To think a declining birth rate is a good (and inevitable) thing

[OptimismvsRealism]

Article in the times today about the "push for Britain to have more babies" on the basis that a declining population will cause economic shocks.

One of the proposals is "fertility checks in your 20s and education about declining fertility in biology classes".

I mean. Isn't it great that people only have babies if they really, truly want them? And isn't it good to have a smaller human burden on the planet (and fewer humans vying for declining jobs as tech replaces us at most of the things we used to do)?

I don't believe for a second that fertility checks would help anyone. Nobody is out there going "trala I'm 45 and really want five babies but just haven't felt like starting yet"!

But that’s the thing. I can think of a million reasons why a declining birth rate is a good thing. I can only think of one which makes it is a bad thing which is economic, ‘who is going to pay our pensions?’. I honestly think with the way technology is moving, we just don’t need as many people on the planet, there just won’t be the resources and the jobs to pay for them so there will ultimately (50 years from now) be a huge amount of economically inactive people who need to be paid for. Pensions will be the least of the country’s problems. A slow gradual managed decline with incentives to keep families small with extra intervention to help level up those children that need it is the way forward.

Claiming that the population has to endlessly increase to look after old people is wrong in so many ways.

For a start, children and many adults with particular needs also have to be looked after, and the young people get old, so the ever-increasing population obviously has ever-increasing needs.

World population is getting beyond the level the planet can support. England is already one of the most densely populated countries in the world: that’s England, not the whole of Britain or the UK, which include much less densely populated areas (though also not underpopulated).

We don’t need an ever-expanding economy. We need more thought about how to live with our overburdened environment, and more action to protect it.

Yeah we don’t need to keep this ponzi scheme going and it’s funny there’s another thread on here suggesting people who have more than 3 kids should get tax breaks which does actually happen in many countries.

I don’t think that people realise they’re usually not net contributors, they’re already getting more than their moneys worth for the share of tax they pay compared to say a child free person.

And tax incentive is a terrible motivation to have a child and would only attract the wrong sort of parents.

I agree to some extent, but then we need a plan to deal with the care needs of older people.

If the birth rate doesn’t get back to 2.1 then humanity will die out in the next few hundred years. I think that’s a very bad thing.

There will be fewer people on Earth than there are now. That’s already assured. The question now is - can we prevent it declining to zero?

The population isn’t going to endlessly increase. It’s going to nosedive from about 2050. The realistic question is whether we can slow the decline to give time to adjust. And long term whether we can halt the decline before humans go extinct.

A very bad thing? Only for humanity. The rest of the species on the planet will breathe a massive sigh of relief (what's left of them by then).

It's not a bad thing. The earth could heal. Another ape will take over.

Yes. I care about humanity and my children’s future, and beyond.

I wouldn’t count on it. The evolution of human beings was an exceptional and unique occurrence, as far as we know, in the universe. What would be lost, except all capacity in existence for poetry, science, philosophy, love, wonder and awe?

Who will be left to give a toss?

Plenty of love, wonder and awe without the need for humanity. What would also be lost would be war, torture, religion, genocide, pollution, etc, etc.

When you look at the overall balance, it's clear we don't come out looking very good.

I'm not worried about the future of the human race as a whole. When time, living space and support are available, the number of children goes up. Japan's managed this in a town called Nagi.

We do need to think creatively to get through the 'care bulge' which will increase over the next 20 years.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-08-16/japan-miracle-town-birth-rate-depopulation-crisis

There are a lot of antinatalists on this board. I think it’s strange to want your own species to die out.

It isn’t a rate that is fixed. Currently it is a gradual decline. If the population goes back to that or 100 years ago in a few generations that is no bad thing. I am sure that when things start becoming less crowded and the environment improves, people start thinking how lovely I’ll have more children and the cycle starts again. We just happen to be at peak population now. The balance is completely off and needs a reset.

Yes of course that does need to be planned but incentivising people to have more babies just to provide for the care needs of the older ones seems like a road to nowhere. As is currently the case, you can have lots of babies and none of them want to provide the care needs of the older people. We still have to import the carers. Now huge tax breaks/payments for people who care for their parents and you might be onto something.

Well exactly, that’s why it is bad thing! I think it’s a fundamental difference in values and if that doesn’t appear as a loss to you then there is nothing anyone can say to change your mind, but I suppose the world of the future will be populated by those who
love and believe in their own kind, which is a good thing.

If there are no humans then there will be no creature there in the whole universe (as far as we know) with the cognitive capacity to experience love wonder and awe!So of course there will be lovely and wonderful and awe-inspiring things, but there will be no one here to appreciate them. Which strikes me as profoundly sad.

There will still be plenty of physical pain, suffering, violent death, torture etc amongst the animals of course. Nature red in tooth and claw and all that. Most animals live short and brutal lives and die painfully as food for other animals, or from starvation, injury and so on in this closed system.

Human beings are not perfect by any means, but we are getting better, and we are the only creatures with the capacity to care about ethics and morality and the ability to do anything to improve ourselves.

This is really interesting, as financial incentives have been tried in many other places, and they have not worked. I wonder if what was key here was the town’s self-image as a definite community that they wanted to survive, prompted by the referendum decision to remain a town?

People began to see themselves as a community with a duty to one another, and the children of the town as a benefit to all of them, instead of seeing themselves as individuals who make a personal lifestyle choice to have or not have children.

Humans will become extinct whether it bugs you or not

Agree completely OP. The number of people on the planet needs to start declining for it to be sustainable. I don't think we will die out any time soon, but we do need things to re balance. I would like to see the government start planning for less working age people to support the aging population because it seems pretty inevitable that is the way we are going.

Do you have children OP?

I now think I would have had more but time ran out.

By the time I felt financially secure enough to take the baby hit I was mid 40s.

I'd have had more younger if: there wasn't such a social stigma to single motherhood, house prices and interest rates were lower, 100% mortgages weren't abolished after 2008, more men were more willing to become dads in their 20s, unis supported students esp postgrads to have DCs while studying eg breaks and free full time childcare from 3 months, family housing at uni, if maternity pay/rights didn't require you to be in post for a year, if employers didn't discriminate against pregnant women, if uk houses were bigger, if there was more support to recover your body after pregnancy/childbirth, if DCs were as independent at younger ages like in the 80s eg walking themselves to school, latchkey kids being ok, playing out alone etc.

Yeah agree the UK over engineers parenthood now. Children should be part of life, not its sole focus.

I agree. It’s particularly baffling to encounter those people on a parenting forum of all places.