Sounds great to me. Wish every country had a declining birth rate.
Honestly, if everyone woman only had 2 children that would still reduce the population without causing demographic collapse which is what Japan is undergoing. A rapid decline in population creates misery for everyone. You really what a birth rate that hovers around 2 for gentle population decline.
I’ve heard the claim rapid decline is terrible before. I imagine there may be some adjustments people dislike which is easier to adjust on a slower rate of decline… but “misery”, how?
Basically every government planned for what has been the norm over the entirety of human history. Which seemed logical up until recently. That means for decades policy and economic decisions were based on the idea that every generation would be equal to or greater in size than the previous one.
The knock on effects of these assumptions are the reason government pension programs like social security are a concern world wide. People are living longer and less people are paying into the systems. This is an issue with nearly all government programs. There are less people paying taxes, paying into social programs. Costs are not going down anytime soon. It’s a recipe for instability.
Economic collapse, to a greater or lesser extant depending on how fast adjustments are made. Though in some cases adjustments cannot be made. Worst case societal collapse (think violent revolution).
Pretty much the entire world economy is based on growth. Individual countries economies for the most part are also based on growth. In either case part of the growth is in population so there are more consumers. Additional most societal institutions and jobs require having a certain number of people to function for everyone. Different countries have different critical jobs and institutions. Care for older population is a big one in most places, doctors, nurses, in home care, and people to do things for the old they can’t do anymore. Too few young people means likely too few of those people to take care of older population. That in turn either means the state has to pay more to get more people in those jobs, or care falls upon family which can force them to work less (or quit completely). More money spent by government means less spent somewhere else, some of that will be critical or at least inconvenient for someone. Family working less, or quitting altogether, means they are no longer adding to the economy and become a drag. Further a ballooning older population can lead to a drastic drop in tax revenue and compound the drag on the economy they are already having. GDP can drop which can devalue a currency, then leading to increased costs for imports and borrowing. This can further discourage people who would otherwise have children to not have any. Once this gets into a positive feedback loop it can continue to get worse faster than a society can adjust.
Everything is interconnected in our economy inside any one country, but also across the entire world. A positive feedback loop (like the mortgage crisis the US) can lead to a recession, or worse a depression. Then people are out of work and might not be able to afford the means to continue living, they then can become desperate. This can lead to a crisis and even revolutions (has happened before).
Too big a drop in population guarantied to cause societal collapse? Of course not. It doesn’t even guarantee economic collapse, might just be a recession where most people survive fine in the long term. It might all be fine. What the outcome is really depends on how well positive feed back loops caused by a drop in population are handled, and if they happen slow enough they can be handled. Lots of the Western world is in trouble, but a population drop might help climate change, it also might not if a positive feedback loop (permafrost methane) starts accelerating climate change.
I’m not an economist so I will take your words on this, though I still struggle to believe it’s an issue and have some remarks.
I am not worried about needing enought people for jobs. Given advances in inteligence automation then we can’t forever have enough jobs for all humans. If a country can impliment a universal basic income then the citizens can at least have a basic living.
Why are most countries based on growth? That appears reckless. Unless we expand into space then at least population growth caps out at some point. Doesn’t every other growth have a limit?
Ah, but you’re viewing it as a normal human being and not a lizard man who only cares about making himself bigger.
The fundamental issue with declining populations - fundamental as in regardless of the economic system of the country - is decreasing standard of living.
The very simple metric is productivity-adjusted hours worked per person. This invariably falls in cases where overall population is declining, because populations age as they decline, and older people work less (retirement) than younger ones.
As this metric falls, the country’s economy basically just produces less stuff per-person than it did in the past. This makes everyone effectively poorer.
In extreme cases, there can also be issues with availability of services. E.g. healthcare: Each doctor/nurse/caregiver can only effectively attend to so many patients and this number is difficult to increase with technology.
How does producing less stuff make people poorer? Less people need less stuff, and there’s more unoccupied houses?
Re your third point - this is one of the main critiques of Capitalism, the reckless disregard for the bounds of growth.
So in this case, the declining birth rates caused by capitalism might protect us from the reckless growth caused by capitalism. Sounds great.
Unfortunately, I think that capitalism is here to stay, so things will just get shittier and shittier for everyone. As others responding to the top level comment have mentioned, declining birth rates means more stress on the entire system, where we’ll see more young people without any future to hope for since all their energy and money will be coopted for caring for old people, old people having shittier end-of-life experiences because there isn’t enough money to support them, and countries will not able to support anyone because there’s no investment due to lack of growth.
Your remarks are spot on. They are why I’ve read up on some of these problems over the years, even though I’m not an economist.
Automation very well might mitigate and/or cause other issues. It is to be seen if a capitalistic system will succeed in being reasonable, especially some of the more virulently capitalistic ones like the US. People being more productive has avoided many problems in capitalism for a long time, AI is a new way for this to happen.
Universal income is an excellent idea. There have been some really convincing studies where it has been implemented on small scales (one town or village). So far it hasn’t gone much farther as there are strong contingents of people unreasonably against the idea.
Basing economy on growth is problematic. Growth being key to capitalism has been a criticism for awhile. It is reckless, doesn’t reflect actual reality of resource limits of growth, and sets up problems some countries are facing (declining birthrate, job displacement due to automation, etc).
Let’s just be simple about this: pensions and oth3r old age support. Who pays for those? Young people. If young people have to support a lot of old people, you’re gonna have a bad time. Everyone. The young people have have larger amounts taken out of their pay and old people who get less support because there are just literally not enough resources. And because old people outnumber young people young are pressured more and more under democracy to give more to older people.
That is only one terrible thing from demographic collapse.
Supporting old people is already a sector of business. A wealthy country should already be on top of this? Can we not improve using automation to meet the higher demand?
SoOo rather than pressuring people to have kids they don’t want, maybe we can shift our attention to the absurdity of the system? At the very least tax billionaires out of existence worldwide
nonsense, let’s just ban abortions and wait for the magic to happen. surely people won’t resort to dangerous practices like coat hangers and poison because there’s no precedent of that in history, like ever. we’ll just head over for a pint and wait for all of this to blow over. the dragons demand their hoard, and by dog they shall have it!
Ew. Glad you’re not representative of everyone.
Declining birthrates can be good when controlled and slow but like this in Japan it’s not a good thing and it will cause many issues and suffering.
Get real, the only reason it’s a problem for them is they’re too racist to encourage immigration from more populous nations.
That is a whole different problem.
Declining birthrates like japan has can cause huge problems that immigrants alone can’t fix and that is not mentioning that the required amount of immigration to fix it would cause a whole set of other problems
Oh, go on about those problems.
Problems understanding and accepting reality, eh?
Aww, likkle racist too scared to dogwhistle because number go down :(
That is not a sustainable solution. What’ll happen when countries with currently high birth rates develop, reduce their birthrates and you don’t have as much immigration as before?
To add onto the capitalist blame: people are conditioned to think in a capitalist way, and raising a child is a definite losing venture, hence people won’t invest in that shit.
You uh… don’t know what you’re talking about.
Does he not? From a purely selfish financial pov having a kid is a terrible idea.
Sure, most people don’t explicitly think in those terms, but financial stability absolutely is a factor many people consider before having kids
If you can hardly feed and house yourself … you can’t afford to woo a wife or raise a kid :/ but that won’t stop some people trying to half-ass it I guess
Tho, you make it once and have it for the rest of your life.
The purchase price is negligible, but the total cost of ownership is staggering.
Quite the opposite, capitalists want more human resources, human capital. There’s an entire ideology, at least centuries old, about this. You can most easily read about it as: pronatalism.
People aren’t conditioned to think in a capitalist way, they’re conditioned to think about their kids future not being worse than their present, since having kids can throw you into poverty.
Sigh. All right. Guess I’ll have to do my part. I can impregnate them. /s
I loved when the news came out that Japan didn’t have enough male porn stars and you could hear a bunch of chubby white guys considering a career change.
“The challenge is that no single cause can be identified for the declining rate.” Sure you can: capitalism.
So brave. What an insightful comment. If you people stub your toe you will find a way to blame capitalism. Such a vacuous statement with no real world application.
If people dont have enough time to spend and raise their kids, dont have enough money to raise them without despair, if they dont have where to drop them during work hours, people cant have kids.
You really should think before doing a vacuous remark about anything.
I can tell you’re mad he’s criticizing the system you’ve been indoctrinated to believe is flawless.
I don’t think you’re above the behavior of saying something is ‘a vacuous statement with no real world application’ just because you don’t like what’s being said.
So true. Over and over again in the article it says that people can’t afford children and universities. It keeps saying the cost of living is up and then says there is no single cause people won’t have children.
And you can’t discount Japan’s absurdly toxic work culture.
Exacerbated by……. Capitalism.
Oh for sure, just saying there is another extra layer in the shit cake.
Feudal-inspired work culture, ultra-liberal capitalism, and xenophobia what a combo!
I agree with capitalism being a main cause. Additionally, many people also just don’t want to raise a child. They don’t want the added responsibilities and lack of freedom. Even people for whom capitalism works would rather enjoy their own life.
I just don’t want to go through pregnancy, personally. Love kids but not enough to risk my life and permanent bodily changes. The being poor part is secondary
My mother had to have pelvic floor surgery after having three kids. Prior to that, she had to get her gallbladder removed shortly after my brother’s birth. Pregnancy is extremely unappealing to me, and I don’t think the long term effects of it are talked about enough.
Even people for whom capitalism works would rather enjoy their own life.
Is that why the ruling class has no problem having kids, usually with a bunch of different people?
I guess you still have a point. They typically have these children and then go off to live their rich lives instead of being a parent.
See guys. Pirky gets it.
Is this a Corky reference?
It is after all, the only thing you people know how to call out as a systemic issue in the world, so it might as well be solely responsible for every gripe you have I suppose huh.
Let’s read the article and look the causes:
“With the rising cost of living, I don’t think people feel they can afford to, or comfortably say they want to, have children,” said 23-year-old Anna Tanaka.
In 2020, women got married for the first time at an average age of 29.4, or 3.9 years later than in 1985, government data shows.
As people have fewer children, they are able to spend more on each child than families have in the past. That drives up the average cost of raising a child for the broader population
Tuition at private universities jumped fivefold between 1975 and 2021, and by 19 times at public universities, data shows.
These are all symptoms of capitalism. Alienation and seeking “class mobility” leads to people getting married later. The cost of living is a capitalist construct, and it rises primarily due to seeking profit. Colleges are also seeking to profit, and have successfully convinced people that taking debt early in life is good for individuals going into the labor pool. The debt also increases alienation and people who would have children are suddenly priced out of it due to education debt.
It’s hilarious to me that you linked this as somehow a result of capitalism
In 2020, women got married for the first time at an average age of 29.4, or 3.9 years later than in 1985, government data shows.
As people have fewer children, they are able to spend more on each child than families have in the past. That drives up the average cost of raising a child for the broader population
I mean the whole post is silly but this part especially is just chef’s kiss as a response to the poster above.
I explained how they were symptoms of capitalism. If you can’t understand it, then maybe you need a deeper understanding of the topic. How doesn’t it make sense?
Having fewer children means you spend more on the fewer children, driving up average cost of raising children
We have one President indicted 91 times so on average Presidents are indicted twice because we’ve had 46 of them.
This is just how math works, and has nothing to do with any economic system
“average cost” can vary in meaning on this topic. I read it as “fewer people are buying goods necessary for children, leading to raised prices and a higher average cost of raising children”. Considering studies done on the cost of raising children, this is how I interpreted the quote. But your interpretation is also technically correct, and I won’t fault you for reading something differently than I did.
That’s the incorrect way to read this. Rather, people are spending more on their children, and people without children are seeing average cost of raising children.
Effectively, the standard of living for children is going up and people who feel they cannot hit that standard of living are (in Japan’s case especially) opting not to have them.
I assure you that poor people are still having children that survive.
Capitalism is surely partly to blame but it’s laughable to identify it as the sole cause.
I’ll never understand statements like these. Capitalism is the #1 reason there’s a profit incentive for any given thing to be horrible.
So it was because of capitalism that the communist revolution killed millions of people around the world.
Uh, the more you know…
Actually, yeah. Trade embargos starved those countries and the CIA killed the few real communists who managed to garner any influence, eliminating any real movements towards a marxist ideal
Ah yes, it wasn’t the expropriation and execution/imprisonment of competent farmers and the general failures of central planning, it’s all about them trade embargos.
Sure, focus on half of what I said rather than actually read the whole thing
I think people define capitalism vastly differently. To some capitalism is simply the ability to trade goods for personal profit, which exists in almost every society. To others its the dictionary definition of an economic and political system.
What you’re missing is that the first group there is populated by idiots.
That’s unfair, you made a valid point, but I’m going to make this goalposts flexible for others
You, just now
What? I don’t even have a stake in this debate. I am just pointing out how often I notice that two people seem to be discussing entirely different ideas.
I don’t know where you people get this concept. Humans are the issue, not capitalism. There’s literally no functioning system of trade without capitalism. It’s just human nature. We are greedy and we want more than others so that we feel secure in our own future. It’s not fucking rocket scientist, and it’s not fucking capitalism.
Do you really Envision a world where everyone works equally and gets paid equally and nobody makes extra profit but somehow people are happy? That doesn’t sound like any of the humans I’ve ever known, even the nice ones. You need to be a little bit more realistic and get your childish ass out of the playground.
We couldn’t even get people to wear masks to not kill each other and you’re over here holding your breath for agapelandia lmao
It’s just human nature. We are greedy and we want more than others so that we feel secure in our own future.
you’re projecting your own terrible views here, not stating universal fact
and it’s not fucking capitalism.
fucking lol
https://theconversation.com/humans-arent-inherently-selfish-were-actually-hardwired-to-work-together-144145
https://socialistworker.co.uk/features/human-nature-and-social-change/There are innumerable functioning systems of trade without capitalism. My point is capitalism is intrinsically violent and wasteful. War is profit. But there ARE mutualist, communalist, and voluntary approaches to labor as well just to name a few. I also have to point out that the gold standard in the case of USD is effectively maintained by a obscenely expansive worldwide military presence which can’t be a good thing long term and how about that ongoing pandemic we don’t talk about? How long can we as species get away with ignoring the real, big, systemic problems? Capitalism is NOT fixing them, and won’t. Regardless you’re real mistaken, I don’t envision some perfect world, dont accuse me of naivety- I’m a tired, jaded anarchist, not a communist. Anyways I am truly sorry you’ve only ever known assholes… I’m not holding my breath for anything just speaking my mind, and maybe I change someone’s, at least I tried
The gold standard lmao really?
Did you read the article?
https://lemmy.world/comment/2996502
You can’t make long ass statements like this witbout even reading the reasons cited in the article through government data.
The cost of living is a capitalist concept.
the cost of living is a capitalist concept
No, it isn’t. Lol
There are fundamental costs to human survival and those costs must be borne out somewhere. Hunter/gatherers also had a cost of living.
The rising disparity in wealth is a result of capitalism.
The cost of living is so high because we’re funneling as much money as possible to as few people as possible.
Every day it gets worse, and this is by design.
Animals foraging resources in nature is capitalism mannnnn
Workers owning a company would also have a profit incentive because the workers would like to make more money.
Workers owning their own company would incentivize creating stable growth, since the workers aren’t going to willfully destroy the company they all have a stake in.
Whereas now we have unstable growth because the C suites, executives and shareholders milk companies dry and then toss them. They have no concerns about whether the bottom rung guys are sustainable.
You’re going to need to define “stable” and “unstable” growth here.
Frankly it’s laughable to assert there is a sole cause in the first place when there’s a myriad of different people here with a myriad of their own personal factors at play.
“It’s all about the money.”
You’ll understand when you’re older.
“It’s all about the money.”
Funny how it’s always you people pretending like we have our heads in the clouds, when you don’t understand this simple fact of life yet.
It’s okay, maybe when you’ll older you’ll get it.
Let’s be real though. You do understand it but you want things to stay how they are. You’re afraid to come out and say it and I don’t hold you above that behavior.
There’s a term for people like you, useful something. I can’t remember it.
Was going to say climate change, but really the underlying cause is capitalism there too…
