We need to start talking about population decline

[user4567890754]

The first signs of it are starting to show in the UK, with primary school closures. Secondary school closures will follow.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/11158f12-0133-11ee-a364-04e704863f75?shareToken=5ef47b2b4776be376153089146c8bacf

Italy is a few years ahead of us.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/01/plunging-birthrate-threatens-italian-schools

Japan shows where every country is headed - towards a crisis where they are on the brink of being unable to maintain social functions.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/13/asia/japan-population-decline-record-drop-intl-hnk/index.html

And yet there are still people who think that we have a problem with overpopulation. It’s the opposite.

It’s actually a problem that has been known for ages in the developed world.

Previously we had a population age range that was triangle shaped with more healthy younger people of working age and fewer elderly dependents. That works well. Plenty of people contributing economically and physically.

Now it’s inverted and we are getting more at the upper age ranges who are living longer but many are in poor health and need financial and physical assistance but fewer young people to fund and provide it. Our society and economy has been kept afloat by immigrants for years but the imbalance in the population is now starting to become very apparent and will only get worse.

@Florenz what is your argument for raising voting age to 21, and would you then also want to raise the age that young people can marry, drink, drive, smoke, join the military and have sex?

Personally as an older person I see young people as the future. We're the ones who have wrecked the planet with our greed and our selfishness.

This is what I was wondering

Deprived cities in the North are where they are I’ve no idea how it all works but if you live in some cities it’s like the population has completely changed in a matter of months I’ve no idea of the ins and outs of how they’re here the positive and negatives of them moving her but the amount that are here in such a tiny space of time is staggering

Because almost nobody nowadays is an independent adult at 18. People (see MN for example) treat their older teens and 20somethings as children to a far greater extent than in 1969 when the AOM was lowered to 18.

I don't want to derail the thread but just another point to consider is the male infertility crisis. If you look into it, it really is quite a big thing that isn't being spoken about much. A lot of couples are choosing not to have children but on the other side, 1 in 7 couples do want children but are struggling with infertility. Mumsnet has a huge issue against things like IVF (especially NHS funded) but a lot of couples can't afford it without help. I'm not saying I agree with NHS funded IVF but I just wanted to raise the point that infertility is another reason why some couples have not yet had children (I know 4 couples struggling with infertility). On the other hand there is some CONCERNING articles lately about Japan creating sperm cells from SKIN CELLS. Is Japan's low birth rates due to infertility and that's why they are doing these research/experiments to create sperm? I don't know as I haven't looked into the OPs articles in depth. But one thing is for sure, going to these freaky-science depths to create more babies is really pretty concerning.

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12124367/100-lab-grown-babies-FIVE-YEARS-Japanese-researchers-make-breakthrough.html

Personally I think lowering the population worldwide means less people fighting for the finite natural resources and overall it will be a good thing. A lot of the problems of an aging workforce will be solved by technology, allowing one person to do the work formerly done by two or more.

LaurieFairyCake · Yesterday 23:41
Not a shock

That's what immigration is FOR

And why fucking Brexit is so fucking shit !”

Hear, hear.

It's unbelievable that people thought Brexit would reduce immigration

But that's because we've created a society where it's impossible to be independent at that age. School leaver jobs don't pay enough to afford rent, and you can't go to uni without parental contributions.
It doesn't mean that young people don't deserve a say.

The answer is not more babies. They’ll all grow up to be old but by then there’ll be even more of them competing for space and food.

I’m guessing @Florenz you currently don’t have children in the age bracket 16-25

The answer is not more babies.

There's a balance between millions of babies & hardly any.

I read a couple of articles on this recently. It’s partially to do with rural house prices being too high for families with childcare costs etc. Nothing with 2 beds available in our village for less than half a million for months now.

I teach at the primary in the next village along, and we’ve started getting lots of children from the nearby town applying, as the village birth rate is low but the town schools are full. Affordable housing = more families. DH and I can only afford to live in our village because we were lucky and bought a tiny, damp, dilapidated two up two down from a lady who desperately needed a quick sale.

Exactly, and it's insane if people can't see that.

My MIL had to leave school at 15 and went straight into employment. Not advocating to going back to that but assume teenagers had to grow up more quickly then

Schools are also closing in London. We only have the richest and the poorest families who can make the sums add up here. The population density is still high but is mainly represented by families on benefits living in hugely overcrowded conditions. Middle income households have typically moved out into places like Rugby, Stevenage and Worcester.

A local town had a new school built due to huge amount of new housing. All that has happened is that children have moved from the manky falling down old Primary School to the bright shiny new one. Actual number of pupils in the town hasn’t increased!

It's also to do with the typical model used by developers of edge-of-city/town sites. They get the approval for a massive number of homes and flats in exchange for allocating a percentage of those to affordable housing, building a school and planting a green space around it. Therefore, people doing part exchanges by leaving their city homes are not just moving to a new house but a carefully planned community where their living needs have been thought through for them. It takes a lot of the stress out of coordinating the different aspects of family life.

As long as the birth rate remains below about 2.1 per woman the population will continue to shrink and the oldest generations will continue to be larger than the youngest, so it's not just a blip, and it will never balance out.

It wouldn't even be a particularly bad thing if the human race died out.

Wouldn't be bad for whom? Personally I don't want to be dead.

A very interesting look in to some of the reasons behind male infertility

We have been told for so long about climate change, and overpopulation it’s not really surprising that so many people don’t understand how serious and multi faceted this birth rate issue is, there are countries already below replacement level. People also see immigration as the answer, but if the whole world is suffering population collapse then where are you going to get people from?? There will soon come a point where there won’t be the people to come!!! It’s also going to take a lot less time for us to be seeing and feeling the impact of this than people think! It’s not some far off distant crisis, it here now and is happening now and has been happening for some time!!

Finding carers for the elderly is already a crisis situation and getting worse. That is why there is attention drawn to elderly not being discharged from hospitals for months because even though care packages are drawn up, there are not enough staff to implement them.

No of course it's not but what is the solution?

At some point the population demographic may rebalance itself but that's not going to happen anytime soon and the process may be extremely unpleasant and many effective methods will be unacceptable.

In the interim we have a real problem. There are just not enough young people in the UK to continue to maintain the living standards we are used to.

I think you've hit the nail on the head and the reality of these impacts will be extremely unpleasant for all.

The only real solutions will not be acceptable to the majority of the population and we will do nothing about it making everyone suffer much more for much longer because of it.

Question for all the posters that think humans are a scrounge on the planet and we aren't dying quick enough... why are you still alive?