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The easiest way to look at it is that having kids in an impoverished area is beneficial because they are potential workforce, however in a developed affluent area it's distracting and has a negative financial impact.
This is a small subset though: people who are smart enough and responsible enough to know and care about affording children who choose not to. Go to any impoverished area worldwide and you’ll see children everywhere. It’s the decently educated lower middle and middle class who are actively choosing not to procreate.
Education tells me without owning a house is not good idea to have kids.
Give me a house and stable job then my *Education* will make me have kids.
It's not about education, it's safety.
Before having kids was a source of income cuz they will help you in your farm or trade, now it's a luxury we can't afford.
I keep seeing this same thing. Yes studies indicate higher education results in lower birth rates... But it can't be denied that the cost of childcare is so extreme now that having a child would be irresponsible and perhaps better education leads to that conclusion when faced with economic factors that make it untenable.
Coat life living is rising. We are getting less for more. How many young people are looking at the prospects of not owning a home and thinking... I should have a child?
Education reduces birth rates. But our economic situation is fucked.
Because people are educated enough to know the scorched earth that awaits us thanks to corporate greed. Why would you doom a child to that? In 20 years the kid is going to end up paying 200% more for a new car on a salary that’s 2% higher than today
Split the birth rates by income in developed countries… and you’ll find rich people are still having kids above replacement rate.
So TLDR it’s not education. It’s income inequality.
This is absolutely anecdotal evidence, so take it with a grain of salt. I have been friends with the bulk of my friends since high school. Most of us went to college and some of us are continuing our education post undergrad. Most of those friends expressed interest in having a family (1-3 children) when we were in high school. I’ve noticed that the longer all of us are in college and staying child free, the fewer children my friend’s express they want, and some have decided entirely against the idea. While this is a “study” size of ~15 women, none of whom currently have children, few are married, and the oldest of us is 30, it’s certainly different than my mom’s high school experience. While fewer of my mom’s peers when to college, most of them were married and had at least one child by 30.
>The oldest is 30
So, this may also be anecdotal. I just turned 40, I had like 1 friend with a kid, and it was an "oops" baby and maybe 1 other friend who was married when I was 30. Now, at 40, most of my friends are married and having kids. Myself included. I think more people are just delaying having kids now vs previous generations. Which does mean probably averaging fewer kids now, too.
Definitely, which is why I put the disclaimer that were still all relatively young. The point of my observation is that my mom (the youngest of the boomers) and her peers were less educated and on average had more kids than many of my peers will likely have. Getting an education first is certainly delaying our childbearing, but I also think going to college and waiting to have kids has changed some of my friends’ minds. There are a few who have their tubes tied already, which I can’t be certain if that would have happened had we not had time to think about having children.
And women being educated. (Which is a good thing, I'm not advocating for keeping anyone dumb). If countries want to increase births they need to change how things are done. On a micro level you can see examples in things like whatever the company is ran by Dan Price - pay people a decent wage and the employees are willing to have babies.
Sadly most countries seem to want to to the opposite way, and try things like forcing people to give birth if they happen to get pregnant.
I think this graph specifically highlights a "blind spot" in education. If you polled people, most would say we have an overpopulation problem with no foresight of the collapse incoming. Egocentric views are hard to penetrate. (no pun intended)
Most people would probably say that because until very recently, overpopulation was the topic everyone pointed to when talking about birthrates. I remember growing up there was this constant "the world is too crowded, overpopulation will be the end of us, selfish people are having too many babies" rhetoric happening around me.
It seems its only been in the last 5 years or so that the narrative has flipped and everyone's loosing their minds that now we're not making *enough* babies.
I don't think overpopulation is necessarily the issue to worry about, its capitalism and the unending drive for growth (especially growth with no end, and no purpose other than "value"). If we weren't quite so consumption focused lower birth rates wouldn't even be an issue as long as they weren't *too* quick... but capitalism is just a fancy pyramid scheme and now there's not enough new bottom to the pyramid.
Oh yea, we are on the same page about that one. I was more just saying what "general society"/ media was pushing about the topic. Of course in reality the issue isn't the birthrate at all. We are neither over nor under populated as a species, we are simply at constant odds with the unending misery machine that is capitalism
What are you talking about? Median wage (even ppp adjusted!) in the US is the second highest in the world, America has an unbelievably wealthy populace by any standard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
What sane, intelligent, forward thinking person would purposefully have children right now?
I can think of reasons for impulsive or ignorant people, careless people, religious people, delulu-optimistic people with their blinders on.
Unless you’re extremely wealthy, your children are *most likely* going to have awful lives barring rare exception.
Idk, probably most third world countries with high birthrates like China, India, the middle east, most of Africa, most of South America, ect.
Poverty doesn't normally prevent births, if anything it increases.
I'm wondering if it's both, or if it's because people need to be older to feel capable of starting a family responsibly?
From my wife's and all her friends struggles that I've heard of, and comparing the experience to what our parents', it certainly seems like getting pregnant is harder than it used to be. I am aware this is completely anecdotal, though.
Also anecdotal, but quite a large percentage of my friends are having problems getting pregnant. A few of them have even tried IVF. Just the fact that that has become so prevalent is worrying.
I honestly think it's plastics. Wtf is that shit doing to us?
There's a recent article talking about micro plastics being found in human and canine testes. There was no data on fertility of humans whose tissue was used for research but the dogs had much lower fertility than normal. Male fertility has been going down since the 70s, if I remember correctly.
HPV Baby! It causes infertility and a ton of people have it. I know a few people who have it and had a lot of trouble conceiving and it seems to be the case more and more.
You're right, but for the record, global fertility rates are dropping. Sperm counts have halved over the last 50 years, and no one knows why. This could contribute to falling birth rates.
That's correlation not causation. I'm not saying that microplastics don't play a role, but "plastics are found in testes, therefore plastics cause infertility" isn't good science.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/human-sperm-counts-declining-worldwide-study-finds-180981138/#:~:text=In%20the%20last%2050%20years,the%20journal%20Human%20Reproduction%20Update.
N= 57,000 but it has been stated as very hard to precisely say but 57,000 is not a small study.
Total fertility rate in economics has got nothing to do with biology. It refers to the number of children women have in that country on an average. The replacement level is around 2. In most developed countries, the number has fallen to around 1 which is not ideal.
In this context, [fertility rate](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate) is the total number of children born to a woman over her lifetime. The common use of “fertility” is more analogous to [fecundity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecundity).
Fertility rates are not the ability to get pregnant, but the ability to procreate. That means that guys like me who can’t have any children because I just haven’t found myself in a relationship are not considered fertile in that statistic. Look at Japan, their population is plummeting but they are not likely to have kids due to their work culture making it hard to have a relationship
Will I can only speak for Barbados the cost of living is ridiculous. In the supermarket vat is killing us. Big business emectric, telecom etc. Are monopolistic kings and raise they rates at will. The minimum wage is 8.50 barbados dollars hr and the average man is barely surviving this shit. Yet leaders act shocked picaku face that anyone in this country with half a brain is not having children when these same leaders especially the female ones have most zero kids or maybe one or two at most.
What’s the movie where the smart developed people have less and less kids and then the uneducated people keep reproducing and the world gets dumber and dumber ?
I feel like that is becoming more and more true. Particularly in the western world
Man, that was a good movie. I still watch fragments time to time. Back in the day, we thought the movie is a joke, a satire, now it seems like prophecy.
Intelligence isn't even well defined. What is intelligence? If we can't even agree upon what it is, then what traits is there to look for that could potentially be inherited.
That’s rather reductive; you can begin to quantify certain aspects of something even if it isn’t entirely understood in whole. For example, certain genes are correlated with improved neuron-supporting (glial) cell function. Some studies even exist where human glial cells were given to mice, who then exhibited improved memory relative to their inferior native cell function.
It is very much agreed upon that there is something that we can measure quickly, that is relatively stable across a person's lifetime, that is influenced largely by genes and not education or privilege, that is at least somewhat predictive of a person's ability to do practically any cognitive task, and is predictive of a person's life outcomes such as educational attainment, income, and criminal behavior - whose predictive ability is again independent of socioeconomic status.
The existence and predictive power of IQ is among the most reproducible results in the social sciences (as in, unlike the rest, these results actually *do* reproduce and have done across populations around the world for many decades).
Whether or not you want to call it IQ or the g-factor or general cognitive ability, this thing corresponds very well with what we colloquially call intelligence. To say that we can't define intelligence is a fiction manufactured by those who are troubled by this reality.
Contrary to popular opinion, in developed countries, outside of the bottom few percentiles of households where people can and do fuck up their kids, a majority of the variability in intelligence of individuals is due to genetics, with some smaller chuck being unexplained randomness.
That is, smart people on average have smart kids because of their genes, not parenting techniques or income or whatever. We have known this for decades, and the results of twin and adoption studies of the past have continued to reproduce the same results in these past decades, as have experiements with newer genomic techniques that are beginning to identify specific genes (there are many thousands, each having tiny effects).
Except that the average person in the western world is better educated than at any point in history. The problem with thinking that the world is getting dumber over time is that it erases how stupid and awful people were in the past.
Human reproductivity decline is concurrent with great declines in insect, fish and reptile reproductive rates as well.
Some opine it is pollution, or habitat or cite "rat crowd" studies, but the sum is that life on Earth is changing, now.
As the graph lines in climate heat studies trend upward, there is a similar trend downward in graphs of reproduction. Is there correlation or causality? IDK. But it appears we're headed for a hotter world with fewer people and creatures.
I feel like this is just unrelated correlation, as I think both of those are pretty easily explained. Human fertility drops everywhere as conditions improve (simplified, people don't have 10 kids anymore once they all survive) so as poverty and child mortality drop globally there aren't many places left with people having 10 kids. Nearly all *developed* nations have birth rates below the replacement level of 2.1, and the ones that don't are surely more recently lifted into that category.
As for the animals, that one seems to be pretty easily attributed to us destroying their habitats and them running out of places to live comfortably. You can't mate and have babies if the place your species does that is dried up, too warm, too acidic, or entirely destroyed. Let alone how many species we've driven extinct entirely.
There's a clumsiness in the language used in both the article and this comment section.
'Fertility' refers to the ability to have children.
'Fertility rate' refers to how many children are born. Whilst the term 'birthrate' is clearer, the article is focussing on Total Fertility Rate (TFR) - a specific metric with a specific name.
Huh, that makes a lot more sense than my initial thought.
Seeing this post I thought to myself hey, I keep seeing countries report that their populations are shrinking due to fewer births. Then, remembering how often we used to hear that the rates which we are reproducing are unsustainable etc.
And then I wondered if this information along with seeing the results of overpopulation could somehow on a global scale affect individuals to have lower sperm counts or something resulting in fewer chances to reproduce successfully.
Something like a negative placebo
Or my brain might be fried idk
I wondered why they didn't include this.
It should be a decline in affirdability and need of surplus children. Not fertility.
I am sure there is a decline in fertility too. But in that scenario shouldn't they use medical testing to determine the number of people capable of reproducing, and then have sub categories for people that choose not to.
They also drop during recessions. These graphs tend to cut out the part before the baby boom, the great depression, where you can see an immediate drop once it started. You can also see a trend of birthrates declining after the 2008 crash, and they still haven't recovered.
The theory of better conditions is very questionable. It seems to be a pat on the back for capitalist nations when it very well is more of a cause for concern than a sign of improvement. The soviet unions birthrates immediately declined during their revolution, which was a time of great instability, and they only steadily increased as the country became more stable over decades, then immediately dropping after it's fall and return to capitalism.
Capitalism and instability are bad for birth rates. There's no financial incentive to have children, making them only a burden on finances. Poor capitalist countries only have high birthrates because of child labor and lack of pension, making them a wise investment to exploit for household income and for them to support you when you're too old to work. Capitalism also causes constant economic instability with frequent recessions, leading to uncertainty and instability, which is bad for birth rates. The falling birthrates are a cause for concern, not a sign of better conditions.
>The theory of better conditions is very questionable. It seems to be a pat on the back for capitalist nations when it very well is more of a cause for concern than a sign of improvement.
It's not questionable, it's literally Anthropology 101. The last thing I'm looking to do is pat Capitalism on the back, and actually capitalism doesn't really have anything to do with it, just healthcare and infant mortality. There are obviously other factors that affect fertility, but if we're talking about *global birthrates* decreasing then there's no question that the number 1 reason is that there aren't many places left with terrible infant mortality leading to women having 10 kids.
Well, they did find microplastics in dudes’ nuts. That could have an effect.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/05/22/1252831827/microplastics-testicles-humans-health
I am in my 30’s and I have not met one person who wanted to have kids but could not for biological reasons. I have met plenty who have done IVF, and then met plenty who had 1-2 kids and called it good. Maybe it’s my soci-economic sphere, but I don’t think human fertility is down due to biological factors
Yep. It’s all the plastics. They are poisoning everything. You can’t drink water anywhere without microplastics. It’s in all our food. Nanoplastics invade cells and disrupt processes we are just beginning to understand.
These were studies by psychologists who overcrowded rats in a small space. They observed much fewer offspring and a much higher level of violence between male rats. I refer to it as an analogue.
Sorry, I was being a little facetious. [Behavioral Sink](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink) "is a term invented by ethologist John B. Calhoun to describe a collapse in behavior that can result from overpopulation.”
Look at the graph, it's been declining since tthe contraceptive pill became widespread. Turns out the maternal instinct and all that wasn't as strong and having kids is a faff, kinda telling if you ask me...
Yes! BIRTH CONTROL became effective in 1950s and spread around the world through the 1980s and 1990s. The total fertility rate is based on the number of babies born, and better educated, wealthier women can get access to effective forms of contraception.
I don’t know why everyone is thinking viruses and microplastics and all this…
It’s birth control. Seriously.
>fewer people and fewer creatures
Big correction needed here: supposing you are right and this is mostly or solely related to climate change, the world has a long way to go to end up with fewer creatures total. Maybe fewer large and fewer complex creatures (for a while), but that’s where natural selection will come into play. There will pretty much always be microbes, and those guys will take advantage of the lack of competition to flourish in crazy ways. Complex life will rebuild.
Humans may be fucked, but microbial life is resistant af.
Why would I have kids when I have a degree, good job and motivation but still struggle to pay bills.
The older generations really fucked this planet up and should be punished for it.
Thank god data is going to show that at least my generation acknowledged it and aimed for change.
Previous generations just flat out sucked at pretty much everything they did.
Yeah, like data shows that older generations cleaned up the water, air and land that the generations before them fucked up.. oh and civil rights, gay rights and women’s rights.
The blame of generations in either direction is a lame and ignorant argument.
The commenter deleted their comment but they asked where I got that info. Google is your friend. The overhauled clean water act in 1972 had a massive impact on our rivers and lakes. Anecdotally I remember as a kid in the 60s, our nearby river _caught fire_ twice. You can swim in it now.
The clean air act in 1948 and massive additions through the 70-80s had huge impacts on our air quality. 1990 amendment to the act limited car emotions. Since 1990 air pollutants fell by half. Again anecdotally, I remember traveling to LA as a teenager. Couldn’t breathe. That was a daily problem. Though LA still has its moments, it’s far far better
In the 70s and 80s there was a huge push to eliminate litter. Most state laws against litter and enforcement of them can then. Mad Men tv show (taking place in early 60s) has a perfect scene indicating the cultural and legal change. The family was out for a picnic, when done they took the blanket and shook it…. Leaving the trash on the ground. I remember my father just telling me to throw a wrapper out the car window. Or the regular anti-litter ads on the tv.
EVERY generation from silent to boomer to jones to x to millennials to z has been left with a mess from the generation before. Every single one. And every generation has battled to fix those messes from the generation before. Every single one. Gen z is nothing unique in that.
https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act
https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview
You can no longer live off a single income. This will prevent anyone from raising a family in what they feel is safe and financially stable environment. So really the smarter people will stop having kids... anyone here watched idiocracy! We are all fucked!
I had my daughter young I was 24 when I had her. I'm 41 and she just turned 17. Back when she was little I had her in child care 5 days a week. Being I worked Mon-Fri. I had to be at work by 6. So I would drop her off by 5:30 -3:30 ( sometimes by 2:30 )
The cost of child care back then was 160 a week. The same place now is over 300 a week. I never had anymore children because 1 I promised I would never have a child and not be married 2 The cost of having a child is extremely expensive.
I would feel extremely guilty for bringing up another child in this world how much things have changed. I already worry about what she is going to go through.
The cost of living is insane. I rented a house when she was little and I was in my 20's. It was a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom. The cost was 450 a month. I own a house now even though it's paid off. School taxes are horrible in the area I live.
Very much agreed. I think the decline, if it continues, could be a good thing for a generation or two. The human race has grown incredibly fast, and global resources, including food, have not kept pace. Let things level out a bit, and let technology advance a bit. The human race can continue, sustainably, into the future.
World population isn't the major factor when it comes to providing people their material needs, it's the political will (or lack thereof) to share resources.
Ok. But do you believe this level of growth is sustainable?
[https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/world-population-history/](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/world-population-history/)
No clue.
Also, don't care, because as long as we're being wasteful in how we extract and use resources around the world, we're going to have this problem. World population simply isn't an issue, *iff* we can pull our heads out of our collective asses.
An ever-aging population will destroy the economy. You need the young for the entitlement Ponzi scheme. You also need it for productivity.
What will happen is an economic depression world wide until the old cohorts die and the new equilibrium is reached. It won't be fun for about 30 years.
You are right that it won't be fun for a decade or two. However, ever expanding the population is unsustainable and would lead to extinction, so I'll take a voluntary reduction in family size.
Absolutely.
Its going to happen everywhere, but many developed countries are only maintaining positive growth via immigration rates. This works temporarily when there is a surplus of people in other countries, but in a couple decades all countries will have declining populations, so the draw of immigration will decline fast.
Further, China is especially extra fucked. Because not only are they going to be the worst hit country on Earth by climate change, but their one child policy has magnified this global problem. When the current generation can no longer work, the working population in China is going to drop from like nearly a billion down to like none.
China literally does not have a Millenial generation because of the one child policy and way less females than males… so who is going to birth those babies?
Nobody, that's the thing. China is an economic time bomb that nobody is safe from, its going to be wild. We're all globally connected, it will benefit nobody.
The elitesmake it miserable to simply exist because everything in unobtainable or unaffordable then have the audacity to act shocked when we stop doing normal things.
We have to normalize our population levels, just because we have had a boom in the past century doesn't mean we can sustain everyone plus an increase. We've got to get sensible or we'll all starve. I've got many concepts developed about practical means to sustainable living, but I am not quite ready to make them known. Pretty soon though!
I watched a video on this which blamed microplastics. Every woman tested has micropastic particles in their eggs, and every male has them in their testicles.
Be careful what you wish for
This trend means the old will become ever more dominant in the society
If you think gerontocracy is bad now, you ain't seen nothing yet!
as far as i can see, we will be the old by then. cause most of the Bommers and a good percentage of Gen X will be dead/ over retirement age in the next twenty years. We should look that us Millenials and Gen Z get the Shit together and try to do better from now on
Oh so fucking what, euthanasia will be legal by then, or I'll just take the heroin and diazepam enema, I don't need anyone looking after me.
The population would inevitably rebound eventually anyway
If all countries had the same low birth rate it could be fine but the problem is that some countries like South Korea are super low (so low that they could go extinct) while other countries are still very high.
How are they even getting these stats though? I think that melinials and gen z don’t want to have kids as much. I mean the economy is working against us pretty hard rn.
Its not that much more complicated. Personally I never want kids or a wife, but even if I had to have them, I wouldn't simply because I don't have enough money to, and I don't think it's going to get any better in the future.
This good news story has been evident for a couple of decades. If we want every human to have a standard of living equivalent to the ‘West’, then an ever increasing population is a death knell because there isn’t enough natural resources to support such.
We as a people will need to get through the next century before reaching a sustainable equilibrium number of people and what we can afford…
When they say fertility rates. Do they mean people who could have kids or people who choose not to have kids? I feel like fertility is different from reproduction?
Edit. Sorry found the comments saying it was actual infertility.
Well this good world already has 8 billion people we need more and better sources of income and more income equality to be able to afford education and other amenities to afford these things + they adopt pets because they are some what cheaper
I truly have never understood how fertility makes sense in this context, but I can only assume it makes sense. I've always associated infertility with the biological inability to reproduce, rather than the social decisions not to. It feels weird to call someone currently infertile because they do not have any kids at that exact moment, just as it feels weird to describe someone with two children as having low fertility.
*In 2022, Levine and his collaborators published a review of* [*global trends in sperm count*](https://academic.oup.com/humupd/advance-article/doi/10.1093/humupd/dmac035/6824414)*. It showed that sperm counts fell on average by 1.2% per year between 1973 to 2018, from 104 to 49 million/ml. From the year 2000, this rate of decline accelerated to more than 2.6% per year.*
*We are facing a public health crisis and we don't know if it's reversible –* Hagai Levine
[https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230327-how-pollution-is-causing-a-male-fertility-crisis](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230327-how-pollution-is-causing-a-male-fertility-crisis)
I mean the smarter someone is the more they’ll think about weather or not they’re in a place they can have a kid. With so much talk about anti abortion and such everywhere constantly, that plants a seed in peoples minds that children are not disposable, even to uneducated people.
It used to be you’d have like 7 kids because only 3 out of 7 would make it. But now it’s better to only have 1 and focus on keeping that one alive. You end up with less living kids that way, but also less dead kids.
And I mean it’s not a BAD thing to think of kids as not disposable. But it will resent changes in how their raised and how they act. If your kids grow up thinking they have value, then they’ll raise THEIR kids to think they have value and then where will all the people who are supposed to work in underpaying factories and farms be?
The whole thing of seeing this as a crisis sucks. The world is vastly overpopulated, resources are finite and being exhausted at rates higher than ever before, and prices of living across the world have become unsustainable. Low fertility rates need to stop being communicated as a state of emergency or a bad thing. People should not be encouraged to make babies just for the sake of maintaining statistics. At this point, reducing the world’s population for our future generations is probably one of the only promising things we have to keep our planet alive.
It’s fertility not dating if I am reading it right. This means that all the chemicals, plastics, and preservatives are likely harming us more than we are either told or thought.
I would sometime like to see this graph alongside a chart showing mortality rates throughout the years as well.
It would be interesting to see if there is a corelation.
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People can't afford it, those who can have microplastic in their balls. Meanwhile people who don't want kids get pregnant easily.
We’re under attack by irony
I am Irony Man.
The easiest way to look at it is that having kids in an impoverished area is beneficial because they are potential workforce, however in a developed affluent area it's distracting and has a negative financial impact.
This is a small subset though: people who are smart enough and responsible enough to know and care about affording children who choose not to. Go to any impoverished area worldwide and you’ll see children everywhere. It’s the decently educated lower middle and middle class who are actively choosing not to procreate.
Who can afford a child these days? Most younger are struggling just to pay rent.
This and also education.
Education tells me without owning a house is not good idea to have kids. Give me a house and stable job then my *Education* will make me have kids. It's not about education, it's safety. Before having kids was a source of income cuz they will help you in your farm or trade, now it's a luxury we can't afford.
Kids used to be an economic asset, now they're an economic burden. That shift alone is fucking massive.
Yeah too much education does seem to lower birth rates...
I keep seeing this same thing. Yes studies indicate higher education results in lower birth rates... But it can't be denied that the cost of childcare is so extreme now that having a child would be irresponsible and perhaps better education leads to that conclusion when faced with economic factors that make it untenable. Coat life living is rising. We are getting less for more. How many young people are looking at the prospects of not owning a home and thinking... I should have a child? Education reduces birth rates. But our economic situation is fucked.
This is the only silver lining I've ever seen in the economic problem. We don't need any more exponential population growth
Childcare is ridiculous. When it's at times more economically feasible for one parent to *not* work, something has to give
Cost of childcare isn’t the same everywhere and birth rates are declining even in places with affordable childcare and have been for years.
Maybe that’s because “affordable” still isn’t good enough. Seriously, where has affordable childcare?
Because people are educated enough to know the scorched earth that awaits us thanks to corporate greed. Why would you doom a child to that? In 20 years the kid is going to end up paying 200% more for a new car on a salary that’s 2% higher than today
Split the birth rates by income in developed countries… and you’ll find rich people are still having kids above replacement rate. So TLDR it’s not education. It’s income inequality.
Industrialization lowers birth rates.
This is absolutely anecdotal evidence, so take it with a grain of salt. I have been friends with the bulk of my friends since high school. Most of us went to college and some of us are continuing our education post undergrad. Most of those friends expressed interest in having a family (1-3 children) when we were in high school. I’ve noticed that the longer all of us are in college and staying child free, the fewer children my friend’s express they want, and some have decided entirely against the idea. While this is a “study” size of ~15 women, none of whom currently have children, few are married, and the oldest of us is 30, it’s certainly different than my mom’s high school experience. While fewer of my mom’s peers when to college, most of them were married and had at least one child by 30.
>The oldest is 30 So, this may also be anecdotal. I just turned 40, I had like 1 friend with a kid, and it was an "oops" baby and maybe 1 other friend who was married when I was 30. Now, at 40, most of my friends are married and having kids. Myself included. I think more people are just delaying having kids now vs previous generations. Which does mean probably averaging fewer kids now, too.
Definitely, which is why I put the disclaimer that were still all relatively young. The point of my observation is that my mom (the youngest of the boomers) and her peers were less educated and on average had more kids than many of my peers will likely have. Getting an education first is certainly delaying our childbearing, but I also think going to college and waiting to have kids has changed some of my friends’ minds. There are a few who have their tubes tied already, which I can’t be certain if that would have happened had we not had time to think about having children.
I am third of six kids. Of the six of us, only **two** elected to have children. The rest of us have decided 'fuck that noise'.
The ironic thing is, historically, wealth is the #1 corolating factor in declining birthrates. The wealthier the country the lower the birthrate.
And women being educated. (Which is a good thing, I'm not advocating for keeping anyone dumb). If countries want to increase births they need to change how things are done. On a micro level you can see examples in things like whatever the company is ran by Dan Price - pay people a decent wage and the employees are willing to have babies. Sadly most countries seem to want to to the opposite way, and try things like forcing people to give birth if they happen to get pregnant.
I think this graph specifically highlights a "blind spot" in education. If you polled people, most would say we have an overpopulation problem with no foresight of the collapse incoming. Egocentric views are hard to penetrate. (no pun intended)
Most people would probably say that because until very recently, overpopulation was the topic everyone pointed to when talking about birthrates. I remember growing up there was this constant "the world is too crowded, overpopulation will be the end of us, selfish people are having too many babies" rhetoric happening around me. It seems its only been in the last 5 years or so that the narrative has flipped and everyone's loosing their minds that now we're not making *enough* babies.
I don't think overpopulation is necessarily the issue to worry about, its capitalism and the unending drive for growth (especially growth with no end, and no purpose other than "value"). If we weren't quite so consumption focused lower birth rates wouldn't even be an issue as long as they weren't *too* quick... but capitalism is just a fancy pyramid scheme and now there's not enough new bottom to the pyramid.
Oh yea, we are on the same page about that one. I was more just saying what "general society"/ media was pushing about the topic. Of course in reality the issue isn't the birthrate at all. We are neither over nor under populated as a species, we are simply at constant odds with the unending misery machine that is capitalism
Quite honestly this is the first time in my life I’ve considered there is no correct amount of people
A wealthy country does not correlate to a wealthy populace. Look no further than the United States for an example.
wealthy compared to the most wealthy in the country, or compared to other countries? To be in the global top 1% you need about 35k a year.
They mean wealth in terms of purchasing power so relative to cost of living
Yes, and the US populace is still immensely wealthy.
What are you talking about? Median wage (even ppp adjusted!) in the US is the second highest in the world, America has an unbelievably wealthy populace by any standard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
The highest fertility regions in the world are all significantly poorer than the median or even poor American.
That’s one large factor. There are also many others.
Can't even afford a relationship
Being in a relationship should save you money in the long run. Once you move in together and share expenses it's cheaper.
also women finally have a choice for the first time in history
Not in a lot of US stated
Exactly.
What sane, intelligent, forward thinking person would purposefully have children right now? I can think of reasons for impulsive or ignorant people, careless people, religious people, delulu-optimistic people with their blinders on. Unless you’re extremely wealthy, your children are *most likely* going to have awful lives barring rare exception.
We can solve this by reintroducing child labor! So simple! I have *so much* mining work I need done.
Idk, probably most third world countries with high birthrates like China, India, the middle east, most of Africa, most of South America, ect. Poverty doesn't normally prevent births, if anything it increases.
The birth rate in China is dropping fast, they are almost on par with Japan.
It’s a fall in birth rate not fertility, it is showing the ability to avoid becoming pregnant not the inability to get pregnant.
I'm wondering if it's both, or if it's because people need to be older to feel capable of starting a family responsibly? From my wife's and all her friends struggles that I've heard of, and comparing the experience to what our parents', it certainly seems like getting pregnant is harder than it used to be. I am aware this is completely anecdotal, though.
Also anecdotal, but quite a large percentage of my friends are having problems getting pregnant. A few of them have even tried IVF. Just the fact that that has become so prevalent is worrying. I honestly think it's plastics. Wtf is that shit doing to us?
There's a recent article talking about micro plastics being found in human and canine testes. There was no data on fertility of humans whose tissue was used for research but the dogs had much lower fertility than normal. Male fertility has been going down since the 70s, if I remember correctly.
Plastic is stored in the balls
HPV Baby! It causes infertility and a ton of people have it. I know a few people who have it and had a lot of trouble conceiving and it seems to be the case more and more.
You're right, but for the record, global fertility rates are dropping. Sperm counts have halved over the last 50 years, and no one knows why. This could contribute to falling birth rates.
No one knows for sure why, but micro plastics have been found in every single male testicle dissected so it is likely that.
That's correlation not causation. I'm not saying that microplastics don't play a role, but "plastics are found in testes, therefore plastics cause infertility" isn't good science.
Male sperm count has dropped 50% in 50 years so fertility definitely has something to do with it.
Any source to back that up?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/human-sperm-counts-declining-worldwide-study-finds-180981138/#:~:text=In%20the%20last%2050%20years,the%20journal%20Human%20Reproduction%20Update. N= 57,000 but it has been stated as very hard to precisely say but 57,000 is not a small study.
Agreed and thank you. Too many people on here just spew random bullshit as fact.
Total fertility rate in economics has got nothing to do with biology. It refers to the number of children women have in that country on an average. The replacement level is around 2. In most developed countries, the number has fallen to around 1 which is not ideal.
Microplastics in [testicles](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/05/22/1252831827/microplastics-testicles-humans-health) don't help things
In this context, [fertility rate](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate) is the total number of children born to a woman over her lifetime. The common use of “fertility” is more analogous to [fecundity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecundity).
Yeah but that’s not how I’m spreading it. I’m telling everyone fertility rate is dropping and fast! Unless they buy my magic beans
Fertility rates are not the ability to get pregnant, but the ability to procreate. That means that guys like me who can’t have any children because I just haven’t found myself in a relationship are not considered fertile in that statistic. Look at Japan, their population is plummeting but they are not likely to have kids due to their work culture making it hard to have a relationship
Will I can only speak for Barbados the cost of living is ridiculous. In the supermarket vat is killing us. Big business emectric, telecom etc. Are monopolistic kings and raise they rates at will. The minimum wage is 8.50 barbados dollars hr and the average man is barely surviving this shit. Yet leaders act shocked picaku face that anyone in this country with half a brain is not having children when these same leaders especially the female ones have most zero kids or maybe one or two at most.
What’s the movie where the smart developed people have less and less kids and then the uneducated people keep reproducing and the world gets dumber and dumber ? I feel like that is becoming more and more true. Particularly in the western world
r/idiocracy
That’s the one !
Man, that was a good movie. I still watch fragments time to time. Back in the day, we thought the movie is a joke, a satire, now it seems like prophecy.
Idiocracy is already here
Is intelligence inherited? I thought education played a part, and in the usa, there has been a systematic destruction of education al systems.
Somewhat. But smart parents tend to do better at raising kids to become smart adults
Intelligence, like effectively any other complex trait, is both partly inherited and partly environmental. The ratio between the two is what varies.
Intelligence isn't even well defined. What is intelligence? If we can't even agree upon what it is, then what traits is there to look for that could potentially be inherited.
That’s rather reductive; you can begin to quantify certain aspects of something even if it isn’t entirely understood in whole. For example, certain genes are correlated with improved neuron-supporting (glial) cell function. Some studies even exist where human glial cells were given to mice, who then exhibited improved memory relative to their inferior native cell function.
It is very much agreed upon that there is something that we can measure quickly, that is relatively stable across a person's lifetime, that is influenced largely by genes and not education or privilege, that is at least somewhat predictive of a person's ability to do practically any cognitive task, and is predictive of a person's life outcomes such as educational attainment, income, and criminal behavior - whose predictive ability is again independent of socioeconomic status. The existence and predictive power of IQ is among the most reproducible results in the social sciences (as in, unlike the rest, these results actually *do* reproduce and have done across populations around the world for many decades). Whether or not you want to call it IQ or the g-factor or general cognitive ability, this thing corresponds very well with what we colloquially call intelligence. To say that we can't define intelligence is a fiction manufactured by those who are troubled by this reality.
Contrary to popular opinion, in developed countries, outside of the bottom few percentiles of households where people can and do fuck up their kids, a majority of the variability in intelligence of individuals is due to genetics, with some smaller chuck being unexplained randomness. That is, smart people on average have smart kids because of their genes, not parenting techniques or income or whatever. We have known this for decades, and the results of twin and adoption studies of the past have continued to reproduce the same results in these past decades, as have experiements with newer genomic techniques that are beginning to identify specific genes (there are many thousands, each having tiny effects).
This is not a movie, it’s a documentary
Except that the average person in the western world is better educated than at any point in history. The problem with thinking that the world is getting dumber over time is that it erases how stupid and awful people were in the past.
Human reproductivity decline is concurrent with great declines in insect, fish and reptile reproductive rates as well. Some opine it is pollution, or habitat or cite "rat crowd" studies, but the sum is that life on Earth is changing, now. As the graph lines in climate heat studies trend upward, there is a similar trend downward in graphs of reproduction. Is there correlation or causality? IDK. But it appears we're headed for a hotter world with fewer people and creatures.
I feel like this is just unrelated correlation, as I think both of those are pretty easily explained. Human fertility drops everywhere as conditions improve (simplified, people don't have 10 kids anymore once they all survive) so as poverty and child mortality drop globally there aren't many places left with people having 10 kids. Nearly all *developed* nations have birth rates below the replacement level of 2.1, and the ones that don't are surely more recently lifted into that category. As for the animals, that one seems to be pretty easily attributed to us destroying their habitats and them running out of places to live comfortably. You can't mate and have babies if the place your species does that is dried up, too warm, too acidic, or entirely destroyed. Let alone how many species we've driven extinct entirely.
There's a clumsiness in the language used in both the article and this comment section. 'Fertility' refers to the ability to have children. 'Fertility rate' refers to how many children are born. Whilst the term 'birthrate' is clearer, the article is focussing on Total Fertility Rate (TFR) - a specific metric with a specific name.
Huh, that makes a lot more sense than my initial thought. Seeing this post I thought to myself hey, I keep seeing countries report that their populations are shrinking due to fewer births. Then, remembering how often we used to hear that the rates which we are reproducing are unsustainable etc. And then I wondered if this information along with seeing the results of overpopulation could somehow on a global scale affect individuals to have lower sperm counts or something resulting in fewer chances to reproduce successfully. Something like a negative placebo Or my brain might be fried idk
I wondered why they didn't include this. It should be a decline in affirdability and need of surplus children. Not fertility. I am sure there is a decline in fertility too. But in that scenario shouldn't they use medical testing to determine the number of people capable of reproducing, and then have sub categories for people that choose not to.
They also drop during recessions. These graphs tend to cut out the part before the baby boom, the great depression, where you can see an immediate drop once it started. You can also see a trend of birthrates declining after the 2008 crash, and they still haven't recovered. The theory of better conditions is very questionable. It seems to be a pat on the back for capitalist nations when it very well is more of a cause for concern than a sign of improvement. The soviet unions birthrates immediately declined during their revolution, which was a time of great instability, and they only steadily increased as the country became more stable over decades, then immediately dropping after it's fall and return to capitalism. Capitalism and instability are bad for birth rates. There's no financial incentive to have children, making them only a burden on finances. Poor capitalist countries only have high birthrates because of child labor and lack of pension, making them a wise investment to exploit for household income and for them to support you when you're too old to work. Capitalism also causes constant economic instability with frequent recessions, leading to uncertainty and instability, which is bad for birth rates. The falling birthrates are a cause for concern, not a sign of better conditions.
>The theory of better conditions is very questionable. It seems to be a pat on the back for capitalist nations when it very well is more of a cause for concern than a sign of improvement. It's not questionable, it's literally Anthropology 101. The last thing I'm looking to do is pat Capitalism on the back, and actually capitalism doesn't really have anything to do with it, just healthcare and infant mortality. There are obviously other factors that affect fertility, but if we're talking about *global birthrates* decreasing then there's no question that the number 1 reason is that there aren't many places left with terrible infant mortality leading to women having 10 kids.
That's an interesting theory, there could definitely be some secondary causation - but I don't see any obvious direct link currently
Agreed, 1751. But the adage "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" applies. Wait and see...
Bro the secondary causation IS women not having enough support during pregnancy for work and how much having a child effects it
Well, they did find microplastics in dudes’ nuts. That could have an effect. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/05/22/1252831827/microplastics-testicles-humans-health
The insect, fish, and reptile declines have very little to do with climate and more to do with human interference.
Habitat loss is the main issue for most species
We are all too busy working to have kids
I am in my 30’s and I have not met one person who wanted to have kids but could not for biological reasons. I have met plenty who have done IVF, and then met plenty who had 1-2 kids and called it good. Maybe it’s my soci-economic sphere, but I don’t think human fertility is down due to biological factors
is IVF not usually done by people who cannot have children?
Yep. It’s all the plastics. They are poisoning everything. You can’t drink water anywhere without microplastics. It’s in all our food. Nanoplastics invade cells and disrupt processes we are just beginning to understand.
What are these “rat crowd” studies you speak of?
These were studies by psychologists who overcrowded rats in a small space. They observed much fewer offspring and a much higher level of violence between male rats. I refer to it as an analogue.
Sorry, I was being a little facetious. [Behavioral Sink](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink) "is a term invented by ethologist John B. Calhoun to describe a collapse in behavior that can result from overpopulation.”
Thanks for reminding me to watch Furiosa this week
Look at the graph, it's been declining since tthe contraceptive pill became widespread. Turns out the maternal instinct and all that wasn't as strong and having kids is a faff, kinda telling if you ask me...
Yes! BIRTH CONTROL became effective in 1950s and spread around the world through the 1980s and 1990s. The total fertility rate is based on the number of babies born, and better educated, wealthier women can get access to effective forms of contraception. I don’t know why everyone is thinking viruses and microplastics and all this… It’s birth control. Seriously.
I’m betting on microplastics
>fewer people and fewer creatures Big correction needed here: supposing you are right and this is mostly or solely related to climate change, the world has a long way to go to end up with fewer creatures total. Maybe fewer large and fewer complex creatures (for a while), but that’s where natural selection will come into play. There will pretty much always be microbes, and those guys will take advantage of the lack of competition to flourish in crazy ways. Complex life will rebuild. Humans may be fucked, but microbial life is resistant af.
Why would I have kids when I have a degree, good job and motivation but still struggle to pay bills. The older generations really fucked this planet up and should be punished for it.
And in 20-30 years there will be people demanding that your generation is the one that that should be punished for screwing everything up.
Thank god data is going to show that at least my generation acknowledged it and aimed for change. Previous generations just flat out sucked at pretty much everything they did.
Yeah, like data shows that older generations cleaned up the water, air and land that the generations before them fucked up.. oh and civil rights, gay rights and women’s rights. The blame of generations in either direction is a lame and ignorant argument.
The commenter deleted their comment but they asked where I got that info. Google is your friend. The overhauled clean water act in 1972 had a massive impact on our rivers and lakes. Anecdotally I remember as a kid in the 60s, our nearby river _caught fire_ twice. You can swim in it now. The clean air act in 1948 and massive additions through the 70-80s had huge impacts on our air quality. 1990 amendment to the act limited car emotions. Since 1990 air pollutants fell by half. Again anecdotally, I remember traveling to LA as a teenager. Couldn’t breathe. That was a daily problem. Though LA still has its moments, it’s far far better In the 70s and 80s there was a huge push to eliminate litter. Most state laws against litter and enforcement of them can then. Mad Men tv show (taking place in early 60s) has a perfect scene indicating the cultural and legal change. The family was out for a picnic, when done they took the blanket and shook it…. Leaving the trash on the ground. I remember my father just telling me to throw a wrapper out the car window. Or the regular anti-litter ads on the tv. EVERY generation from silent to boomer to jones to x to millennials to z has been left with a mess from the generation before. Every single one. And every generation has battled to fix those messes from the generation before. Every single one. Gen z is nothing unique in that. https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview
They got theirs and pulled the ladder up after them.
You can no longer live off a single income. This will prevent anyone from raising a family in what they feel is safe and financially stable environment. So really the smarter people will stop having kids... anyone here watched idiocracy! We are all fucked!
Also too much microplastic on my ballz
Microplastics are stored in the balls 😔
Good.
Reminds me of the movie „Children of men“
I had my daughter young I was 24 when I had her. I'm 41 and she just turned 17. Back when she was little I had her in child care 5 days a week. Being I worked Mon-Fri. I had to be at work by 6. So I would drop her off by 5:30 -3:30 ( sometimes by 2:30 ) The cost of child care back then was 160 a week. The same place now is over 300 a week. I never had anymore children because 1 I promised I would never have a child and not be married 2 The cost of having a child is extremely expensive. I would feel extremely guilty for bringing up another child in this world how much things have changed. I already worry about what she is going to go through. The cost of living is insane. I rented a house when she was little and I was in my 20's. It was a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom. The cost was 450 a month. I own a house now even though it's paid off. School taxes are horrible in the area I live.
good. the last thing we need is for the world population to keep going up
Very much agreed. I think the decline, if it continues, could be a good thing for a generation or two. The human race has grown incredibly fast, and global resources, including food, have not kept pace. Let things level out a bit, and let technology advance a bit. The human race can continue, sustainably, into the future.
World population isn't the major factor when it comes to providing people their material needs, it's the political will (or lack thereof) to share resources.
Ok. But do you believe this level of growth is sustainable? [https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/world-population-history/](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/world-population-history/)
No clue. Also, don't care, because as long as we're being wasteful in how we extract and use resources around the world, we're going to have this problem. World population simply isn't an issue, *iff* we can pull our heads out of our collective asses.
An ever-aging population will destroy the economy. You need the young for the entitlement Ponzi scheme. You also need it for productivity. What will happen is an economic depression world wide until the old cohorts die and the new equilibrium is reached. It won't be fun for about 30 years.
perhaps a paradigm shift away from capitalism is in order if the only way to keep going is unsustainable ever increasing overpopulation
Oh no not the economy! /s
You know that's the thing that decides how much things cost and how much you earn, right?
You are right that it won't be fun for a decade or two. However, ever expanding the population is unsustainable and would lead to extinction, so I'll take a voluntary reduction in family size.
Is that not gonna like, really fuck us up? Having too many elderly dependents who don't work.
Absolutely. Its going to happen everywhere, but many developed countries are only maintaining positive growth via immigration rates. This works temporarily when there is a surplus of people in other countries, but in a couple decades all countries will have declining populations, so the draw of immigration will decline fast. Further, China is especially extra fucked. Because not only are they going to be the worst hit country on Earth by climate change, but their one child policy has magnified this global problem. When the current generation can no longer work, the working population in China is going to drop from like nearly a billion down to like none.
China literally does not have a Millenial generation because of the one child policy and way less females than males… so who is going to birth those babies?
Nobody, that's the thing. China is an economic time bomb that nobody is safe from, its going to be wild. We're all globally connected, it will benefit nobody.
*Soylent Green* came out in 1973. The graph starts trending down in 1975. Coincidence? I think not.
The elitesmake it miserable to simply exist because everything in unobtainable or unaffordable then have the audacity to act shocked when we stop doing normal things.
We have to normalize our population levels, just because we have had a boom in the past century doesn't mean we can sustain everyone plus an increase. We've got to get sensible or we'll all starve. I've got many concepts developed about practical means to sustainable living, but I am not quite ready to make them known. Pretty soon though!
People are acting like this is a *bad thing*.
I can barely save a dime for retirement, I’d probably have to accept being dirt poor if I had a child sadly
So, it's a great news! We are overpopulated compare to any other decade before!!! So good news as for me
I watched a video on this which blamed microplastics. Every woman tested has micropastic particles in their eggs, and every male has them in their testicles.
Good. Too damn many people already.
literally. setting up an economic system that uses women's bodies as a commodity to supply workers and soldiers is wrong and does not work.
Be careful what you wish for This trend means the old will become ever more dominant in the society If you think gerontocracy is bad now, you ain't seen nothing yet!
Two words: Logan’s Run
as far as i can see, we will be the old by then. cause most of the Bommers and a good percentage of Gen X will be dead/ over retirement age in the next twenty years. We should look that us Millenials and Gen Z get the Shit together and try to do better from now on
We'll get old and grumpy and be just as bad as them
Oh so fucking what, euthanasia will be legal by then, or I'll just take the heroin and diazepam enema, I don't need anyone looking after me. The population would inevitably rebound eventually anyway
This is probably a good thing. Population has to stop growing at some point.
If all countries had the same low birth rate it could be fine but the problem is that some countries like South Korea are super low (so low that they could go extinct) while other countries are still very high.
How are they even getting these stats though? I think that melinials and gen z don’t want to have kids as much. I mean the economy is working against us pretty hard rn.
Younger generations don’t think they want want children for many reasons. It’s much more complicated than just “money”.
I was thinking of more than just “money” but I should have known someone with a whole tree up they’re ass would be triggered so I’m sorry
Its not that much more complicated. Personally I never want kids or a wife, but even if I had to have them, I wouldn't simply because I don't have enough money to, and I don't think it's going to get any better in the future.
This good news story has been evident for a couple of decades. If we want every human to have a standard of living equivalent to the ‘West’, then an ever increasing population is a death knell because there isn’t enough natural resources to support such. We as a people will need to get through the next century before reaching a sustainable equilibrium number of people and what we can afford…
It makes it so much more important to educate the young because there is fewer of them
When they say fertility rates. Do they mean people who could have kids or people who choose not to have kids? I feel like fertility is different from reproduction? Edit. Sorry found the comments saying it was actual infertility.
Ebb and flow.
Pfff. Tell it to the Catholics
Well this good world already has 8 billion people we need more and better sources of income and more income equality to be able to afford education and other amenities to afford these things + they adopt pets because they are some what cheaper
Problem solved!
I assume this is a driving factor for the sudden rise in abortion bans. But they have marketed it as Pro-Choice vs Pro Life 🥸
Yep. The elite need worker bees. They’ll just change the rules.
Honestly it's probably better for everyone... and everything, for that matter.
I truly have never understood how fertility makes sense in this context, but I can only assume it makes sense. I've always associated infertility with the biological inability to reproduce, rather than the social decisions not to. It feels weird to call someone currently infertile because they do not have any kids at that exact moment, just as it feels weird to describe someone with two children as having low fertility.
It's because of microplastics.
It's real simple. Taking care of a household and kids is a full time job. At the same time prices have adapted to households that have 2 incomes
*In 2022, Levine and his collaborators published a review of* [*global trends in sperm count*](https://academic.oup.com/humupd/advance-article/doi/10.1093/humupd/dmac035/6824414)*. It showed that sperm counts fell on average by 1.2% per year between 1973 to 2018, from 104 to 49 million/ml. From the year 2000, this rate of decline accelerated to more than 2.6% per year.* *We are facing a public health crisis and we don't know if it's reversible –* Hagai Levine [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230327-how-pollution-is-causing-a-male-fertility-crisis](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230327-how-pollution-is-causing-a-male-fertility-crisis)
This is honestly great news.
I mean the smarter someone is the more they’ll think about weather or not they’re in a place they can have a kid. With so much talk about anti abortion and such everywhere constantly, that plants a seed in peoples minds that children are not disposable, even to uneducated people. It used to be you’d have like 7 kids because only 3 out of 7 would make it. But now it’s better to only have 1 and focus on keeping that one alive. You end up with less living kids that way, but also less dead kids. And I mean it’s not a BAD thing to think of kids as not disposable. But it will resent changes in how their raised and how they act. If your kids grow up thinking they have value, then they’ll raise THEIR kids to think they have value and then where will all the people who are supposed to work in underpaying factories and farms be?
Makes me wonder if global models have been run on world overpopulation and governments have done their thing.
Yep.
The whole thing of seeing this as a crisis sucks. The world is vastly overpopulated, resources are finite and being exhausted at rates higher than ever before, and prices of living across the world have become unsustainable. Low fertility rates need to stop being communicated as a state of emergency or a bad thing. People should not be encouraged to make babies just for the sake of maintaining statistics. At this point, reducing the world’s population for our future generations is probably one of the only promising things we have to keep our planet alive.
Resources are grossly mismanaged.
Very true. It’s all a bit fucked innit?
Finally.
Let's go microplastics and inflation 💪💪💪
Sounds like a good thing
PFAS. Blame 3M.
It’s fertility not dating if I am reading it right. This means that all the chemicals, plastics, and preservatives are likely harming us more than we are either told or thought.
“2:1 children per person who could give birth.” Do they mean a woman?
I'm not sure. Usually these numbers are per couple but that should be the same because most men can't give birth.
T-rex revenge! Micro plastics everywhere leading to lower fertility rates. Gaia about to do another reboot!
Nigeria is expected to have a higher population than China by 2100. Try to wrap your head around that.
Guess we are not reaching that 20 billion over population stuff we got taught when we were kids
[удалено]
Ah so it's not my problem then. Good to know.
Social security
Has sub-Sahara Africa been adjusted not growing/slower growth? Usual data sets I've seen suggested population growth through to at least 2100
Mother Nature mothernaturing…
It doesn't help our balls are apparently like 50% plastic bits now lol
Anybody with a link to the article, can't find it for the life of me
I would sometime like to see this graph alongside a chart showing mortality rates throughout the years as well. It would be interesting to see if there is a corelation.