If each country had a two child policy

[Blackcat21]

Just an idea and my opinion, and fully aware I will probably get flamed for this.

The population is rising, not shrinking, and with that is coming ridiculous house prices, global warming, running low on natural resources and foods.

Health services are stretched and school classes are increasingly full.

Wouldn’t an solution to this be only letting per couple or mother/father have two biological children each.

I must admit, it does annoy me when some women go on to have 3rd, 4th child etc just because “they want to” or want a large family, love being with children or love being a mother.

Motherhood is a beautiful thing but it could be restricted to two biological children only.

Overpopulation is impacting the earth too much.

If this couple wanted more children they can adopt.
There are thousands of children in the U.K. and other countries each year wanting to be adopted.

Doing this could possibly tackle overpopulation but increase the adoption of children.

Obviously I’m aware there is problems of how to monitor this, what if a woman gets pregnant against her will, accidental pregnancies etc but not that is the not the point or idea I’m trying to get across right now.

AIBU to think this could be a good approach?

I do think as a society there is some education to be had.

Absolutely, education but also ending wealth disparity is what will stabilise the population. Not authoritarian, inhumane laws. On the BBC today even they were discussing the terrible impacts that the one child policy has had in China.

China's one child policy was a huge success. It meant an estimated half a billion fewer people in an already populated society developing society. Think of the colossal amount of extra resources consumed and pollution averted. China's huge success story of dragging hundreds of millions out of absolute poverty would have been unthinkable with an extra 300-400 million births. Of course there were some very unpleasant consequences of it, however. But I think that was easily outweighed numerically by the suffering which it averted.

it's not punishing anyone not to give anyone a lifestyle they can't afford because they can't or can't be bothered to work to afford it

No one is expecting a luxury lifestyle on benefits but it should be enough for a family to afford all necessities and, currently, it isn't.

On the BBC today even they were discussing the terrible impacts that the one child policy has had in China.

The BBC hates China because it is becoming an extremely successful society of non-white people, which is not kowtowing to the interests of the US and European nations.

The planet isn't overpopulated. What would you suggest if a couple accidentally get pregnant with a third child? We start setting dangerous precedents when we give governments the power to decide how we procreate. Anyway just look at the damage a similar policy had it n China. It's not a novel idea, it's been done, it was barbaric, it didn't work and it had to be withdrawn.

Ooh I do feel sorry that OP got such a flaming. Sensitive spot eh ?
I don’t think they were talking about coercion or other heavy handedness.
The world population is still expanding frighteningly in some areas of the world, especially if you think that we should be hoping for better quality of life for all and a planet with a better sell by date. The change is primarily needed now in poor countries and those with low education and/or empowerment of women. We must reduce our world population - richer countries seem to be doing this ok without human rights atrocities which is right and proper considering we are snaffling the resources faster. Breeding for pension provision seems pretty short sighted and can’t last - we can surely come up with better solutions. Perhaps all the people worried about technology taking too many jobs and all the people worried about not enough workers to support the elderly in a decent life could figure it out between them.
Looks like the kind of government needed to support it would be a bit Nordic socialism big state in flavour.
If the richer countries led the world into a tail spin perhaps we should be leading the way out.

@Cam77

China's one child policy was a huge success. It meant an estimated half a billion fewer people in an already populated society developing society. Think of the colossal amount of extra resources consumed and pollution averted. China's huge success story of dragging hundreds of millions out of absolute poverty would have been unthinkable with an extra 300-400 million births. Of course there were some very unpleasant consequences of it, however. But I think that was easily outweighed numerically by the suffering which it averted.

Children being murdered or left to die of neglect, yeah, huge success.

In developed countries the birth rate is plummeting, as people leave it later to have children and in many cases don’t have any at all. It’s a huge demographic problem, with an ageing society and fewer young people.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/health-53409521

The world is having fewer children anyway so its a non issue.

I think people are mad to have large families (never would have considered my three to be a large family) - but for financial and practical reasons. We couldn't have afforded childcare for any more than three.

I think this is a ridiculous proposition though. Very many families stick with two children for the reasons above. It probably balances out in the long run.

The birthrate in most of Europe and developed Asia is well below 2 per woman. Places like Taiwan, Singapore and Japan are not much over 1. That is not sustainable long term. However, we need more of the developing world to find ways to lower their birthrates.

So OP when you have a child bride who has no choice in when she has sex and no access to contraception...

How will you proceed when she get pregnant for the 3rd time?

The problem is over consumption in the west, not over population in non Western countries.

Please actually do some research, this idea is abhorrent.
Better educated people tend to have fewer children on the whole. That is not to say that many well-educated couples don't have large families because that is certainly the case but, as population studies show time and time again, the rate of childbirth is lower in well educated societies.
Instead of proposing draconian, dystopian reproductive restrictions, how about considering the benefits of investing in education. This isn't a fascist / communist state yet, after all.

I've seen articles in the paper saying how women are having less children and worrying about economic/ social impacts.

And it always says women, not couples, not men.

OTOH it's wrong for us to have lots of babies.

So women always in the wrong as ever.

Of course there were some very unpleasant consequences of it
And horrific human rights issues with all of it. I watched a documentary on it and then went down a rabbit hole online of how people felt in the wake of it. I watched it because a lady from work was from a one child family from China and when we were all out one night some of the guys asked about it. She hated everything about it and was bitter and sad she had no siblings which her parents wanted but their parents said it was disgraceful and going against the government.

State intervention is a step far too far for all sorts of moral reasons well articulated above.

I've always thought that beyond the total number of children we all have, we could consider the age at which we begin having them relative to our own life expectancy. Starting to have children at 30 in the West rather than 20 keeps more or less 3 generations of a family on planet Earth together at one time rather than 4. A gentler form of population control perhaps!

Children being murdered or left to die of neglect, yeah, huge success.

Horrible things happen everywhere, but are sadly particularly prevalent in poor countries. When a country starts from a position of extreme poverty, which is where China was in 1950. China's life expectancy in 1949 was 36 years old (compared to similarly 36 in India). That is compared to 67 in the UK. Transformation from a place of such extreme poverty won't all be an easy process of sweetness and light. Today China's life expectancy is 77, compared to 69 in India, and 81 in the UK.

It's also necessary in many "underdeveloped" nations for families to have lots of children as it's harder to survive economically without them. The west has pauperised many non western countries via our consumption demands.

Overpopulation is a myth - if you do some research into demographics you'll see the population is expected to start to decline by end of the century.

Also restricting people to to 2 children would cause the population to fall - the replacement rate is 2.1 to account for deaths. Birth rates in the west are not an issue at all - in the developing countries world it is a massive issue. Women's reproductive rights including access to birth control and education are the two things that work consistently to reduce poverty and bring birth rates down.

The people you know who might have three or four kids doesn't matter - the overall demographics do.

The U.K. population is predicted to rise due to immigration rather than natural increases. That's a different conversation to have but nothing to do with number of kids per woman

You are badly misinformed.

The UK birthrate has been is currently the lowest on record, only 1,6 children per woman. Way below your suggestion of "only two".

Pretty easily. State education and healthcare limited to two. No maternity services for more than two pregnancies

As long as per adult so capping second families etc that could an interesting concept. Anything over two would need a whole lot of funding so would certainly naturally cap family size.

The planet isn't overpopulated
Yes it is.
How anyone can think this while at the same time knowing the devastating impact human beings are having on the planet is beyond me. We've even managed to increase the temperature, unless you think global warming is also a myth.

I get that the planet is not going to last forever, but it's not going to last forever no matter what we do. The human race will be long gone by then anyway. We are here for a short time not a long time and the universe is absolutely breathtakingly massive, nothing we do matters. We have been weighing up having a 3rd for the past 4 years simply because I am soooo conflicted about it and see equal pros and cons on both sides. Mine and my family's lives are obviously what matters most to me and when it comes down to it humans are selfish really. It's how we've evolved this far.

It would put females at risk and their babies at huge risk of death. The current statistics show there are already between 60 - 100 million females missing from the world population due to infanticide and forced abortions.

Some men will force women to abort their female babies or kill their new born female babies - yes even in the UK this will become a thing.