Population Perspective

[lillibet]

Over the past several years I've seen a number of reports of declining birthrates in various parts of the world. While I understand the potential downsides of this situation, I've been somewhat surprised that these reports rarely mention immigration as a temporary solution, or that a declining world population is a good thing. Yes, it will change the equation. Yes, we'll probably have to make some systemic changes in how we manage our economies. But it's not as if we have infinite room and resources.

Consequently, I was very happy to see this article on New Scientist about the aging Japanese population that addresses exactly these points and hits a pretty optimistic tone.

Comments

[dpolicar]

I find that most of the "declining birthrate" articles I encounter in the press, much like the "omg overpopulation!" articles that preceded them, exude such a stench of covert racism that I can barely stand to touch them.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Yeah--I was surprised to hear one (about Portugal, where the birthrate per thousand has dropped 14% in 4 years) on NPR yesterday that had these problems.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

There's also a weird tone of sex-negativity / infantilism / emasculation that often goes alongside the Japanese stories.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

[ron_newman]

What surprises me the most is that some of the largest declines are in Catholic countries such as Spain and Italy,

[gosling.livejournal.com]

Women in many of those countries have far more access to contraception than the previous generation did (or even their somewhat older sisters did).

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

Not surprising if the church's influence is being reduced or modernized.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

It happened in Québec amazingly abruptly: fertility more than halved (apparently permanently) between 1955 and 1970.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yes, we'll probably have to make some systemic changes in how we manage our economies. But it's not as if we have infinite room and resources.

This. There's much that is inherently unsustainable about present-day economic arrangements, yet collectively we go on assuming growth must continue indefinitely.