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.

Finding metrics can change if the current models aren't working ie paying per pupil. People don't want to teach so surely less school age children is fine. The planet will be immeasurably better off without us so good news if we are on our way out.

Funding*

"The number of people aged over 64 has surged by 20% over the past decade in England and Wales, to 11.1 million people. Nearly one in five people are aged over 65"

"2.6 million people over 50 have unmet social care needs increasing to 15% of people in their 70s, and 21% of people in their 80s"

"In 2022, there were 165,000 vacant posts in social care- an increase of 50% and the highest rate on record"

We need the robots now..

Finding metrics can change if the current models aren't working ie paying per pupil

Yeah the point is we aren't great aren't changing models. It's not like there is problems in education now re school budgets...

The planet will be immeasurably better off without us so good news if we are on our way out.

Are you volunteering to go first? I think it's an interesting debate does the right of a living person to live as long as they want trump the right of another who wants a child? Economically younger people are more valuable. Societies don't tend to progress without new blood.

at changing

Well we could make it easier to do part time and occasional work without it affecting your benefits so completely giving up work at 66 would be unusual so you continue to contribute and pay tax.
This might get some of those long term unemployed back into contributing.

Also we could reduce pension and benefits. This will have to happen eventually if income tax doesn’t cover it.

There are 8 billion people in the world.
As a species we are the opposite of under populated

What we need is not more people on the planet. It's for the existing people to move around.

Age old dependency ratio is currently about 1 older person to 3 working age people. In the 60s it was around 1:5 & in the next 20 yrs it's predicted to be about 1:2.

The chances of another Covid type virus is high

I'm saying overpopulation isn't caused by people living longer. That doesn't make sense, they were there first. UK birthrate is 1.56, which is probably a good thing, now the government needs to figure out a way to sustain the economy and not place more burden on it. Because all the taxpayers being born or imported will also get old and need care. I'd say that most childless singles or couples won't be the people putting burden on the system as they will also probably have enough money to pay for themselves (and have taken the least out). That would be an interesting piece of research.

This isn't general population decline at all though. The issue is that a certain type of rural lifestyle has become unaffordable for most ordinary families. There are fewer rural jobs. House prices in pretty villages in nice parts of the countryside are silly, and the houses are only bought by people who want a holiday home but will be sending their kids to school near their other home, or will be using an independent school 45 minutes drive away, or their kids are already stockbrokers or barristers. So there's no demand for places at the village school.

Meanwhile city primaries are massively oversubscribed - anywhere where there are plenty of jobs and where its possible to get vaguely affordable housing.

Making rural living more affordable isn't necessarily a desirable goal - one of the reasons it's so unaffordable for families to live in these lovely villages is that these lifestyles are impossible without a very heavy dependence on cars which is unsustainable too.

@Phoebo you actually typed the below 🤦🏻‍♀️

I'm saying overpopulation isn't caused by people living longer. That doesn't make sense, they were there first.

You do understand that people didn't used to live as long? Medical advances has meant that people live a lot longer than they used ie life expectancy has increased...

"England’s population is ageing. In the next 25 years, the number of people older than 85 will double to 2.6 million"

Do you understand how the above impacts population numbers?

I'd say that most childless singles or couples won't be the people putting burden on the system as they will also probably have enough money to pay for themselves (and have taken the least out). That would be an interesting piece of research.

Even if people don't have children they still burden the system? Assuming they use healthcare & education. You are still not grasping the fact it's the impact of more older people. No one is saying people should rush out & have three kids, it's acknowledging that a lot more older people vs young people has significant challenges. many

ignore the many!

@ArdeteiMasazxu no there is real decline in primary school numbers in rural & urban areas although of course there will be hot spots that remain oversubscribed.

"But the bulge is starting to move out of the school system, and the latest government pupil number predictions anticipate the population of primary and secondary schools will fall by 935,753 between 2022 and 2032."

Birth rates have been declining for years hence the above.

Every other living species and the planet as a whole would be very happy with eight a few billion fewer humans!

Sadly it's not going to happen.

Or if it does, it will only be because we've eradicated every living organism from the planet, including ourselves.

Best case scenario is this happens before humans escape into space and infect the rest of the galaxy.

I do wonder what the fuck people having children now are thinking.

I don’t use my local village school. Several in my village don’t. It doesn’t have anything to support working parents, like breakfast or after school clubs, so I use a slightly bigger village school near family to help with this. It’s also just too small, like < 10 children and I don’t think this is always ideal. I live very rurally however. There’s also the house price /work element. But my village has social housing and some young families so I think it’s a combination of several things. The local one does seem to hang with the threat of closure over it due to size, so that also puts parents off. As who wants to start them somewhere to then move elsewhere in a year or so anyway.

I have no real ideas about this - other than a vague sense of worry but its hard to say if I am more worried about climate change caused by overpopulation or social collapse caused by under population!

I only popped on here to recommend a book i read a while ago not normally something i would read but it was truly fascinating and did predict the supply chain issues we are having now.

The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization https://amzn.eu/d/1xlPCoO

@hyggeb "latest government pupil number predictions anticipate the population of primary and secondary schools will fall by 935,753 between 2022 and 2032.^

There are currently 10 million primary and secondary schools pupils in the uk.

This is a prediction that this number will fall by a little under 10% over the course of the next 10 years. A 1% per year change is part of normal ebb and flow and won't lead to society breaking down. We can easily increase the population any time we like by making immigration easier, and rates will sometimes fluctuate back up too. There's no general shortage of people willing to shag eachother.

If

There is a decline in urban schools- the BBC had an article re Boroughs of Camden and Islington and it was a really sharp decline. It was a combination of unaffordability of those specific areas and falling BR, so to an extent wfh etc is spreading the kids around more but there is also an overall decline.

However, it’s very difficult to reverse declines in birth rates once they happen because it’s not just about people not being able to afford kids. It’s about people not wanting any kids or many kids. It’s probably easier to accept it and look at other solutions to the old age related issues, especially given that AI will transform the labour market by the time these theoretical children have grown up.

@ArdeteiMasazxu so you're saying birth rates haven't been declining?

I never said falling school rolls will lead to society breaking down though.

There's no general shortage of people willing to shag eachother.

Who has claimed otherwise? I was taking about birth rates not shagging rates 😆

It's a bloody good thing if the population falls. The planet is massively overpopulated. If some schools, businesses and services close because of it so be it. We have destroyed our planet and the only way to slow down it's utter demise is to reduce population.

It’s a common misconception that increasing populations are caused by high birth rates rather than increasing life expectancies. Birth rates have been falling for decades at a global level. But increased life expectancies have more than compensated.

Think of the world like a 24 hour bar that’s open 7/365. People come and stay for 65 mins then they leave. If people start staying for 85 minutes instead and people still arrive at the same rate, or even a slightly reduced rate, the number of people in the bar at any one time still increases. Life expectancy of 85 vs 65 means you’re on the plant for almost 1/3 longer. That is very significant.

What I need is milk for my first coffee of the day

Where I live more schools are being built to cope with the influx of people to the city and surrounding areas. No school closures at all.