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

I think our planet is perfectly glorious enough without our input.

Amen to that.

At the moment the elderly have a greater share of the wealth but instead of them using that wealth to pay for the resources that they need as they age, they are being given more by taxpayers with the ridiculous expectation that they can keep their own 'wealth' for their children, whilst other people's children who have paid for their retirement - their standard of living gets worse and they have no resources of their own in retirement.

The older population needs to be paying with it's wealth AND it's resources - their housing, their second properties for what they are using. They need to pay for other older people as well.

If they having nothing to pass on then good, wealth inequality is reduced. Yes I will personally suffer from this but it can't continue this way.

The real problem is that we need to somehow get hold of the very wealthiest's unearned income that they have unfairly taken and redistribute that - but individual government's find that very hard to do because they tend to live across several countries.

So no. We shouldn't have more babies to feed the old and rich. The old and rich can feed themselves or starve.

In the West, women in straight relationships are often paying 50% of the bills while doing more than 50% of the housework. There’s lots of stories on here where the woman is the breadwinner yet the man works fewer hours and does less than 50% of the child rearing and housework. I can see why younger generations of women (including my own dd) would stick to paying their share of the bills and not have kids. They’ve seen how men can leave, avoid paying child maintenance and if they are lucky, see the kids at Christmas and on their birthday. They see the trad wives being left and being fucked.

@EasternStandard

I have 2 DC and 3 DGC and love them all with every ounce of my being.
I'm not a doom person but I do feel humans are more destructive than any other creatures.

But those young people will then grow old .... and more young people will be needed. It would never end.
There needs to be some kind of "one in one out policy" with everyone contributing to society.
I don't see much hope for future generations, but I hope my kids get some kind of life before it all goes tits up.

The World's population got too big - THAT was the problem. Now we NEED a correction and hopefully it won't get too low. It was unsustainable to keep growing the World population, as ultimately, we WILL run out of water and food. In fact, the forecasts for water consumption over the next few decades are very worrying and could start wars!

Could I ask the folks who think humanity dying out is a good thing expect to have access to state pension, state Healthcare and alike? Or should you get to live in relevant comfort, and have your kids or grandkids' generation take a bigger hit?

I do think the view that we need fewer humans is a valid one, but the people who embrace it should be particularly willing to forego state support in their old age.

Let it happen. Humans aren't the be all and end all. Let humanity die out, why the hell not? The planet will be better off without us.

My DC are not going to have kids. I am fine with that.

@BoldGreenDreamer Can you really not think of any other solution to this problem than having more babies, though? Honestly?

The Earth's resources are finite. It's impossible to keep increasing the population without a massive decline in living standards.

The point is that the generation who might provide the offspring who’ll fund services aren’t living in relative comfort. They’re living with their parents or in godawful flat shares. That’s one reason why they aren’t knocking themselves out to procreate

YABU.

There will be a problem for a “bulge” generation where there aren’t enough workers to pay in to the state pension, but our island and world is overpopulated, climate change and industrialisation are destroying the planet, we don’t have enough housing and we can’t go on expanding the world’s population forever.

There are far more pressing issues which bother me.

I completely agree the population should fall naturally. Which it seems to be.

There are too many of us. And resources are stretched.

But I want people to continue in a better world, with say half the population or whatever is more comfortable.

Yes - significantly raising the retirement age now, then phasing out things lile the state pension in the and access to state healthcare for retirees over the next few decades.

But nobody will go for that, either.

Good.

@BoldGreenDreamer I don't expect state healthcare or pension if I have resources to provide for myself, not whilst young people suffer and live a worse life than me, even though they're getting up every day to work.

Retirement was not meant to be 30/40/50 years of cruising/holidays/eating out and endless piddling about.

Yet that is what some people have had - I know many people who retired early in their 50s and are still going at 90 and have been having a whale of a time of final salary pensions as well as state pensions, plus extra state benefits

I am absolute furious at the Winter fuel payment U turn.

It is time for pensioners to pay up. They are getting a far better deal than anyone else at the moment. (as a group - I'm sure everyone will reply with the mythical poor pensioner who can't afford soup)

It is western / developed economies where populations are in decline.
Educated women want less children for all sorts of sensible reasons.
Expectations of adult life are high. People don't want children or delay parenthood to allow for other possibilities.

It less developed economies the birth rate is still high. Logically in time it will fall if those countries can enjoy the advantages and opportunities of the west.
Lower birth rates are best for women.
The planet could do with less people in the longer term.
Perhaps immigration is not so bad after all. Whilst there is alot of hand wringing and worse about it the people coming in will stabilise numbers to an extent. And of course in this country highly educated and dedicated workers from outside of this country and entirely propping up health and social care across the NHS and private sector.

Yes, thats part of it. So we need to decrease the (exponentially increasing) tax burden of supporting an elderly population, and make life more affordable for younger generations.

We need ideally to drastically reduce the human population if we are to better manage earth's resources. So population decline is a good thing so long as at some point, ideally at a much lower level, it stabilises. And that it's not so rapid/uncontrolled/unmitigated for that it collapses civilisation.

Ideally, population stabilisation at the right level would not only be through having the right number of children, by also by extending the healthy human lifespan and reducing all causes of mortality - particularly amongst the young. That's the model for an advanced utopian society really.

The challenge right now is not population decline but demographic shift. That is, how do we continue to function and possibly even continue to advance (socially, morally not just technologically) with a declining, older population. Keeping people healthier and functioning for longer (as a priority over actual life extension) and ramping up the investment in all children to maximise their lifetime health, happiness and productivity are the obvious answers but sadly don't seem to be happening.

Worst case scenario outside of a mass extinction event which includes us (which hopefully becomes less likely with population decline) - is not that we die out, but that we lose our civilisation and are unable to restore it due to no repeat of the industrial/technological revolution because we have used all of the immediately available natural resources necessary. So get stuck at pre-industrial civilisation just in a partially ruined / less nice earth. To be fair I think a lot of people don't see that as a very bad thing but I do - I see it as a wasted opportunity to meet our potential. It would be condemning humanity to a lot of unnecessary suffering when the alternative could have been so much better. But maybe humanity simply doesn't have the potential that I hope it does to manage advanced technology responsibly.

well I guess its something else to guilt women about so that will make a change....I wonder if she has written a book? Well the RC church has tried it and so I believe did France. Honestly iIbelieve that the ship sailed with the increase of reliable birth control options for women's use including the MAP.

We have nearly a million NEETs in the UK (young people not in employment, education or training).

UK population has gone up massively over the last 20 years. We don't need to have more children, we don't need to import more people. We just need to get our own young people into productive work, for their benefit and everyone else's.

I think population decline is a fantastic thing. The world was never meant to hold 8 billion people.

And you started off so well!

Then I think thats fair enough. As I said, I think the view we need fewer humans is entirely valid but, unfortunately, too few seem willing to accept that it should come at even a mild inconvenience to them (or retirees, generally).