Posted on 10/07/2004 1:01:09 PM PDT by treowth
For decades, the American media have warned of the catastrophic consequences of world population explosion. Strangely, the media have continued their warnings even as global fertility rates have plummeted. However, while the media irrationally fixate on an imaginary population explosion, serious scholars are beginning to examine the consequences of real-world population decline. In a recent issue of Futures, for instance, economist Sanghan Yea of Kyung Hee University in South Korea ponders the demographic trends implicit in new data from the United Nations and from the U.S. Census Bureau. What he sees in these trends is deeply sobering.
"By 2050," Yea notes, "people aged 60 and over are expected to outnumber those under 15 for the first time in known history." But what concerns Yea even more than the aging of the world's population is its anticipated shrinkage, with plausible statistical models already predicting that if current trends were to hold, "between 2040 and 2050, the world's population would fall by about 85 million ... and would [then] shrink by roughly 25% with each successive generation." Yea underscores U.S. Census analyses predicting that the population of some industrialized countries-including Germany, France, Italy, and Japan-will "reach its highest point around 2020 and fall thereafter." "We are going to face," Yea predicts, "not only aging, but also imploding (as opposed to exploding) world population."
The likely economic consequences of global population contraction particularly worry Yea, who discerns "a clear positive relationship between economic prosperity and number of people," with global population growth playing "an important role in bringing economic prosperity to human beings." Seen from this perspective, a growing world population has "helped the great advancements in science and technology materialize into wealth." Consequently, as the global population shrinks, it appears to Yea that "the world economy is going to get worse." Because a shrinking world population means "sharply winnowed and less competitive work forces," "surfeits of retirees," and overall "efficiency decline," Yea anticipates a "chain reaction" entailing a series of shocks from which "the economy would never recover." Using economic data collected from North Korea and Russia-two countries that have already experienced population contraction in recent years-Yea argues that population decline has a "more damaging impact on the economy than we expect presently." "Depopulation," Yea writes, "not only stops economic growth completely, but also reverses it." Indeed, Yea predicts a potentially "disastrous situation," an economic "crash" in which "the world economy will contract faster than [the world population] does and [will] never reach the previous levels attained with the earlier smaller populations."
Perhaps, Yea suggests in his conclusion, "all countries should try to maintain their birth rates above the replacement level" by developing "a society in which babies are welcomed, not destroyed" and in which "children are regarded as a blessing, not an inconvenience; and motherhood is treasured as an honorable vocation."
(Source: Sanghan Yea, "Are we prepared for world population implosion?" Futures 36 [2004]: 583-601.)
You'll soon be inundated with comments by "conservatives" explaining why contraception is wonderful and how it is impossible to raise more than two children in the most prosperous nation in human history.
An ever increasing population is not good either. I, for one, do not want to live in a world that's wall-to-wall people, one reason why I do not live in a city.
The relationship between a growing population and the amount of money being spent is undeniable.
I have probably harped on it too much on this forum but when the end of the baby boom spending comes our economy is going to contract fairly radically.
Margaret Sanger would be proud.
over here!
Better two well cared-for children, than eight wretches living in misery. This is one attitude that has made the living standard in the West so high.
population implosion is a short-term problem not a long-term. The next few generations of babies will be born to people who really like babies. So more and more the baby-liking-gene will spread to a greater portion of the population. Birth rates will start to rise again. This will take a few generations though.
The guy who wrote the book in 1968 "The Population Bomb", which in Soylent Green fashion predicted our death by now due to massive overpopulation, has just finished his new book which predicts the same end only this time due to global warming. He must have trouble getting laid. Nothing works on liberal chicks better than apocolyptic certainty from homely old college professors who just found out viagra is covered on their university healthplan.
This is absurd. It is clear that the population can't continue to grow forever -- the universe itself is finite -- and so the world will simply have to adapt to the new situation. Left to itself, guided by individual decisions rather than incentives crafted by pointy-headed professors, I have every confidence that it will do so.
Well, since I can't think of any other reasons why the economy of Russia has gone downhill -- and certainly can't imagine what else might possibly have gone wrong in North Korea -- the pointy-headed prof must be correct.
Sheesh.
The lived reality in America is more like "better two kids, a BMW and a new entertainment center than four kids, a Chevy minivan and standard-size TV."
I know several families with six to eight kids, where the parents hold normal jobs as grade-school teachers and plumbing contractors, and they aren't living in "misery", but quite comfortably.
I grew up in a California suburb in the 70s. We were given so many scare stories about the perils of overpopulation: gas masks to go outside by 2000, no clean water, wall-to-wall people, etc. When we moved to the Midwest in the late 80s, I was shocked that there were any open spaces. Field after open field of reality shocked me to my senses. I was utterly amazed at how much open space there was between the West Coast and the American heartland. I imagine that the Paul Erhlichs of the world live in similar urban or suburban environments.
It doesn't seem to me that not having enough people working fries down at the burger king is a sign of impending disaster. We may be seniors by then but I am sure we can adapt.
I agree. It is better to have 2 kids that one can take care of than a multitude who have to scrounge for everything. Now, if someone is able to meet the emotional, financial, and other needs of many children then by all means that person can, if they decide, go ahead and have many offspring. However not everyone is able to have 5,6,7,8 kids, and raise them well (note ....raise them WELL). And thus i agree with you ....unless someone can take care of the kids (not just provide for them, but provide and raise them in a manner that is both prudent and appropos) they should not have many kids.
Infact if someone cannot take care of a child (again: I mean raising the kid ....not sending a child-support check and calling it even) they should not even have one child. The only people who should be having kids are those that are willing and able to raise them .....not just spawn them.
I've seen people who have 7 kids and those kids couldn't be any happier due to the amazing way in which their parents raise them. I've also seen others who seem to literally spawn offspring, with different mothers, and the moment the kid is born disappear. It all depends on the parents.
The book that Soylent Green was based on is "Make Room! Make Room!" by Harry Harrison.
It was primarily a work of science fiction, was not necessarily political, and, oddly enough, dealt very little with the investigation of what soylent green was made from.
He has written a ton of books, both serious, and deeply humorous. For a sendup of the bozos in the diplomatic corps, I can think of no better books than his "Stainless Steel Rat" books.
Personally, I would prefer to keep it that way, just for my own selfish enjoyment of open space.
When I trained as a pilot, I suddenly realized that 90% of the land in America is void of any signs of man. At night and on one wheezing engine, it's more like 99% is void of man. This was quite a shock to me in the 70's, as I had been told just the opposite to be the case.
Yep. The most likely long-term outcome is that the population will hit 8-12 billion, shrink a bit, and then stabilize at a final equilibrium (I'd guess somewhere in the low billions), oscillating up and down a bit with social and economic trends.
Well if Kerry wins you can be pretty much guarantee the world population will decline quite rapidly. Terror running amok tends to do that.
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