Should We Be Worried About Population Decline?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/24/opinion/population-decline.html
Should We Be Worried About Population Decline?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/24/opinion/population-decline.html
4 Comments
ss: young people are left to care for elders and drive economic growth.
But while aging demographics will require thoughtful responses and policy solutions, today’s experts and media approach — to embrace pronatalism and persuade people to bear more children — shouldn’t be one of them.
It dismisses the evidence that projected population growth of over two billion more people in this century would strain natural resources to the breaking point. It ignores the global consensus that the right to determine whether and when to become a parent, free of coercion, is universal.
It also ignores lessons from history that illustrate the folly of top-down policies to dictate
No.
Technology will fill the gaps by less young people. I’m surprised that tech bros like Musk don’t grasp it, given their propensity to AI, robotics etc.
We should be worried about the causes of population decline.
No. Two things:
1. Population decline is itself a good thing right now considering our ecological challenges.
2. The increasing ratio of retirees to workers is often cited, but this is a myopic interpretation. What matters is the ratio of working to nonworking people. Other societies in the past have had higher ratios of nonworking population than we’re facing in the future. Higher numbers of children, more people disabled by birth defects and disease, etc. If we managed then, we can manage now. The concern about the imbalance of the population pyramid always conveniently leaves out that while we’ll have more retirees to support, we also won’t have to support 6 children per couple.