Demographic Decline Appears Irreversible. How Can We Adapt? – Progressive Policy Institute
https://www.progressivepolicy.org/demographic-decline-appears-irreversible-how-can-we-adapt/
Demographic Decline Appears Irreversible. How Can We Adapt? – Progressive Policy Institute
https://www.progressivepolicy.org/demographic-decline-appears-irreversible-how-can-we-adapt/
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From the article
But demographic decline will alter American demography in profound ways over the next 50 years. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2023 projections, the population of Americans under 25 will peak around 2030 before beginning to shrink. With fewer young people entering the population and people living longer, the share of Americans over 65 is expected to climb from 17% today to nearly 30% by 2080. That shift will steadily push up the ratio of retirees to working-age adults — a trend that began in 2010 after two decades of stability. Based on these same projections, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the nation’s rate of natural increase (births minus deaths) will reach zero by 2035. Together, these changes set the stage for the total population to peak around 2080 and then decline slowly thereafter. All of these projections describe a society with decreasing mortality and fertility, a growing population of retirees, and a shrinking workforce to keep them afloat.
Immigration. Once, people from around the world were killing themselves to enter this country. With the current administration, this is no longer so. All the Western democracies are facing this common problem, and refuse to see that global migration and immigration are not a problem, but a solution, to this very issue. Overcoming hatred of the “Other”, and accepting that all of us are brothers and sisters in this world would be a start.
We are adapting with AI and automation, maybe even adapting a little too fast.
* The capitalists don’t care, they can just import foreigners to replace the babies we can’t afford to have, then when they can’t afford babies either, import more foreigners ad infinitum.
* The socialists see depopulation as a self-correcting problem, as the reserve army of labor shrinks, wages and working conditions must rise to compensate, eventually returning to the fifties status quo where a single breadwinner could sustain a family.
* The reactionaries want to remove women’s rights to employment and welfare programs ensuring they’re economically dependent upon men and have no choice but to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen making their husbands sandwiches, while cutting the reserve army of labor by fifty percent so said men can afford to sustain their new ~~slaves~~ tradwives and children.
* The singularitarians don’t care, thinking AGI and human economic obsolesce are only decades away at most so it doesn’t matter if humans price ourselves out of our own civilization if we have replacements available.
Sounds like it is time for some universal basic income, taxing of millionaires and billionaires, and bolstering the social safety nets. Economic security for the lower classes produces the condition in which they feel secure enough to produce offspring.
Cut education duration to be done by 15-16, and restructure education/certification to be milestone/functional tier based rather than duration based and you would solve the problem overnight.
Imagine a creative writing course where the goal was to sell x number of books, or have X% monetary return on time invested. Then just make that the metric, rather than an abstract PhD. Replace this for any other industry.
You’d quickly get a restructuring of society where it would be geared towards pushing people out of the door as fast as possible, with the most adept getting to success very early. This would allow them a ton of time in their 20s to have kids, which research has shown to be the best indicator of having more kids.
We definitely need to restructure education from the ground up, all studies show that education duration is the single largest factor controlling 50% of the number of children born, dwarfing GDP and religion. Education duration needs to be reduced somehow, and the question is what is the most equitable way to do that.
By using ExoWombs. And then having people paid to raise the children all at once.
Not sure how psychologically adjusted the kids would be, but I am certain coubtries will do that. Japan has already allowed ExoWombs for couples, afaik?
US population will peak in 55 years. Call me crazy, but it seems a bit early to panic just yet. A lot can happen in 55 years.
Population decline is possibly the only hope we have for a positive future.
We’re living on a planet that has an unnatural level of human population, ever since the Haber Bosch process made it possible to grow too much food per acre in the early 20th century.
Food isn’t the only measure of how much population to planet can support. Natural resources, carbon emissions, and natural habitat for wildlife all matter, too.
For a human population with maximum happiness and quality of life AND a planet that can handle it, we should be at 19th century population levels.
Demographic decline is something to celebrate, for the sake of everyone.
Adapt? You mean go back to planet destroying uncontrolled population growth?
Fuck that. Time to shrink or open the gates to immigration.
Africa is still growing. Average fertility rate just over 4. Come to Africa, or send Africans to the world.
I can see two big events happening in the near future on this in America.
One will be the battle over medicare, medicaid and social security. It’s already a heavy tax burden on the taxpayer and will become unbearable the more people are on it, but those same people on it are voters who will vote to keep it alive for their selfr interest. It’s already a generational battle as the boomers, who are the largest american generation, is hitting retirement and will hold those benefits to the grave. If its cut entirely, and the healthcare system adjusts around its absence, it may help fix the bloat and burden that faces younger generations.
The other is that I feel Z and Alpha are going to start the next religious revolution. They’re growing into a completely hopeless future and unless they grit and bear it they’ll go to jesus to help ease their lives. The two stats that increases a peoples fertility is ruralness and religion, so let’s see if half of that does the trick.
You see how heatlhcare is integrated with employment in amerrica. The same thing is needed for childcare. Until something happens where 1 income can support a household or having children doesn’t derail the careers of women then this will continue. Having kids went from being a net positive (labour) to being a net negative (costly). I think almost every other explanation pales to this one. People constantly bring up cost which is you think about it critically falls apart very very quickly I dunno why people keep doing it.