Global fertility isn't just declining, it's collapsing

To be honest I live in one of the most pampered eras doing the cushiest job from home. But even so I dont understand how people motivate themselves to make children, especially if they have a 1-2 hour commute and are forced by debt to take on shittier jobs than mine (probably 99% of jobs out there). Why even do this for 60 years and also condemn your kids to the same thing? It might seem like bragging but I basically won the game and I dont see anything worth it up here. I guess the struggle is what gives you meaning or something and children can be your cope because they will have a better life than yours if yours sucks.

Why does the global population need to grow? What is wrong with only having 9 billion people instead of 10 billion?

Am I the only one seeing the intricate relationship between population growth and the housing market? When the population grows, the housing price increases, and at some point it becomes too difficult for young couples to have extra rooms to raise kids (many still live with their parents). When the population decreases or collapses, the housing market crashes, and then, one or two generations later, the population increases again. The thing is that we've been accustomed to a quick and unprecedented population growth since the end of WW2, and the housing market of big cities are reaching its limits all over the world. My take is that it won't be a problem, au contraire, the population will stabilize around 10B, and this is a good thing on many dimensions. Think about it.

As the trend continues the book children of men becomes more and more prescient.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;The_Children_of_Men" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;The_Children_of_Men</a>

So, looks like the &quot;problem&quot; is that by 2080 we&#x27;ll be back to the same global population we have now? Perhaps that&#x27;s good news, we&#x27;ll have to learn how to live sustainably instead of basing everything on constant growth.<p>Also, global surface temperature will probably be around 2°C higher, sea levels will have risen maybe a metre, and we&#x27;ll have been really lucky if large portions of the planet aren&#x27;t a nuclear wasteland by then. At least we won&#x27;t have to worry about overpopulation!

I&#x27;m not sure why this gets flagged, because it&#x27;s very interesting and concerns all of us.<p>I think it&#x27;s great, in my mind, there&#x27;s too many people on the planet already, and we&#x27;re stressing the biospehere near the breaking point in multiple ways.<p>9-10 billion people is plenty. This news is a welcome bit of good news in an otherwise scary future.

So at what point can we point at the few percent that are stacking wealth while the rest is too busy surviving to keep the species alive? I&#x27;m ready.<p>My wife and I make good money, by no means riches, and I&#x27;m all but done with the idea of trying for a second child. I don&#x27;t even know how to take care of the first one if things keep getting shitter at this pace.

&gt; There were 134 million babies born in 2023.<p>&gt; There were 61 million people who died in 2023.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ourworldindata.org&#x2F;births-and-deaths">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ourworldindata.org&#x2F;births-and-deaths</a>

It&#x27;s not everywhere. North Korea has higher fertility than South Korea, for instance. See population pyramids:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Demographics_of_South_Korea" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Demographics_of_South_Korea</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Demographics_of_North_Korea" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Demographics_of_North_Korea</a>

Why should we care? We can supplement a new tax base with removal of the border. I won&#x27;t fall for the nationalist trap that, &quot;my people being born on soil is magically better than people from over seas&quot;. Its never made sense to me why we need more children. Additionally we probably need a degrowth mindset in general in order to combat over consumption, and man-made climate change.

Is fertility being conflated with birthrate &#x2F; desire or ability to have kids? I do believe fertility is declining due to environmental factors (pesticides, seed oils, etc) and autism is spiking out of control ... but I also think that a lot of younger generations are just choosing not to have children.

I can’t help but to think about the Population Bomb hysteria. This time in reverse!

Just a remark about birth rate *85 method: the author isn&#x27;t taking into account that women are having children later.<p>Sadly real fertility statistics are doomed to be late by 40 years, which is way too late, so we have to be satisfied by birthrate, but if I had to calculate the real fertility rate of a country, I would take the number of children per infertile women over 16 or something like that.<p>Its not political, I&#x27;m not saying anybody&#x27;s right or wrong, I just wanted to geek on fertility statistics

To clarify for myself… humans aren’t losing the physical capacity to reproduce? It’s that we aren’t reproducing as much due to choice&#x2F;circumstance?

&quot;Birth rate&quot; probably would have been the better term to use in the article title if you ask me, but then I suppose it wouldn&#x27;t have the whole alarmist children of men angle behind it.

That&#x27;s the same thing.

Finally some good news!

Interested to know the following: 1) The delta change over time for the regions. As countries with typically larger familes have access to better healthcare, it should have increased. 2) the delta change for countries plotted with covid vaccination acceptance.

OK and ?

In the US, having kids is for the top 1% who can afford it or the bottom 5% who have always been poor.<p>Want to fix this in the US? Offer stable child-rearing families FREE housing, and I mean in decent neighborhoods. I don&#x27;t mean a stipend or low-interest loan, I mean FREE including utilities, maintenance and property tax. You will see strollers everywhere within two years.

I for one welcome our new childless overlords.

Our planet is seriously overpopulated (with humans), so this is good news.