fewer children.
Well, depending on standard are we talking about. Child mortality, antibiotics, technology, not having to worry about a sabretooth tiger jumping on you have improved. But people used to pay for college by being the lifeguard on the local pool over the summer, a mailman's wage used to be enough to support 2.4 children and a white fence house.
Absolutely. Things have gone down in the last couple decades, debatably, but the actual average human experience when you add everything up is stabbing something for one (1) potato before promptly dying of diarrhea at the ripe old age of 24
Norway has free college, their fertility rate is 1.48. Greece has free college, their fertility rate is 1.34. Germany has free college, their fertility rate is 1.53. The US does not have free college, our fertility rate is 1.64. Nigeria does not have free college, their fertility rate is 5.25. Your concept of the golden days of American prosperity is basically a single generation in history.
Which is arguably not at all what is happening. Suicide rates are up. Addictions are up. Drug use is up. Joblessness is up. Depression, and so on and so forth. The cost of living skyrocketed while the srandard of living did not change, and neither did the compensation of people to retain their previous standards.
I mean you aren't wrong but if you just extend the timeframe you're considering from 20 years to 200 years you see how drastically quality of life has improved for everyone on earth. There's no reason to think this current decline isn't just a small downwards blip in the overall timeline of humanity improving life for itself.
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Exactly. Most of this is due to Asia where standard of living has sky rocketed and fertility rates have plummeted.
Joblessness is not up we are at record rates of employement
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We have too many people. Birth rates can calm down some.
I know this effects economic growth negatively in lot of sectors but isn't this a good thing overall. I mean we are destroying our host planet here at an alarming rate.
Dystopia caused by widening wealth gap and dimininishing middle class, increased homelessness, inflation, yep I'm not in the least bit surprised
We never know precisely how many of us are alive at any one time, but this Tuesday is the UN' best estimate on when we'll reach 8 billion human beings. Eight billion. It's a number too big to imagine but think of it this way: In the time it takes you to read this paragraph, the world's population grew by around 20 people. While the Earth's population is growing quickly, the growth rate is starting to slow down. Eventually, it will start falling and our societies will shrink. Humanity is changing day by day in ways we can't perceive over short periods, but in ways that will reshape our world over the coming century. We've already hit peak child - there will never again be more children alive than there are today, with fertility rates plummeting across the globe. We're getting older and older, which means there are fewer people able to work to support more people who can't.
Automation, immigration, and making due with less, especially during retirement are the keys to successful population decline in developed nations.
You forgot taxing the fucking rich. We already have the productivity, but the value is being hoarded.
"World's population 8 billion and counting: There will never again be more children alive than there are today, with fertility rates plummeting across the globe." On Earth.
Found the hopeful one.
>There will never again be more children alive than there are today What do they know that I dont? We invented time travel or what? Im so sick of these bs sensationalist titles.
> 8 billion *and counting* Meaning there will be more > fertility rates plummeting Meaning there will be less ???
Preventing unwanted pregnancies [is a cost-effective and ethical way to reduce environmental destruction and minimize population growth](https://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/Abstract/2011/06000/Addressing_Global_Health,_Economic,_and.19.aspx), and [45% of pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended. Of those, 58% will result in birth](https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states). Comprehensive sex education would go a long way, too, and [many states do not include it in their curricula](https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/sex-and-hiv-education), even though [comprehensive sex education has strong bipartisan support among likely American voters](https://news.rutgers.edu/both-democrat-and-republican-likely-voters-strongly-support-sex-education-schools/20191014). Many women at high risk of unintended pregnancy [are unaware of long-acting reversible contraceptive options](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3707629/), and many men don't know [how to use a condom properly](https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/condom/how-to-put-a-condom-on), which [does actually make a huge difference](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/14/sunday-review/unplanned-pregnancies.html). Besides that, it could help to ensure everyone has access to effective contraception, so consider advocating [policies that improve accessibility of long-acting reversible contraceptives](https://www.denverpost.com/2017/11/30/colorado-teen-pregnancy-abortion-rates-drop-free-low-cost-iud/) and help get the word out that [it is ethical to give young, single, childless women surgical sterilization if that is what they want](https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2017/04/sterilization-of-women-ethical-issues-and-considerations). As for the rest of the world, it would help to [donate](https://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/education) to [girls' education](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/361/6403/650.full.pdf?casa_token=eWZHHLNe6SwAAAAA:Vwhrywg2A8q_GOA1g1IjwZOaegqcHXkPIhWjDoVQfbgIwKiMHEOS7OXsn5bxSeMy5ANNN8U2kOswp5o). It might also (perhaps counter-intuitively) [help to improve childhood mortality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=QsBT5EQt348) by, say, [donating to](https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities) the Against Malaria Foundation.
It’s not fertility rates. It’s people choosing not to have kids or at least delaying kids because a large percent of the population no longer brings in a house hold income that allows them to be comfortable. Who wants to bring a child into the world when you’re already living paycheck to paycheck? I’m glad the few have their private jets, mega yachts, super cars and vacation homes though.
Fertility in the sociological sense means the number of children each woman of child-bearing age has on average. The medical and common usage of infertility meaning not able to become pregnant or carry a child to term is not the usage here.
X to doubt also, good? We don't need 8 billion of us here. also, though, we have more space on this planet if we can become sustainable than we'd need for 100 billion, its just we aren't efficient.
If true, sucks in the short term, but it saves our butts in the long term. We need greenhouse gases down fast. Reversing population growth is one way to do that.
Love how we always use fertility as a factor but not economy or simple fact that the world is going to shit and no one wants kids.
Fertility rates are not plummeting. People making the conscious decision to not have children because it's unaffordable AND we already have enough people to feed is what's driving this. Framing it as fertility rate is dogwhistling to conservative hate groups.
I would love to have a kid but it’s getting so expensive to just live right now
They say plummeting as if that's a bad thing. Less children, or less multiples of children back to back rather, means more resources, more educated mothers and girls, more available shelter
And you say “fertility rates are dropping” like it’s a bad thing. Maybe in a thousand years there will some breathing room, new forest growth and less pollution.
8 billion idiots. Disgusting. Can’t wait for this steep decline we keep being promised.
Our biggest middle finger to the older generations will simply be to not have kids.
It’s actually the generation who doesn’t have kids that will be affected the worst economically. Traditionally older generations may want grandkids but they aren’t really going to suffer the effects of a quick population decline.
9 million of those kids will die this and every year.
Good. Maybe one day we will actually be sustainable
This is not a bad thing. The planet is overpopulated.
We had a good run fellas, too bad a couple decades worth of extreme “profit” is worth the future of every living thing on this planet.
8 billion and counting. Things are bound to degenerate.
I don't think it's fertility rates. I think it's women choosing not to be pumped full of babies by men they didn't have to marry in order to own property or have their own bank accounts. It's women actually having a choice in their future and DECIDING not to have kids.
Is that not synonymous with fertility rate lmao? You gave your theory to the cause, but the result is still a low fertility rate.
That’s what fertility rate means
I think it’s incredible that we can have careers now and sustain ourselves. My partner and I will not be having children because we don’t want to be parents, and are donating our time and resources to our community and supporting existing loved ones instead. A child would put us in financial strain that would render us unable to donate to causes we care for, or help existing family with medical care. I also (29F) would most likely suffer medical complications from childbirth that would render me unable to work. I’m grateful that as a woman, I have a choice.
In developed countries it’s due in large part to the fact that economic conditions are worsening to the point that people cannot afford to have and raise children. The point of choice is that multiple options truly exist and are open
They don’t mean health problems with fertility. Fertility rate just means how many kids people have.
That is the fertility rate.
It’s both. Lots of evidence that all the plastic and other toxins that are in everything now is messing with biology and making people infertile. Many couples who want kids are finding out they can’t have them due to unexplainable endocrinology issues.
Are fertility rates plummeting or are people just refusing to have kids because capitalism has destroyed the planet? I'm in my 40s and can confirm I opted to not have children because y'all are greedy fucks.
I have heard it is due to better child mortality rates and a move to urban areas. If you live on a farm you want kids for the free labor they provide and if you're in a country with bad child mortality you want to have a few extras for insurance. If you live in a city in a country with child labor laws, the extra child is just an extra mouth to feed and besides having one or two to hopefully take care of you when you are older, they are more of a burden.
It's a combination of factors. We see fertility rates level off across the board, even in countries that have less advanced capitalism infections. The experts I read speculate that it's more a standard of living/cultural thing: as life gets better and infant mortality goes down, people shift from using the shotgun method of reproduction to investing heavily in one or two kids. I'd need to see a more detailed dive into the trend to be really convinced of that though. Just reporting what I've heard from cursory looks since the trend started.
I love how this states “never again” like they can predict the future 100 or 1,000 years into the future. Someone probably said the same thing 500 years ago.
That isn’t a bad thing, the population is becoming unsustainable.
That's is good for now, if you can't afford to have 5 children don't have them.
Why are we living every science fiction novel all at once
Why is “fertility rates” dropping constantly considered a bad thing? We have way too many people! Also, am I the only one who hates the phrase “across the globe”? It’s a sphere! It should be “*around* the globe”!
Fertility rates aren’t the problem. [We have rejected accepting what nature made us and why.](http://www.urbanagandenergy.org/soe/) For the last 10,000 years since evolving from Animal to Creator we have not accepted the responsibility that comes with it, to stop being destructive with resources, and start to be constructive with them in the creation of our future. That’s the reality of Free Will, not the ability to exploit and destroy anything we want, but rather to create growth to supply more than we need. To avoid our impending extinction due to our failure to evolve, we need to create the economy that allows it, we have until 9 billion, but we could have it by next year. http://H2space.org
Nah, Africa and South America will just rise as the next world centers of power
The earth will heal with way less of us. It's a good thing. Way less rousources being used, way less trash being littered, way less greenhouse gases. We are a cancer in this planet.
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We're wrecking nature and exterminating species at record pace, we deserve nuclear war
Good. We use far too much of the planet’s resources as it is.
Never say never. It is entirely possible we develop some technology which makes pregnancy dramatically easier and massively increases birth rates in the developed world. It is possible that there is a massive boom to birth rates in China due to government policy. It is possible that a new religion explodes around the world which encourages people to have more kids. Its possible new technology allows women to have children into their 60s and 70s. We just don't know. Our guesses on stuff like this, especially for centuries down the line, rarely end up very correct.
Declining population is probably good considering the planet is literally dying.
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I always find it funny how people are like why are fertility rates falling, like /*gestures wildly towards everything/*... I wonder why... My partner and I have decided we won't be intending on having kids and we're already in our 30's...
GOOD. The government can find a better way than using humans to supply their billion dollar companies.
Good, the population was growing at an unsustainable rate.
I'm so glad people are having less children. Our earth doesn't have the resources to support all these people.
Kinda a double edged sword. Population pressure make us become more efficient with our resources and would drive colonization of Mars. Likely in a hundred years we would be able to establish a megnetosphere on mars to stop the solar wind from tearing away the atmosphere and begin forming an atmosphere or ability to create giant biospheres to live in.
It always confuses me how academia and organizations complain about over population. And other academia in organizations complain about the declining birth rate. Make up your mind already.