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.

I think the point is that some people are not willing to just shrug and bring more people into it. I don’t think wealth tax really works well when that wealth is mobile.

@Famzonhol do you have any opinion about the short term view & what the shift will be like?

The best thing to combat inequality would be for rich people to have more children than poor people.

Do you think that there should be more young people produced now to look after the old? Because if you do, that is a short term view. Kicking it down the road, as several pps have said.

The idea behind any temp boost in children numbers is to have a slump not a cliff drop in population - so a slower decline.

Long term I don't think anyone is asking for endless population increases.

I think everywhere but few countries in Africa is predicted to go below replacement figures fairly soon meaning a drop across most populations - so there's worry even immigration may not be enough to prop up some countries with low birth rates.

Apparently the prediction are now that 2025 in UK will see first natural population decline more deaths than births but immigration mean population will still increase mitigating affects and kicking them down the road.

https://www.ft.com/content/7a558711-c1b8-4a41-8e72-8470cbd117e5

A drop in male fertility is due to oestrogen in drinking water actually.

Secondly op your aha! moment was truly pathetic. Posting on a board for mothers it can come as such a huge surprise that most of us… drum roll… have children.

However thanks to the hysteria of the ‘climate crisis’ they have no intention whatsoever of having children themselves. So whilst I do not agree with you that we need to increase the population - I trust it will balance out with the huge influx of migrants and AI - I still believe people should be able to afford children if they want them - and currently I don’t know anyone under 30 planning to have a family despite being in serious relationships and married in some cases. It’s too expensive, environmentally irresponsible and does not fit in with new trends of reduction and conscious living.

We need to stabilise the country’s economy - rebuild our infrastructure and look after our young or we are all screwed. That starts with equality across the generations and not taxing the working sector to an inch of their lives! We need to raise money from the rich elderly, address second homes fearlessly and take out the triple lock pensions, free prescriptions and all the other benefits for the wealthy old.

There is plenty of people worldwide. We just need to incentivise them to come across.

Schools in London will close but not due to falling population through birth rate. It’s due to lack of migration due to many Eastern Europeans going home because we fucked them over through brexit…. We need migrants (who will be of working age and have babies but most importantly work-you can’t staff a bar in London).

The problem is it's the wrong people having kids (but unfortunately the ways of dealing with that are too extreme for most).
Single parents on benefits having 7 kids isn't helpful. It just ends up with more net takers than contributors.

Yes why not invite everyone to these shores? There are plenty of houses, hospital beds, GPS etc after all to accommodate even more migrants 😳

Bars in London just need to offer enough money so that people living outside London can afford to move to London and work in a bar and have enough to pay rent/get a mortgage and live.

Schools in London are closing because no one can afford to live there! How do you think a migrant will fare grappling with London prices on minimum wage?

Ideally we could get rid of the people that don't contribute and replace them with the ones we need.

Paradoxically private schools in London are still hugely over subscribed, so it is just at the lower end of the economic scale that is seeing families move out. Take a look at any school in the commuter belt and you can see where most have gone. The pandemic was also a factor.

However thanks to the hysteria of the ‘climate crisis’ they have no intention whatsoever of having children themselves.

how old are your children @GCalltheway

and if they were to change their mind, I can’t fathom how nervous they’d be about telling you! 😂

London is a basket-case, we should be managing it's decline and encouraging people to move out, not move in. A city where ordinary people cannot afford to live is not a viable city.

So a straight swap or would you prefer to send the single mother of seven to Rwanda instead??

So all the Londoners aren’t “ordinary” ?

that’s about 10 million people!

It’s weird how invested you are in my life - yuck

I’m surrounded by ordinary people here - all types of jobs

I thought it was house prices in London,

People moving out because you can buy/rent bigger properties outside London and with kids you tend to need bigger houses.

Plus rents are high at minute - and frankly bar work possibly wouldn't be a living wage even for immigrants with high living costs at minute.

Plus media seem to be telling me that European immigration been going down but rest of world immigration actually gone up - I haven't looked for figures because I don't think immigration is bad.

And there we have it! 😂

we can only presume from your avoidance response that if your (I’m guessing young, and they say they don’t want to have children! 😂) children change their mind and have children you will either
a) seriously judge them
or
b) do a 180 on your opinions expressed here

Well as per another thread house prices are so extortionate that if you can’t buy until your 30s naturally you will have less or no children. It’s that simple

London is a global powerhouse of course it’s going to attract high prices, and maybe not all families can afford to live there. It’s a young persons city - Amsterdam is a young city and others are similar in demographic profile. If a few schools close, fine, it doesn’t mean the end of civilisation- op is being deliberately over dramatic

So why can't bars in London find staff? Are bar staff not "ordinary people"?

wrong on all counts, but you can crack on with your story telling. ----