Why do we need the population size we’ve got?

[AutumnOffGrid]

I really need this explaining to me.

Why is it that in the UK we need to keep maintaining or growing our population? We have a significantly larger population than most of our European neighbours and less land than them.

What would be so bad if we let it recede back to former levels? It’s not working at this number of people. Why does it constantly have to be on an upward projectile? Surely there’s an optimal number of people to have in the UK and it doesn’t necessarily have to be 70 million (which is not correct I believe, but more).

This is not a thread about stop the boats, no immigration, or benefits broods of children. It’s a genuine question that I don’t understand the answer to.

Why does the UK need more people, or this many, when other countries don’t?

I think the problem is that the population is aging and there won't be enough working people to support them.

In principle I agree with you...I don't think a larger population is better than a smaller one...in terms of non economic standard of living and quality of life... I suppose though an economy could be booming and growing but actual day to day life for an average person isn't great.

The issue is that things like state pensions and the NHS are paid out of taxes. We have an ageing population in the UK, due to low birth rates and longer life expectancy, so it's becoming more of a burden for the taxpayers to pay for it all. Many immigrants are of working age and will pay tax.

But there are loads of economically inactive people both born here and migrated here. This needs addressing.

E.g. 1 in 8 of 18-25 year olds are not in education or working. They should be contributing.

We don't need the population size we have. We only need it if we want to keep society as it is. Maybe we don't. If you believe in end stage capitalism we won't get much choice in the matter anyway.

It's the case with all Ponzi schemes - you need more and more people coming in to pay for the ones who've been here longer. Obviously, it's an unsustainable model, and like all Ponzi schemes, will collapse at some point.

Sadly none of our politicians over the past few decades have the balls nor ability to make the unpopular decisions needed, so all they do is re-arrange the deckchairs on the Titanic to make it look like they'd doing something, and hoping that they'll survive their term in office and kick the problems down the road for some others to deal with in the future.

Nail on the head. But for some reason, the politicians don't have the balls to tell people how it is. The ever increasing number of economically inactive (and part timers who "could" work full time) is a massive problem and needs to be tackled.

Yes, but many immigrants will also get old in the UK, expect a pension, NHS treatments, etc., so it just kicks the can down the road. Look at all the immigrants of the 60s etc who are now in retirement - they didn't all return to their birth countries, and why should they, when they've built a life in the UK, had families in the UK etc for most of their lives.

A lot of the jobs that need filling are not ones which appeal to British people...care work, fruit picking etc

This is because the UK is a class based society and people don't like being seen to do jobs which are deemed to be lowly. I'm not saying they are by the way...that's the perception though

I’d be interested to see what incentives would actually convince someone to work full time if they don’t need to.

With 18-25 year olds, is some of this purely because it’s more difficult to get a job in some sectors nowadays? When I was this age, I found it very easy to get retail jobs for example, but companies are cutting staff numbers and I read a lot on here about young adults struggling to find weekend work because of the competition.

Yes, but even if they did, the number of pension age people compared to the number of working age people is increasing.

So if you want the triple lock, or a state pension at all, you need more workers. And you need more than just the currently not working ones.

Yes @Badbadbunny I do agree that to some extent you are kicking the can down the road and that it's always easier for politicians (and all of us really) to think about the short and medium term. Probably by the time the current "batch" of immigrants reach retirement age there won't be a state pension anyway!

The UK doesn't 'need' it's current population and could quite happily operate with a much smaller population - and would indeed likely be a more pleasant place to live. However, we are where we are, and reducing a countries population is incredibly hard as you end up with 25-50 years of pain during which you have an ever increasing retired population and not enough young people to look after them (either directly e.g. as carers, or indirectly, as taxpayers). If you look at countries that have historically reduced their populations, the options are pretty drastic - you either need famine (which disproportionally kills the very old and very young), or mass emigration which takes away your young workers (although the impact can be reduced if they are sending money home).

Mass emigration of the retired population is potentially a solution - maybe pay people to retire to Spain?

Oh, I should have added that another solution to plugging the demographic gap while reducing the population is guest working visas, as used by the gulf states. i.e. time-limited, non-renewable, and no pathway to citizenship. I don't think the UK is an attractive enough working destination for this to work however, unless you throw in a massive sweetener such as zero income tax - which would be politically unpalatable.

This is a bit of a bad generalisation. Not everyone has the temperament to do care work, nothing to do with thinking they are too good for it, and as for fruit/veg picking, if the work hours were split between workers better and the job didn't mean sleeping in caravans on a farm while your whole life revolves around picking fruit/vegetables, being available 24/7 to do the work, all while being separated from your family for weeks on end and paid a pittance with barely any breaks in a field with no toilets, I think more people might go for it. Even if she could wrangle not living on-site for picking, how is a single mother supposed to do either of those jobs with zero family support for childcare for overnight shifts at a care home or 4am starts at a farm in the middle of nowhere?

People from abroad take those jobs because it's less awful than what they're coming from. What they're coming from is quite often objectively really awful.
Taking advantage of the desperate human rights situations in other countries to get workers isn't a sustainable business model and the picking industry especially needs to sort itself out if you want to fill it with Brits.

I do agree ...a lot of jobs pay terrible money and provide a lifestyle which would be crap for an average Brit but infinitely better for someone who has come from a developing country.

But I do believe the class system in the UK plays a huge role in what jobs people are prepared to do. Like for example lots of cleaning jobs actually pay better than a lot of basic office/admin jobs. However I will absolutely admit that I'd be embarrassed to say I was a cleaner but be perfectly happy to say I did admin in an office. Now I'm aware that's bullshit and I wouldn't look down on a cleaner but that's the culture we've grown up with.

The fact is that the type of jobs to attract the types of tax payers who contribute far more than they use in public funds....these jobs are not available in large numbers in the UK.

Nor is the potential lifestyle.
Go getters of the type that are needed in large numbers in the UK or those who have a hustle mindset go or try to go to the US.
Even many born and bred UK citizens of non White heritage seeing the lack of dynamism in the UK and the complete non bang for buck compared to up to the early 2000s......many of them are embracing their immigration/ emigration heritage and leaving the UK taking their dynamism with them.

Today, a large sector of the types of immigrants needed to sustain the UK are not staying in the UK as the lifestyle is only attractive if one is not used to anything. The rip off culture is off the chain and is only justified by those who must be unworldly.

Any migrant of means is going to be at least semi nomad.

At least sixty percent of my Gen X and younger UK born relatives are either living abroad, work abroad or building abroad.
Especially as UK cities are too cheek and Jowl, yet outside of the cities can be very challenging for non Whites. Plus the lack of sunshine.

In the US, Black people in lovely suburbs, the countryside, the nicer parts of a city is normal.
And whilst the US seems to have beef with everybody, it hasn't got beef with the sunshine , a natural anti depressant.

Australia is the other Anglosphere country that draws from the global South people who have no intention of leaving.

The UK in terms of weather, culture and dynamism cannot really compete nowadays to attract and retain in large enough numbers what she needs.

The fact that this country could not grow the type and variety of foods that could maintain a healthy population if it had to is another minus.

The radical thoughts needed to diversify industry outside of London appears to be anathema to the brightest minds in the UK.
Britain mash up and it's going to take something far more radical than continuing the importation of people who are only a sticking plaster over a half amputated arm to mend it.

It's a small nation. It cannot grow the types of food and in numbers to sustain a healthy population. It lacks the sunshine to grow tasty anything. It centres itself on an overcrowded, too expensive city that has seen better days, despite all the new builds " shiny shiny". The pockets of deprivation are now suit pants.

Not to mention the money laundering par excellence status of London that is flagrant and has busted out from the stock market.
The great and good of the UK need to start with these problems instead of stuffing a relatively few parts of the UK to it's untenable seams.

Excuse me, but we grow delicious strawberries.

Yes, but not in sufficient quantities and over a large enough time period to meet demand. We simply couldn't grow enough to meet demand, not even in season.

If we go down the "self sufficient" route, such crops would be ruinously expensive and outside the ability for the average Joe Public to be able to afford them due to basic economics of supply & demand, and only available for better off in Summer.

Same with a lot of other crops.

If we didn't import, we'd be eating mostly root vegetables for most of the years, with fruits only when in season.

But having said that, we really could do more with Political will to produce more within the country, and be a bit less reliant on imports. But there's no political will with the tax war on farmers, huge tracts of farmland being bought by hedge funds for solar/wind power and land banking for future housing etc., all contributing to reductions in farm land and less food production!

And your solution is…?

This is why I imagine we have to invest in A.I. and robot technology. We’re not far from having robot carers and fruit pickers. Sounds bonkers but that’s the only way I see it working.

London schools are closing. Intake is down 15 percent. We need young people in London.or at least people with young families to stay

Same with a lot of other crops.
If we didn't import, we'd be eating mostly root vegetables for most of the years, with fruits only when in season.

Honestly makes you wonder how people ever managed to survive in these islands, never mind thrive enough to produce the population on it prior to 2000: or if other people now know anything about it beyond whats on a spreadsheet.

Britain is, beneath the politics and broken economy, beneath the human world, a bloody good country for fruit. Apples, pears, plums, berries. The seasonality is not necessarily an issue, although it’s certainly a problem for the rich who’ve got used to getting what they want. There was a growing movement before about 2005-2010 towards sustainability, what happened to it? Maybe if inherited wealth hadn’t taken over the economy and flooded us with immigrants we’d have moved that way.

The population on these islands is too high. The economy is broken by the concentration on property, caused by a combination of the increase in population and by the wealthy taking it all. It has ruined us all.

I have done both and tbh being a cleaner is physically harder I do think it should attract a higher hourly rate as you’d struggle to be able to put in a 40 hour week of solid cleaning.

I’m an ex working class girl who worked up in an educated profession only to watch wages fall through the floor. Now working 12 hr shifts as an HCA in hospitals next to many others who have no intention of trying for nursing, dropping out of nursing, or have completed nursing but can’t get jobs because the rewards are not there for education and work any more. We all manage hard long hours doing cleaning.Those of us who had the intellectual capability to drive an economy built on skills can, believe it or not, do the unskilled jobs too, and many are moving that way.

The movement to downgrade the idea of an educated middle class rather than an inheriting class is causing issues. No one not from wealth can work up now.

Eventually the inheriting class might notice, but it seems they’ve already forgotten the warnings put out by those with education just 10-15 years ago. The new dark ages are coming because of their greed and stupidity.

It's more like one in three in the age 50 to 64 group.