I’ve never quite understood the ‘only two children’ population argument

[Lelophants]

Yes I’m aware the world as a whole is overpopulated. That’s not stopping any time soon. The countries with the fastest growing populations and highest populations in general are currently Nigeria, India, Brazil and other parts of Africa. China has an enormous population but fewer children being born to support the elderly so again they are trying to increase youth population by encouraging more babies being born.

The UK has an ageing population and will struggle with supporting them. There is already a care crisis. I don’t personally think we should knock everyone off once they reach a certain age.

Surely you should have one of two arguments? Either:

1. no one should have any more children in the UK. All of our youth should be made up of immigrants from these crazy growing other countries and the world as a whole will slowly reduce in overall population.
2. if we just care about the uk, surely those who want children should be able to have as many as they want, considering there are so many people who are now child free and this is only increasing. So at least we are doing our best to support our own population.

The whole “I’m a wonderful person and care about the environment because I’ve only had two children” annoys me, because if it was all about you caring, then you shouldn’t have any at all! The reality is, you can only afford two or only want two. You haven’t sacrificed an enormous maternal urge because of the environment! Yes you are just replacing yourselves, but on that take, who is replacing all your childfree friends? So I found all those goady people when there are threads about larger families incredibly irritating! And I only have two children before anyone asks. Would love a third though!

Does no one else share this view?

It's not really a religious issue - more a cultural / development one as well as access to contraception. Countries with all prevalent religions have reached replacement and below. Most of Latin America (mostly catholic) is at replacement level as is India (Hindu), Indonesia (Muslim) etc. In fact, the majority countries are now at replacement or below except in Africa . In 50 years time the only countries that are likely to have "excess" young people that can migrate to swell the workforces of those with aging population will be in sub-Saharan Africa.

It would be ironic if the greatest threat to our way of life came from depopulation. South Korea has a fertility rate of less than 0.8 For every 100 people alive there today, there'll be 6 great grand children. I can't imagine the challenges that's going to bring in the future

I think most people don't really grasp the maths behind population growth. Twenty years ago I thought that people worldwide having more than two children per couple was a serious problem for the environment which needed fixing. Since then some things have changed and I've understood a few more.

If you give women education, choice, access to contraception and the confidence that their babies will survive infancy, then it's looking pretty clear worldwide that they'll naturally have two or slightly fewer children each on average.

If you do the above and also make the dynamics of society / childcare / work / heterosexual coupledom really challenging for motherhood then they'll have a lot fewer than two children.

However, because the fertility rates from the fifties to the nineties were pretty high, and because medical advances meant that the vast majority of those babies, and their babies in turn, survived to adulthood, there are a lot more women in their twenties and thirties and having babies than there are people in their seventies and eighties who are dying. If every premenopausal woman in the UK had exactly 2 children from now on then the population would carry on growing for about twenty years before it levelled off. The exceptions are China and Japan where fertility rates came down much earlier than everywhere else: by force in the case of China.

The effect is called population inertia, and it means that the only way to stop the population growing immediately would be by slashing the birth rate way below 2 per woman. This would be stoking up massive problems in the other direction. In Korea, at current fertility rates, 100 people would expect to have 13 grandchildren between them: losing almost 90% of the population in two generations.

The moral of this is that we should concentrate on making sure that every woman in the world has access to contraception, education and choice, and not worry too much that they'll use that choice to overpopulate the world. But there will be a couple of bumpy decades ahead.

Got four but my DBro has none. It's balanced out fine.

I agree. I had two in my twenties and two in my thirties. Two hands rule definitely applied to both sets of children!

I’m not fussed about how many kids people have as long as they can take care of them. The global population will be taking care of itself shortly, no doubt we’ll see a levelling off and a drop.

Well said. Curious how so many people only think this planet is for humans. Or it’s only for them specifically and others like them.

"I’m happy to be bumped off when I get to that needing cared for stage. "

Easy to say now. You might not be so keen when you actually reach that stage.

Funny seeing this post after I just had an advert for caring jobs on Spotify. My internal reaction to the advert was “you’d have to pay me at least 50 thousand”. They have to make caring jobs attractive, wiping bums, changing nappies, being abused etc. it should come with a price tag.

Very interesting.
Do you know any stats on how
many women in the uk are not having children? As that would change how many years it would take to level out.

I think that a combination of working and investing hard in healthy lifestyles, and legalising all drugs for the over 70s would solve most of these problems.

Immigration isn't and never can be the solution, if you watch the linked YouTube video then you would learn that with the exception of a few countries everywhere is experiencing a reduction in birth rate. Therefore migration can't solve the problem as the whole world is experiencing the same issue.

We are going to go through a painful period where there are to many elderly and not enough people to fill jobs. But hopefully it'll level out, it will effect economics, but also it'll be good for the plant to have less humans on it.

Mainly for this reason I don't care how many children individual families choose to have or not have. The tread is downwards anyway and individual choices won't make any difference.

Really large families (say over 5) only worry me in that sometimes children then don't get enough support from parents to achieve their best.

Someone mentioned making caring professions more attractive to males. Funny, all my sons have gone into caring professions. My daughters have gone into more scientific and artistic fields.

We should be able to have as many children as we want but have to factor in costs, as with everything. Some people can cope well with big families, whether it be culture, a cycle of getting pregnant at a young age and continuing to have more, or aristocratic desire to keep the Royal name going. Whatever the circumstances, the main thing is to be able to provide for our kids and be there to support them, set good values and enable them to go forward in the best way we can. X

Just like almost everything else in the world, bottom line, it's all about the money.
In countries with a culture of adult children financial supporting parents, people have lots of children. In countries with a culture of each child costing the parents a fortune, we don't want them anymore.

we fortunate enough to have money and i really want to have third child. But i do think about global warming mostly. I really afraid that the world become unbearable hot or cold, uncertain future etc. I dont know how the world would be when my children are adults. So i decided to not having more kids.

i think money it’s obviously number 1 reason. But if you have money then you can think of other reasons.

Exactly this.
That aside, each generation pays the pensions of the ones above them. It's not a pot that you personally put into and withdraw at pension age! Yet, parents are demonised for having more kids than they can afford, those kids are supposed to be the taxpayers of the future.

There aren't enough working age people to keep millennials in the style to which boomers were accustomed so who knows what will happen when we retire. Probably off ourselves before we go into a nursing home.
Or maybe retirement age will be 80 by then so we'll be dead anyway.