AIBU The global fertility crisis is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced?

[plantsdieinmyhouse]

We’re in a ‘global fertility crisis’.

I’m astounded that global (even UK/European) fertility decline to below the replacement rate of 2.1 (thought to have happened now) isn’t in the forefront of most people’s radar. There are barely even any politicians acknowledging it let alone devising policies to tackle it.

Thee are even people who still think we’re in the 70s/80s/90s and ‘overpopulation’ is still an issue.

Once everyone who’s alone now is dead the human race will be in terminal decline.

Nothing else matters if there’s none of us left!

Even on a personal level a large proportion of women don’t have the number of DCs they expect to.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/43a9bd63-25c9-4941-bc99-fc9f7e42c12a?shareToken=29bf27cb9dafe9af7a006bc25355e411

And many children these days don't want to have children. I'm not surprised really. Their parents have told them how lucky they are to have what they have, their parents have instilled in them how hard the parents had ti work to facilitate it all. Kids think: no thanks. Hardly surprising.

They can't get on the property ladder, cost of living crisis means few people have any spare money anymore: not much money spare to go off enjoying yourself. Why bring a kid into this. Makes sense, sadly.

"Without the youth we have no chance of getting out of this mess".

err, you think anyone has the answers, yuh think we have ANY chance of getting out of this mess, at ALL? 🤔

But the alternative to avoid what you have said is exponential population growth as there always needs to be more people to pay the older generation. It can’t go on forever. The end result would be the end of humanity because there won’t be enough resources to go around.

Anybody thinking the answer to saving humanity is to have more children when the planet is burning, people are starving, seas are rising, flora and fauna are becoming extinct on a frightening scale, we’re seeing mass immigration etc, etc is bonkers.

It isn’t just that. The country feels crowded. For instance 100 years ago London was green fields with small hamlets and space. There was space to raise children. now London is high rise, and children are being raised in flats. Green space is low. We can’t increase the land mass. Quality of life is better in some ways but worse than others. We can say ‘oh we need to build more housing’ but every house build takes away a bit more green space or a bit of sky gets lost. People don’t want to raise children in crowded conditions. They think their own childhood and the freedom they had and now they look around them and think there is too much traffic, there are too many people, there is too much crime. I can’t get my kid in the local school etc. there is no solution to this as we can’t make more land

Well I for one care far more about rhinoceros or elephants than the Sistine Chapel. No man made creativity can rival nature. So you are wrong IMO.

I don't think for a second humans are heading for extinction. I believe we'll find a way to cling on but population growth and expectations are unsustainable so there has to be less of us to have a decent standard of living. Yes, it'll be shit and hard for a while but most of human history has been shit and hard. I'm just sorry that this is the legacy we're leaving the generations that follow us

If humanity were to die out by choice because nobody wants to have babies, what is the problem with that? It’s a choice!

Not that I think for one moment that will happen. A rebalancing of numbers is far more likely.

The trouble is, when someone has worked for 35 or 45 years already and have built up enough on which to live comfortably. How can you motivate them to work longer? Why should they work longer? I live very moderately, frugally perhaps and certainly not in luxury by anyone's standards. No amount of money would encourage me to work.

Retirees paid taxes for decades and continue to pay fuel tax, VAT, Council Tax, road tax, income tax on pension payments, stamp duty etc etc.

They use businesses and keep many workers in employment. Also, it's worth noting, that if retirees did not volunteer in their millions (8.6 million currently) many organisations and charities would cease to function.

Why keep older people in the workplace when so many young people are leaving school with no work?

I don't know how old you are or what kind of work you do @BoldGreenDreamer but I did a manual job all my life and when I came to retire I was knackered. I was an aging woman lifting heavy machinery and working physically all day outdoors in all winds and weathers. I had enough money. I'd had enough work. I could not have carried on. I needed a rest.

We need to live within our means and contribute, but the answer to this is by all expecting less in terms of material wealth, looking after ourselves and the environment better and by investing in the future.

Who do they see looking after them when they grow old?
I don't mean that their kids should do it, but if having kids becomes less common then where will the young people come from to support society?
I am hoping my teenagers will have a good life. One of mine wants kids, the other doesn't. They are both plenty young enough to change their minds.

If I ask them who will look after them, they are both convinced that science/medicine will be so advanced that no one will ever be sick.

Assuming your children are Millenials they can expect to live to 79. Until people are 80 only about 21% require care of any sort. Hopefully they will never need it.

The shortage of care staff currently isn't a population/birthrate issue. It's an ongoing problem due to low pay, poor working conditions, and a lack of career development opportunities. Unless this is addressed the problem won't be solved by your children having children.

Why do people need people looking after them when they are old? Most don’t need any help. It is a completely fallacy that every old person goes into care or has long term illnesses or can’t take care of themselves. Some do, but the majority don’t. Out of all the older people who have sadly died in my family, not a single one needed any sort of medical care until right at the end for a short period. I honestly think if people ensure they take out private pensions and have a decent income when they retire then this crazy catastrophe of an aging population will not happen. Japan seems to be coping ok and they have had this problem for a while

They need people to be doctors, dentists, working in shops, delivering their shopping, driving buses, servicing cars. I don't just mean personal care.
My mum doesn't need personal care but she would struggle a bit without a cleaner, gardener and all of those things I mentioned above.

I mean if everyone agrees to wind down the human population, they can cut back on lots of those jobs or maybe AI can do it?

Well that is going to happen isn’t it? So many jobs will go the way of AI so there will be a natural switch to reduction in jobs so the required workforce will be smaller and the jobs available will be more manual. In a way the reduction in population occurring now is happening at exactly the right time as what will happen otherwise when there are too many people and too few jobs?

take for example in my office. The finance department 25 years ago had 20 people in it. There are now 4.

The birth rate has been declining since the 60s and your mum still manages to find a gardener and cleaner. Many young people are out of work and the birth rate is still 1.5ish per woman.

In 2019 the ONS had the tfr in this country at 1.66, in 2023 it was 1.44. It is dropping at a rate of knots.

Yep there are other concerns such as getting tax or if we’ll be too redundant but due to AI now is a good time to reduce the population.

Reduce naturally as seems to be happening, and not wipe ourselves out.

And almost 32% of births in 2023 were to non native mothers and so, I think, hides the sterilising effect that our own culture is engendering

my thinking is once the population has reduced to a certain level, people will feel happier (as more housing, more space etc) feel more inclined to have more babies. I don’t think the decline will happen forever. This is just a natural correction. The natural world is pretty good at finding a balance (absence of an unnatural force forcing extinction)

We are finite. We won’t be here forever, we’re just another tiny part of the universe’s endless cycle. We’re nothing, we just think we’re important.

Regardless of whether we decline into extinction or not, we will become extinct in the not too distant future one way or another. It is just a cycle. We won’t be missed, but we’ve left quite a mess for the next lifecycle to clear up!

I don't think so. The tfr in New Zealand is on a par with ours but their population density is less than a tenth of our own.

I'd love to see a dystopian film starring Mumnsetters.
"We're all going to die - we need you to save the Earth!"

"Nah, it was time for us to go anyway."

People at the end of the world complaining that their neighbours are playing loud music after 10pm 😁

YABU.

The global birth rate has (unsteadily) declined for humans, but due to changes in technology the global population rate is still rising. And anyway, other species exist so it's not like the world will be depopulated.