Impact of decreasing birth rates

[Takeachance]

I’m just wondering what you guys think the long term implication of a declining birth rate is going to be on the US. I can’t figure out if decreasing birth rates will be not be a big deal because tech will offset and we will continue to have high GDP. Or we have to start bringing in more immigrants like Japan and Germany. But social security relies on the younger generation paying into it.

Also it seems more men are opting to not wanting to have kids and more kids being raised by single moms. It seems that kids raised by single moms have lots of issues and so they may not be able to contribute to society vs children raised with a strong father figure. So births are decreasing and some of them are gonna be useless. I think if UBI becomes a thing, then there goes some more productivity.

What do you think the implications are?

https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2020-05-20/us-births-continue-to-fall-fertility-rate-hits-record-low

"The (total fertility) rate has generally been below replacement since 1971 and consistently below replacement since 2007," the report says.

 

[Chains of Peter]

decreasing birth rates will be not be a big deal because tech will offset

Ask yourself something... what is the purpose of human society if not for the building up of human beings in love and service?

For those of us who follow Christ, there is a deeper dimension to all of this. Our primary concern is to know, love and serve God, for that is the first and greatest commandment. The second is to love your neighbor as yourself.

The society you are describing is one that has forsaken both commandments. Thus we are filling up the chasm left by God with economic pursuits, abandoning the vocation to form families to sprint on the hedonic treadmill. In abolishing the family we abolish ourselves, and have to turn to literal idols ("automation," "AI," the "New World Order") to supply our needs.

 

[palsofchaos]

A greater share of the economy will become devoted to healthcare over time. This is already happening but healthcare, as a portion of the economy, will continue to grow in relation to other economic vectors. Ultimately less people means less labor to go around. What little labor there will be, will end up being devoted to healthcare since thats what a consumer base of: old people, mentally unstable kids raised by single moms, and vaccine injured children will want.

 

[jgamez10]

Culturally, I feel that we are already facing the effects of a declining birth rate in terms of a moral decline so to say. I believe if people start to read articles on declining birth rates and meet more people idolizing the “no kids” life it will start to normalize the perception that family isn’t as important as we used to think. This leads me to think that society at large will pressure more people to prioritize the materialistic over the meaningful. I know plenty of young people that have decided to have no kids for the sake of having less of a burden on their shoulders economically and socially. Also, I think it will continue to lead to a hyper focus on careerism and other hedonistic pursuits, such as casual sex too. The socioeconomic landscape has changed quite a bit over the last few decades which has led to less emphasis on the creation of families and more emphasis on pleasure seeking.

 

[Thomas More]

I'm older, so I remember how much smaller the towns and cities were in the 70s and 80s in the US. It was much better. The US and the world may be able to carry more population in hive cities with processed foods grown in factory farms, but I don't think this is better.

I'd love to see our rate of population growth go slightly negative. The remaining high growth regions of the earth really need to shrink their populations. Those places are adding 100s of millions that they can't feed, or educate, or provide homes and jobs for.

Going from 3 billion to 8 billion was not a good thing.

 

[harmonicpinch]

The whole thing is that the importing of immigrants to fill the gaps of population growth decline is only going to lead to faster overall growth.

The world is playing a zero sum game of GDP growth. If you grow bigger, you win. Only problem is that if we all grow too much, we all lose.

A better paradigm would be a “sustainability” index that determines how we allocate the “winnings” of the world.

 

[Max Roscoe]

I would say first and foremost, to stop worrying about GDP.

If your country's GDP is larger, it is due primarily to its higher number of workers, meaning each individual has less and less proportional resources of that nation. The world is finite, and there are only so many beachfront lots, national parks, sources of clean water, energy, Rolexes, seats at the Knicks game, etc. The greater the population, the lower the claim each of us has on said resources.

A world of increasing population levels is a world where cars are banned, oil is drilled offshore in dangerous BP-oil-spill like conditions, or by using fracking or other expensive and more dangerous extraction methods, pollution is high and there are more deaths due to poisons in our air and water, there is less land preserved for hiking, green space, and public use, and airports, highways, doctors offices and schools are all more crowded, and people become just a number instead of a meaningful interaction. In other words quality of life overall suffers in every aspect.

There's a lot more to life than GDP.

That said, to more directly answer the question, (1) immigration will be used to keep the population in the USA increasing each year, which is a requirement of our debt-based petrodollar system. (2) the demand for labor will decrease as automation, robotics and AI replaces humans.

 

[wannable alpha]

All the developed countries can always import highly skilled workers to maintain and grow their economy and bring in unskilled rapefugees to increase the vote bank of leftist parties. If population projections turn out true it is the 2nd and 3rd world countries that will be affected the most with a decrease in TFR + educated people leaving those countries.

What if everybody tried to go for maximum possible number of children based on the biological capacity of a woman?

Suppose a couple gets together at age 15 like olden times and starts having children immediately. So in the next 20 years, they can have at least 12-15 children. Even countries with a low population density would fill up pretty quickly at this rate. Women would be semi-literate and even most men would not be able to have a higher education since they will be busy providing for a family from a very young age. The country would have a low-tech economy centered around construction, farming, cattle rearing, and trading. Pretty soon all the land would be used up for food production and housing. This means that the country would need to start creating new colonies for its ever expanding population. i.e. war and conquest.

 

[infowarrior1]

Solve the problem of domestic violence injustice:

All roads lead to Duluth.

In the early 1980s a group of feminists put together a model to approach domestic violence called the Duluth Model. Under this new (feminist) model the focus is not on actual violence, but on figh…

dalrock.wordpress.com

And divorce law:

All roads lead to Duluth.

In the early 1980s a group of feminists put together a model to approach domestic violence called the Duluth Model. Under this new (feminist) model the focus is not on actual violence, but on figh…

dalrock.wordpress.com

And birthrates will recover in the Long run. But for many it's already too far gone.

 

[infowarrior1]

All the developed countries can always import highly skilled workers to maintain and grow their economy and bring in unskilled rapefugees to increase the vote bank of leftist parties. If population projections turn out true it is the 2nd and 3rd world countries that will be affected the most with a decrease in TFR + educated people leaving those countries.

What if everybody tried to go for maximum possible number of children based on the biological capacity of a woman?

Suppose a couple gets together at age 15 like olden times and starts having children immediately. So in the next 20 years, they can have at least 12-15 children. Even countries with a low population density would fill up pretty quickly at this rate. Women would be semi-literate and even most men would not be able to have a higher education since they will be busy providing for a family from a very young age. The country would have a low-tech economy centered around construction, farming, cattle rearing, and trading. Pretty soon all the land would be used up for food production and housing. This means that the country would need to start creating new colonies for its ever expanding population. i.e. war and conquest.

To assume that Men cannot have higher education.

That's assuming a small or non-existent age gap in Men and Women. Only a larger marital age gap would permit a larger family and higher income. In such a situation you describe.

 

[bucky]

Culturally, I feel that we are already facing the effects of a declining birth rate in terms of a moral decline so to say. I believe if people start to read articles on declining birth rates and meet more people idolizing the “no kids” life it will start to normalize the perception that family isn’t as important as we used to think. This leads me to think that society at large will pressure more people to prioritize the materialistic over the meaningful. I know plenty of young people that have decided to have no kids for the sake of having less of a burden on their shoulders economically and socially. Also, I think it will continue to lead to a hyper focus on careerism and other hedonistic pursuits, such as casual sex too. The socioeconomic landscape has changed quite a bit over the last few decades which has led to less emphasis on the creation of families and more emphasis on pleasure seeking.

I buy the idea that recent events like the virus hysteria have been part of the elites' plan to reduce population. Same with general trends over the last few decades like feminism and you-go-girl careerism for young women, as well as readily available pornography and addictive video games for young guys. Even Andrew Yang may have been part of the plan, floating the idea of UBI and making it mainstream. Then the virus hits and, at least in the US, you get something like a de facto trial UBI with stimulus payments and thousands of extra USD in unemployment benefits a month. If the powers that be want to make automation of most jobs and UBI for the masses reality, it makes sense that drastically reducing the population would also be part of the plan.

 

[jgamez10]

The whole thing is that the importing of immigrants to fill the gaps of population growth decline is only going to lead to faster overall growth.

The world is playing a zero sum game of GDP growth. If you grow bigger, you win. Only problem is that if we all grow too much, we all lose.

A better paradigm would be a “sustainability” index that determines how we allocate the “winnings” of the world.

I definitely agree that the increasing immigrant population in dense metropolitan cities has for the better part replaced the declining birth rates. I’d argue that the growth we would see would not create stability in the long run. So I’m not sure this is a good thing, but I may see things differently.

 

[Takeachance]

All the developed countries can always import highly skilled workers to maintain and grow their economy and bring in unskilled rapefugees to increase the vote bank of leftist parties. If population projections turn out true it is the 2nd and 3rd world countries that will be affected the most with a decrease in TFR + educated people leaving those countries.

What if everybody tried to go for maximum possible number of children based on the biological capacity of a woman?

Suppose a couple gets together at age 15 like olden times and starts having children immediately. So in the next 20 years, they can have at least 12-15 children. Even countries with a low population density would fill up pretty quickly at this rate. Women would be semi-literate and even most men would not be able to have a higher education since they will be busy providing for a family from a very young age. The country would have a low-tech economy centered around construction, farming, cattle rearing, and trading. Pretty soon all the land would be used up for food production and housing. This means that the country would need to start creating new colonies for its ever expanding population. i.e. war and conquest.

I have read but can’t remember where that when countries have too many men they start wars to reduce the population. Anyone else read this?

 

[kel]

Sure. Men go nuts. We're definitely seeing it (be it incels or antifa who can't get laid) and will continue seeing it.

 

[tier9]

I’m just wondering what you guys think the long term implication of a declining birth rate is going to be on the US.

I doubt it'll decline. Republicans and Democrats will both import people by the millions each year, because both parties are bought and paid for by the same people. They'll only cut it off when they have no more gated enclaves to retreat back too, and with how big the US is that will take a long, long time to achieve.

 

[STG]

Reversion to the mean for the United States and the standard of living. The United States was an anomaly if you look at human history.

The United States was a primarily European civilization that capitalized on the manufacturing boom post WWII after all other countries had their manufacturing base destroyed. This along with Christian values and a family orientated society led to the highest standard of living in the history of man.

We caught the tail end of it and you should treasure and enjoy what fruits of those times are left because the Neo Dark Age is coming.

Where you find the third worlders, you will find the third world. Imaginary boundaries on a map do not change human nature.

 

[ralfy]

Declining birth rates are generally driven by increasing prosperity, as couples have more opportunities and engage in various careers, and that plus lower infant mortality rates, etc., lead to having fewer or no children.

The problem is that even with lower birth rates, the world population continues to rise because of population momentum: large numbers of young people which mathematically offset low birth rates.

Meanwhile, increasing prosperity also means higher energy and material resource use per capita, which in turn creates additional problems due to biosphere limitations.

 

[Pendleton]

The US is already bringing in more immigrants than Germany and far more than Japan. That is based on our rulers having a desire for cheap labor and easily controlled votes, not low birth rates.

 

[ralfy]

Also counters population aging.

 

[Jacob Robinson]

A few people have mentioned population growth and large towns getting bigger. The two are somewhat unrelated.

Small towns began to die during the idiotic de-industrialization that began about 30 years ago, and the further mechanization of farming. Used to, nearly every small town had one or more manufacturing company where a person could make an honest living. But the elites decided that globalization and making China the next superpower was just a spiffy idea about thirty years ago, and after that all the kids had to go to the big city for a job. Big cities would have gotten bigger no matter what if the population totals went up or down given that rural America was thrown under the bus.

Will be interesting to see what the combined effects are of talked-about-for-years-but-finally-happening remote working and big city Democratic mayors refusing to stop arsonists and rioting will have on the shift into and out of large urban areas. Will they flee to the suburbs and bedroom towns, or will they relocate to truly rural areas?

The original post was about the impact of declining population on the US. Overall, a bad thing. It means that people are not living for the future, but only trying to get all they can right now. A lot of small towns have shrunk over the past few decades and there are huge expanses of land in many states that could support a massive increase in population. Population does not all have to go to the big urban centers.