Waiting for the right guy equals no baby

What could be a real concern though is certain countries dying out (from the perspective of someone living in one of those countries) but the whole world dying out is not going to happen.

Why would they come here, over say, every other shrinking population struggling to keep their elderly afloat with ever increasing taxation?

Take South Korea, sharing a land border with North Korea. With an ever shrinking and aging population, fewer and fewer able bodied people to enforce stability, what's that going to look like in 100 years?

Hopefully lots of lovely immigrants who have come to the UK for a better life.

We can't overpopulate just in case we kill each other in war though can we.

85% of singaporeans live in government subsidized housing. While some of it are expensive on the resale market (as you can sell it after living in it for 5 years and it can be sold for a high price if in a good location), there are affordable flats sold as new builds to first time buyers (mostly 3 bed), grants to first time buyers and mostly you don't need a deposit as you can use money from your compulsory savings funds (most singaporeans on ordinary incomes don't pay tax but are forced to save 20%).

Waiting time for these cheaper flats are long but something like 80% of millenials in singapore are homeowners now. Result is birthrate of 0.97. Childcare is cheap too only a few hundred dollars for government childcare and you can get a domestic helper for £600 a month full time. Singaporeans are convinced they need more to raise a family properly. Like private condo for example and car (the whole population practically lives within 0.5 miles of a metro station and public transport is like 80p to a quid!)

@HotCrossBunplease who's looking after you in a care home then? Who's working to pay into your state pension? If your child has a child and goes back to work, who's looking after your grandchild in the nursery? Who's teaching that child in school? You can't be individualistic.

This is true but it will be a temporary situation. At some point the population decline would stop and we would have a stable population.

Trying to keep population growth going just to avoid this scenario is just delaying the problem for future generations to deal with

Oh I'm not saying we are dying out at all, just saying that some recent scientists have claimed we are at risk of dying out just like they claimed the opposite fifty years ago and said we'd all be eating each other by the 1970s because of overpopulation. I agree it's horseshit 😂

It's not really okay to have a child in a shit relationship, just because you want one. It's selfish, the child or children will be screwed up to satisfy the adult's wants.

Maybe if rhinos had an arsenal of weapons and regularly engaged in land grabs when populations become aged and diminished, you'd have a point.

There have always been women who "settle"....at least these days it's generally just for having children: 75 years ago unmarried women (working class ones, anyway) would never have left the parental home and would've just just done a menial job and taken on the care of their elderly parents.
Sometimes men don't meet the right woman either, and their chances of fatherhood are closed down too. Globally I don't think it's much of an issue, but remaining involuntarily single can definitely be a sadness on an individual level.

Yes, I agree. What has gone wrong

It won't be nice for people to live in a world where there are not enough younger people to sustain the majority older population. Think of the strain on services now, then imagine it FAR worse. People will be encouraged to work until they choose to assisted sunset themselves.

This documentary on YouTube sums it all up rather well, less than 5mins and worth a watch.

The planet population is approx 8 billion. We're in no way at risk of dying out 😂. Of there were 8 billion rhinos left would scientists worry about their extinction? If some countries start to look low they can consider alternatives such as migration or incentives but quite frankly we need to start to look at it as one planet or at the very least continent by continent.

Bonkers. I did not look for a partner so I could have a child, I looked for a partner because I wanted a partner. Once we had each other we decided that having a child would be a nice thing to do together. I couldn’t give a toss about the impact on the British economy.

Its very low in certain countries (South Korea Japan etc) and very high in some countries (mostly in central Africa) which could have an interesting affect on the future of the world culturally if you're interested in that kind of thing.

Overall though scientists catastrophiphised about high birth rates fifty years ago and now they seem to be catastrophising over low rates claiming the entire human race will die out etc.

Either way I wouldn't settle down with a complete wastrel of a man just for the sake of having his baby you have no idea the stress that tying yourself to certain men for 18 years can cause.
Nothing wrong with settling for Mr not perfect but a good guy/dad though

Excuse my incredibly dystopian viewpoint but in many ways I think it’s no bad thing for the human race to be thinned out a bit. In the very long term (beyond any of our living progeny’s lifetimes) it will benefit the planet and nature hugely. We’re being sent very strong signals that as a species we’re too populous, too greedy. Obviously it’ll be very difficult for those generations caught in the downsize but arguably I think nature/birth rate decline stripping humans back to a more manageable number globally is, actually, the key factor in the best interest of mankind in the long run.

Less humans on this planet isn't a bad thing. If you haven't noticed were doing a canny bad job of looking after it

Children from strong family units with both parents present have far better life chances

Nothing happy or healthy about where we are going

between 30 to 40% of women are expected to end up childless (involuntarily) because they were searching for the right guy.

Where are you getting those stats from?

Firstly, the number of women who don't have children, for whatever reason, is lower than 40%.

Secondly, there are many reasons why women don't have children. Some do so out of choice, some don't. There's a bit more to it than 'searching for the right guy'.

What is your rationale for increasing the birth rate? The planet is well populated at present and will remain so even with a decreasing birth rate.

What does it matter to you?
You have your children so why are you bothered? You've done your bit for the human race as you like to put it. You can't go all handmaids tale to suggest women should have babies with anyone?