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.

@Longtimelutker2019

Doesnt say tenfold

Olderandolder- most people are retiring early not because they eg have a 100k final salary pension scheme. They are retiring early relying on eg 500k tax free equity in a house and a free NHS. If those aspects go and they have to pay a substantial tax on housing profit or 500 pounds a month healthcare per person, which is the case in many other countries, in both respects, they wouldn’t retire. And plenty of people go part time rather than retire because they want some quality of life and resent paying 40 per cent tax. So they stay under the threshold because mortgage free and time=
better quality of life then working 100 per cent and paying 40pc or even 45 pc tax.

I also think it is quite reasonable that more elderly people should work part time, it is pretty tiring to work 8 hours or more a day five days a week, after a certain age. Just as it is tiring to work full time with young kids. Would be great if it were acceptable for many people to just work part time, 60 or 80 per cent.

Yes I think part-time, flexible hours and remote working are going to be critical to retaining more people in the workforce for longer. Personally, I work part-time now about 2 days a week and have small children. I could envisage continuing at this pace for as long as my body and mind are able, as well as helping care for any grandchildren that might arrive. My DH works full-time in a demanding job, but is also considering ways of slowing down rather than stopping completely as we age.

I have no expectation of stopping paid labour completely in my 60s. It’s fairly obvious the public pension system as it is is not going to be sustainable.

Agree, the world is grossly overpopulated, 8 billion humans destroying the planet. I believe there were only some 2 billion when I was born.

many small villages do not provided jobs so retired people fleeing places like London move there

It will but maybe not as much as people think . Every same sex couple I know that is younger than 50 has children , both male and female , in fact my friend and colleague is about to have his 3 rd child via surrogate , my old school friend is about to have her 5 th with her wife , my best friends daughter 25 is pregnant , got married last year to her now wife .

People may not like this and I have issues with this myself but I think the idea of prolonging life in the elderly is wrong and I what is causing massive issues . I see this now with some relatives and friends relatives , older people bed bound or with barely any quality of life being almost forced to carry on , put in care homes , often their mind is gone but relatives and doctors insist on treatments that clearly will only prolongue a already awful existence . We had this issue with my nana a few years ago , where she was sane of mind but when she got pneumonia despite repeatedly telling doctors to leave her alone and refusing treatment they insisted and treat her the 4 times she got ill . I’m by no means defending euthanasia in humans ( that’s a whole different subject ) but surely keeping someone going for them to be bed bound when they don’t want to carry on is wrong

While the birth rate, on average, is falling and affecting some things, such as the school you mention, I don't think it's widespread.

I live and work in a town in the North West. It is very culturally diverse and this has become more so, even since I was a child (I'm 36 now). We have a large white British and a large Asian population in the town. In recent years, we have also seen an increase in the number of African families settling in the area.

One child I teach for instance, migrated from Nigeria only 2 years ago.

Obviously among all of these people there are varying numbers of children - anything from 1 to 7/8/9.

So, for towns like ours, the population isn't declining, whereas in other areas it may be.

I'm not comfortable with euthanasia but I don't see how the current situation with people being kept alive in poor health can continue. We are already struggling to get enough carers for the current population who need them and it's just going to get bigger with a smaller pool of workers to recruit from.

Maybe more people will be looked after by relatives but I'm not a fan of romanticising cultures who are more likely to do that. People are people and there's bound to be abuse and neglect. Not to mention most of the time it's women doing all the caring.

Maybe AI and drug treatments for dementia will help. I can't see any government wanting to talk about this though.

Exactly, the government is keeping a lot of people alive who would rather be dead...

No, the people who want to die could commit suicide or have not had ‘the conversation’ and decided what their treatment should be if they lose capacity.

Everyone wants to live if they still have capacity /and can’t do anything about it once they havent .

To blame the Gov is hilarious -when T May promoted a payment for care in old age she lost many previously safe Tory seats - it was called the dementia tax , labour was against it too as I remember. Maybe the voters thought they were signing up a way of being guaranteed dementia 😂 it’s us that’s to blame no one else.

What treatment would that be, if it's not euthanasia.

Treatment to refuse antibiotics, rescussitation.

So far the UK is managing to plug the gap with immigration. I looked up the figures and Scotland’s natural population is already declining. Has been since 2015. England and Wales will follow in the next couple of years.

One problem with immigration is that in one generation, immigrant families reduce their fertility rates to match the native population, so it doesn’t help to increase birth rates long term.

Overall, I think declining population is a positive thing. We'll have a few difficult years to adapt but 8 billion people is far too many. People used to have large families to look after them in old age but in Europe no one needs to do that anymore. Four at the most is a reasonable amount of kids for a family. I think it's great that people are becoming more choosy about how many children they will have.