For those who keep arguing we need to stop having children.

[BabyLlamaZen]

BBC News - Fertility rate: 'Jaw-dropping' global crash in children being born
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53409521

Any better?

I was berated like crazy for saying the odd woman having 3 or 4 in the uk shouldn't be constantly called selfish and hideous. They are the rarity. I still stand behind this!

There was a thread recently saying for the sake of the planet humans should die out....but I thought (as this article highlights) what if a whole generation decided not to reproduce...? Then the imbalance of older people who need medical care, or are unable to work is hugely imbalanced against the younger generation needed to work.
Even if you take the economic aspect out of it..it still doesnt work.

Ah, here it is. I’m afraid I did not remember the numbers exactly right but overall did not misstate the trend,
World population in 2100 is a projected range of 9.4 to 12.7 billion.
Population growth is already at 1%, half what it was in 1960
Projected to have growth be at, near or below zero by 2100.

Mostly driven by birth control, so birth rate/fertility rate is key driver.
Second key driver is longevity, with over 65s being the fastest growing part of the population.

population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Highlights.pdf

The planet can't sustain the ones we have, we need to reduce population. The occasional larger family isn't a huge factor but each counts (especially in some cultures that have 4+ routinely, my friend in the us has 8 as do many Orthodox Jews)

Ita all such a hard situation, I think serious climate plans should be be brought into place first then tackle population after, if we are going to boil it doesnt really matter how many boil does it? Can we slow the temperature rise down in the next 20 years? Slow the wests consumption of stuff, I honestly dont think so, its going to be duck and cover!

The thing is you can't kill people off so the only way of controlling numbers is to try to reduce the birthrate. This is the more moral choice obviously. If you were being completely mercenary, you would recognise that in terms of the economy it's far better to have a young, healthy, working population than large numbers of retired people who are depending on a decreasing pool of workers.

This is why I think robots/automation should be taxed based on however many human workers they replace.

This is not a straightforward equation though. I am a scientist in a pharma company. We have massively increased computing power, automation and robotics over the course of my career. But no jobs have been lost, we have more people doing a lot more interesting work. It use to be we drew graphs by hand, now they are done on computer, we use to do a lot of manual repetition (pipetting), now that is done by a robot so more can be done and the scientist have the time to interpret the larger volumes of data. We do better science because of automation and robotics. There isn't a maximum number of jobs available in the world and work doesn't disappear because of automation, the jobs just change.

count

Some jobs will disappear though - taxi drivers will probably become a thing of the past.
Those self check out machines need to be manned - but one person can staff about 10 of those things. So you need fewer staff.

Work in the future need to become more pleasant. We probably will need people to work longer in the future, more part time options and less high pressured jobs would help this.

We don’t need to reduce birth rate, it has already been happening. the planet IS supporting us.
www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521

Here is a news article about a more recent study that concluded
“researchers expect the number of people on the planet to peak at 9.7 billion around 2064, before falling down to 8.8 billion by the end of the century.”
“The fertility rate - the average number of children a woman gives birth to - is falling.
If the number falls below approximately 2.1, then the size of the population starts to fall.
In 1950, women were having an average of 4.7 children in their lifetime.
Researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation showed the global fertility rate nearly halved to 2.4 in 2017 - and their study, published in the Lancet, projects it will fall below 1.7 by 2100.“
“Falling fertility rates mean nearly every country could have shrinking populations by the end of the century.
And 23 nations - including Spain and Japan - are expected to see their populations halve by 2100.
Countries will also age dramatically, with as many people turning 80 as there are being born.”

Count,
I agree it is not a straightforward equation.
It is true that high skilled jobs like scientists tend to be insulated from job loss due to automation/robots. But, it’s the low skilled that are most at risk.
We can’t not have automation/robots. As you say, they allow much more productive use of time by skilled workers. But, there are entire low skill industries that will be wiped out. What are these people to do to earn an income?
And while I agree that new jobs are created, I do think that ultimately there will be fewer jobs than working age people.

This is why the immigrant restricting and immigrant bashing is a madness. We need the work force!!

At present population levels, we need two and a half planet Earths to provide enough resources to give every human an average western lifestyle. So we are already overpopulated. And the population is predicted to continue expanding to between nine and twelve billion, from our current seven. Climate change is already a serious issue and hundreds of animal and plant species are facing extinction.
How anybody can be complacent in the face of this, or claim we need an expanding population to care for the elderly, in some crazy pyramid scheme (even more children in the next generation, to care for those kids when they get old? Where do you stop?) is frankly in denial of reality. But I suppose it’s convenient to put your fingers in your ears if you want to justify your own large family.

This is why the immigrant restricting and immigrant bashing is a madness. We need the work force!!

You're thinking about just one country though. This is a global issue. Do you not think the countries these people are leaving need the work force?

@formerbabe

Yeah, but the counties who are growing need to migrate to the counties who aren't on a global scale, not just the Uk

And most of Europe seem to be anti migration, especially "economic migration" when that's exactly what we need

At present population levels, we need two and a half planet Earths to provide enough resources to give every human an average western lifestyle.

Do you have a source or study for this @Babdoc, I would quite like to read it? Because what I have been reading is that western countries have reduced their total carbon footprint and resource usage despite population increases of up to 25%- meaning that the per capita cost of a western lifestyle is dramatically decreasing with new technological advances.

Last year the world produced enough food for 11 billion people, it is not so much lack of resources as the surplus in one place and dearth in another, in some places 30% of all food is wasted in others people are malnourished and starving, Zimbabwe has enough resources to feed double the population easily but because of political decisions huge numbers need food aid. It is not about enough food and water, there is more than enough for everyone on the planet: it is war, politics, logistics and exploitation that cause poverty,

@formerbabe 100% this

Yes, but UK population is expected to drop from 75 million to 71 million. In 100 years.

That's still 6 million more than now, and we're struggling with resources as it is.

So not really relevant to us in the UK !

The problems are twofold:

1. The planet can only sustain a certain number of people
2. Parents who expect someone else to fund the cost of supporting those children. I do worry that the people most likely to have lots of children are those least able to support them

How can this be anything but the best possible news?

As a pp said, increased automation does not necessarily result in fewer jobs for human beings. Just different ones.

I agree that jobs will need restructuring to normalise flexible, part time working. Low-skilled workers will need to re-train and all qualifications be set to a global standard in order to be recognised everywhere.

So not really relevant to us in the UK

It is if the shift is towards the elderly population.

We are hardly resource scarce in the UK

I think with our current world population now, we are going to struggle when our generation gets old as we will have less future generations in the workforce to fill in and pay tax etc. Everything will be more expensive as well. We will need more care homes, more hospitals, more carers etc. I think it's a good thing and a bad thing. Good thing for the planet and bad as they will definitely scrap the state pension as well. That's why we need to save and save for when this time comes. My grandma always used to say that you will need more money when you are old which never made sense as she was home all day and never had a social life to spend until she fell ill. When she fell ill and was immobile, it was then she suggested to sell one of her homes where she hired a full time carer and a cleaner that also cooked. Of course my parents and her siblings checked on her regularly but they were all in full time work and busy with all the grandchildren and had other financial commitments such as paying mortgages, helping out their children's financial needs such as uni, although all the grandchildren including myself did have part time jobs but we still needed help to pay a deposit for a shared flat or unexpected problems such as broken down 🚗 that needed fixing.