“If you can’t [find a solution] then eventually the species disappears.”
I often wonder at the short-termist thinking of those who say things like this: as Mary rightly points out, it wouldn’t stay that way for long.
In particular, birth rates always fall as a society approaches its carrying capacity. For agrarian societies this was almost entirely a function of how much grain the land could produce. Modern societies have other limits, including living space and living standards, but the principle remains the same.
Despite the undoubtedly sincere worrying of feminists, families have always found ways to control their reproduction when necessary. That happened in agrarian societies, it happens today, and it will happen in the future, whatever it may look like.
Besides all which, a significant fall in the human population would be no bad thing. Throughout human history population falls have been a natural and necessary way for living standards to improve. We have not escaped the cycle of history, and we should look to the coming population adjustment with equanimity.
Is the fact that birthrates are only falling in developed countries? It would seem in some less developed countries, births continue as before and as the “12 Century” impoverished women, can have little help to slow down their rate of pregnancies.
What about Africa? The population of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to treble in size to more than three billion people by 2100.
And the study says Nigeria will become the world’s second biggest country, with a population of 791 million.
As such, we can expect to see diminishing national populations supplemented by mass migrations from Africa.
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago
Most Western left-wing politics is designed to reduce population growth: abortion, LGBQT lifestyles, feminism etc. My wife and I have considered having children, but are put off by the costs, the ‘need’ to have a job, and simply the hard work of it all.
Many of my friends have children but seem to regard them as a ‘mini-me’ or a lifestyle accessory. Occasionally I indulgently wonder if I’m missing out on some wonderful experience until the moment I hear the shrill ear-splitting shriek of a two-year old in the grocery store.
Left-wing politics are not designed to reduce population growth. They are designed to give individuals the right of choice over their lifestyles. The birth rate in the West is not declining as a result of lrft wing politics (if only because there are but few left wing governments around). Heterosexual families are the norm. Try looking in the precariousness that forty years of neoliberalism has imposed in the lives of the people who depend on jobs for subsistence, you’ll find a more logical explanation there. I’m not discounting other cultural factors that may shape young people’s expectations.
Matthew Powell
3 years ago
Rapidly falling birth rates may not be an existential threat but they certainly are a financial one.
Our savings only make up part of our pensions, the rest is made up of from the continued economic growth of the next generation and as such pensions are reliant on keeping the dependant to worker ratio low enough to be able to afford them. Increase this ratio too quickly and pensions will become unaffordable, which is exactly what happens when the birth rate declines rapidly, as it is now.
Immigration can mitigate this but it is effectively a ponzi scheme. You will need more migration tomorrow than you did today to sustain the same dependant to worker ratio, so migration would have to increase infinitely to sustain the ratio you started with.
Whilst the choice to have children is up to the individual, there becomes a communal aspect when you realise that in a population with a low birth rate, those who bore the costs of raising children are effectively having their children pay for their pensions, and the pensions those who didn’t have children.
Of course I don’t suggest we punish the childless but it would certainly help if society and the government was more supportive of families and recognise that children and families are a necessity, not a life style choice.
A little bit of truth and a little bit of exaggeration there. We don’t need large families, nor population growth. In fact, a smaller population would have many benefits in terms of space, pollution, congestion, wildlife, and even house prices. It would just be an adjustment process in moving to a policy of population decline – and we are all used to adjusting in the face of never ending change.
What your omitting is that modern pensions have been structured in a way that require high levels of continued economic growth to afford them and that population growth has been used as a short cut to easy economic growth, to make up for the short fall in productivity growth.
Therefore I’m not advocating population growth but pointing out that the beneficial dependant to worker ratio, which modern pensions rely on to be affordable, will be lost when we transition from a growing to a static or declining population.
This change is inevitable but has continuously been postponed by our government by using immigration to drive population growth to sustain the ratio.
When we do transition however, we will be hit by a multi billion pound pension deficit, unless in the near future economic growth increases significantly to offset this. This will likely dwarf the economic benefits of population decline in the short to medium term.
If economic growth doesn’t occur, then the next best thing is to transition more gradually to a static or declining population, as the faster the transition, the less favourable the ratio of dependants to workers will be and the bigger the economic shock from the pensions black hole we’re amassing.
From this perspective, a fertility rate on or just below replacement rate would be required to mitigate the damage but at present we’re not meeting this target, which increases the magnitude of the pensions shortfall.
If you think the youth of today are angry, just wait a few more years when they are told they have to work longer, pay more tax and receive less back in return, to pay for the pensions of the generation which preceded them.
“Immigration can mitigate this but it is effectively a ponzi scheme. You will need more migration tomorrow than you did today to sustain the same dependant to worker ratio, so migration would have to increase infinitely to sustain the ratio you started with.” As with immigration so with having children, wouldn’t you think?
I cover the need for a static or declining population. It’s the speed of decline which is the issue.
alisonwren3
3 years ago
No one seems to have mentioned so far that it takes heterosexual vaginal intercourse to make a baby ( unless technology is used). In the pre Pill days we made sure we didn’t get pregnant with a series of very pleasurable and non penetrative sexual behaviours. If women knew they wanted to avoid pregnancy, and men accepted they don’t have a right of access to women’s bodies, maybe we wouldn’t need to interfere with nature by introducing artificial hormones into women’s bodies and the wider ecosystems. And natural family planning has an extremely low failure rate when practiced correctly.
LOL. That wouldn’t work. These men would demand a**l. Nobody wants to acknowledge the fact that many men (and increasingly women) are addicted to internet pornography. It’s now to the point where many young men have erectile dysfunction. It’s impossible to consider having a family with a man who spends all his spare moments staring at a screen, looking for his next sexual fix. Many young women with children are experiencing exactly that– they are stuck with all of the childcare and domestic duties while their partners spend hours upon hours surfing internet porn and video gaming. Those who have one children don’t want any more. Those who witness their friends suffer carrying all the burden of keeping the family in tact while daddy chases his next cam girl fantasies say “no thanks– I’ll stay single and childless”.
The ridiculous cost of basic necessities today make having children a sure-fire one way street to profound poverty unless you are well connected and have an excellent STEM job.
I regret having a child prior to earning six figures. He will always always suffer and have limited opportunities because his parents weren’t wealthy, and he already knows it despite barely being a teenager.
I can’t accept the phrase “accidental pregnancy”. As you point out, there are many ways of avoiding pregnancy and have been practiced for aeons. Is the term “accidental pregnancy” used as a cover for not understanding what sex can result in conception? Most pregnancies are caused by indulging in consensual acts, often with fingers crossed and lack of forethought.
In defence of decent men everywhere, and there any many. I don’t know anyone who believes they have “a right of access”.
Dougie Undersub
3 years ago
Another typically thoughtful and thought provoking article from Mary on a topic that should be, but isn’t, widely discussed. Our birth rate may be below replacement level yet the population of the UK keeps increasing. Any ideas? Whatever the reason, extinction of the human race isn’t an immediate problem on our little island. Indeed, extinction of the human race isn’t a problem at all. As environmentalists keep telling us, we’re just another species, with no greater right to exist than bonoboes, lizards or slugs. It’s not as if it’s going to happen overnight. If the human beings of the 31st century are worried about extinction, I’m sure they’ll be able to clone a few billion extra people as necessary. No, the only real problem is the one you opened with, the ecological damage caused by pharmaceuticals – it’s not just the pill. Environmentalist feminists are going to have to grab this bull – cow? – by the horns. Over to you, Dr Lucas.
Stuart Bennett
3 years ago
I’m no eco warrior by any measure but I can find no sensible argument against reducing the global population given the still accelerating consumption of finite resources, human caused species extinction, pollution & the A.I. / Robotics revolution that’s surely coming and will affect job prospects for the poorest most of all. There are several billions too many of us already. It’s madness to suggest that more humans is a good idea and as I understand it the only proven way to reduce population without harm is the education and empowerment of women. It goes without saying we should be fighting for this on a global scale in all countries (even without the benefit of not clogging up the planet with more consumers, obviously).
johnjweyland
3 years ago
who in their right mind does not want population to shrink?
Andrew Fisher
3 years ago
The whole article though interesting has a slightly odd flavour in that environmental concerns about overpopulation (whether well-founded or not) are not even mentioned. Clearly if population growth is going to flatten and then go into reverse then populations will inevitably age and the proportion of young people decline. An oft mentioned ‘solution’ to this is to increase immigration from poorer and younger countries, but as we know this also has its political, social, economic and cultural issues. And with a replacement fertility rate already having I believe fallen to about 2.5 worldwide, this will eventually itself become less and less feasible, at least without huge harm to the ‘people donor’ countries themselves.
However surely it should not be beyond our competence to reconfigure social care, tax and pension systems need to adjust to the new population realities. Although what extent voters want to retire later and work longer is of course another issue.
We seem to be addicted to doom-mongering scenarios whichever way we face; the population is too big, then it it is becoming too small….
Anton Nadal
3 years ago
The left has an obsession with abolishing the family?! First time I’ve heard.
Meghan Kathleen Jamieson
3 years ago
Given that we are quickly depleting the ability of the planet to sustain the human population we have, this article is bizarre. The spectre of underpopulation is really the spectre of consumption that doesn’t meet the increasing demands of capitalism.
What’s really very interesting, in terms of the availability of artificial contraception, is that feminism, or women’s liberation, or equality of the sexes, is so very dependent on this technological intervention to make it possible – as if it is only by making women less female that we can see them as equal, or shape society to give them equally good lives, dignity and respect. Without access to these products, our vision of ourselves as enlightened about women and their role will fall apart very quickly.
In a way artificial contraception is a perfect mirror to unrestrained capitalism, severing the connection between action and result, creating the illusion that by consumption is a right and that the consequences of that consumption are an imposition, and allowing us to think we can and should be able to construct a good society where we care for others without the necessity for personal self-restraint.
John Alyson
3 years ago
The idea that even a casual encounter could have life-changing consequences was a lurking presence at the edge of my otherwise relatively carefree sex life.
And there we find the elephant in the room. The inherent point of sex is to produce life-changing consequences. Using contraception to gut a fundamental aspect of biology of its purpose is always going to be awkward and, from a classical philosophical point of view, be immoral.
Miriam Uí
3 years ago
Maybe we could start enjoying our families again?
Muscleguy
3 years ago
Here in Scotland ScotGov funds an increasing number of free childcare hours. Up to 35 hours a week now. Both to encourage women’s participation in the workforce and to try and increase the birth rate by supporting families. We need more people up here.
Pete Marsh
3 years ago
I saw a UN report that predicts the population of Africa will increase from 1.3 billion now to 4 billion by 2100. So an extra 2,700 million people. I don’t think we’re going to run out of people anytime soon…
I often wonder at the short-termist thinking of those who say things like this: as Mary rightly points out, it wouldn’t stay that way for long.
In particular, birth rates always fall as a society approaches its carrying capacity. For agrarian societies this was almost entirely a function of how much grain the land could produce. Modern societies have other limits, including living space and living standards, but the principle remains the same.
Despite the undoubtedly sincere worrying of feminists, families have always found ways to control their reproduction when necessary. That happened in agrarian societies, it happens today, and it will happen in the future, whatever it may look like.
Besides all which, a significant fall in the human population would be no bad thing. Throughout human history population falls have been a natural and necessary way for living standards to improve. We have not escaped the cycle of history, and we should look to the coming population adjustment with equanimity.
Is the fact that birthrates are only falling in developed countries?
It would seem in some less developed countries, births continue as before and as the “12 Century” impoverished women, can have little help to slow down their rate of pregnancies.
No, birth rates have fallen starkly in nearly all of the developing world too. Not as much as the developed world, but still a big fall.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/…
What about Africa?
The population of sub-Saharan Africa is expected to treble in size to more than three billion people by 2100.
And the study says Nigeria will become the world’s second biggest country, with a population of 791 million.
As such, we can expect to see diminishing national populations supplemented by mass migrations from Africa.
Most Western left-wing politics is designed to reduce population growth: abortion, LGBQT lifestyles, feminism etc. My wife and I have considered having children, but are put off by the costs, the ‘need’ to have a job, and simply the hard work of it all.
Many of my friends have children but seem to regard them as a ‘mini-me’ or a lifestyle accessory. Occasionally I indulgently wonder if I’m missing out on some wonderful experience until the moment I hear the shrill ear-splitting shriek of a two-year old in the grocery store.
Left-wing politics are not designed to reduce population growth. They are designed to give individuals the right of choice over their lifestyles. The birth rate in the West is not declining as a result of lrft wing politics (if only because there are but few left wing governments around). Heterosexual families are the norm. Try looking in the precariousness that forty years of neoliberalism has imposed in the lives of the people who depend on jobs for subsistence, you’ll find a more logical explanation there. I’m not discounting other cultural factors that may shape young people’s expectations.
Rapidly falling birth rates may not be an existential threat but they certainly are a financial one.
Our savings only make up part of our pensions, the rest is made up of from the continued economic growth of the next generation and as such pensions are reliant on keeping the dependant to worker ratio low enough to be able to afford them. Increase this ratio too quickly and pensions will become unaffordable, which is exactly what happens when the birth rate declines rapidly, as it is now.
Immigration can mitigate this but it is effectively a ponzi scheme. You will need more migration tomorrow than you did today to sustain the same dependant to worker ratio, so migration would have to increase infinitely to sustain the ratio you started with.
Whilst the choice to have children is up to the individual, there becomes a communal aspect when you realise that in a population with a low birth rate, those who bore the costs of raising children are effectively having their children pay for their pensions, and the pensions those who didn’t have children.
Of course I don’t suggest we punish the childless but it would certainly help if society and the government was more supportive of families and recognise that children and families are a necessity, not a life style choice.
A little bit of truth and a little bit of exaggeration there. We don’t need large families, nor population growth. In fact, a smaller population would have many benefits in terms of space, pollution, congestion, wildlife, and even house prices. It would just be an adjustment process in moving to a policy of population decline – and we are all used to adjusting in the face of never ending change.
What your omitting is that modern pensions have been structured in a way that require high levels of continued economic growth to afford them and that population growth has been used as a short cut to easy economic growth, to make up for the short fall in productivity growth.
Therefore I’m not advocating population growth but pointing out that the beneficial dependant to worker ratio, which modern pensions rely on to be affordable, will be lost when we transition from a growing to a static or declining population.
This change is inevitable but has continuously been postponed by our government by using immigration to drive population growth to sustain the ratio.
When we do transition however, we will be hit by a multi billion pound pension deficit, unless in the near future economic growth increases significantly to offset this. This will likely dwarf the economic benefits of population decline in the short to medium term.
If economic growth doesn’t occur, then the next best thing is to transition more gradually to a static or declining population, as the faster the transition, the less favourable the ratio of dependants to workers will be and the bigger the economic shock from the pensions black hole we’re amassing.
From this perspective, a fertility rate on or just below replacement rate would be required to mitigate the damage but at present we’re not meeting this target, which increases the magnitude of the pensions shortfall.
If you think the youth of today are angry, just wait a few more years when they are told they have to work longer, pay more tax and receive less back in return, to pay for the pensions of the generation which preceded them.
“Immigration can mitigate this but it is effectively a ponzi scheme. You will need more migration tomorrow than you did today to sustain the same dependant to worker ratio, so migration would have to increase infinitely to sustain the ratio you started with.” As with immigration so with having children, wouldn’t you think?
I cover the need for a static or declining population. It’s the speed of decline which is the issue.
No one seems to have mentioned so far that it takes heterosexual vaginal intercourse to make a baby ( unless technology is used). In the pre Pill days we made sure we didn’t get pregnant with a series of very pleasurable and non penetrative sexual behaviours. If women knew they wanted to avoid pregnancy, and men accepted they don’t have a right of access to women’s bodies, maybe we wouldn’t need to interfere with nature by introducing artificial hormones into women’s bodies and the wider ecosystems. And natural family planning has an extremely low failure rate when practiced correctly.
LOL. That wouldn’t work. These men would demand a**l. Nobody wants to acknowledge the fact that many men (and increasingly women) are addicted to internet pornography. It’s now to the point where many young men have erectile dysfunction. It’s impossible to consider having a family with a man who spends all his spare moments staring at a screen, looking for his next sexual fix. Many young women with children are experiencing exactly that– they are stuck with all of the childcare and domestic duties while their partners spend hours upon hours surfing internet porn and video gaming. Those who have one children don’t want any more. Those who witness their friends suffer carrying all the burden of keeping the family in tact while daddy chases his next cam girl fantasies say “no thanks– I’ll stay single and childless”.
The ridiculous cost of basic necessities today make having children a sure-fire one way street to profound poverty unless you are well connected and have an excellent STEM job.
I regret having a child prior to earning six figures. He will always always suffer and have limited opportunities because his parents weren’t wealthy, and he already knows it despite barely being a teenager.
I can’t accept the phrase “accidental pregnancy”. As you point out, there are many ways of avoiding pregnancy and have been practiced for aeons. Is the term “accidental pregnancy” used as a cover for not understanding what sex can result in conception? Most pregnancies are caused by indulging in consensual acts, often with fingers crossed and lack of forethought.
In defence of decent men everywhere, and there any many. I don’t know anyone who believes they have “a right of access”.
Another typically thoughtful and thought provoking article from Mary on a topic that should be, but isn’t, widely discussed.
Our birth rate may be below replacement level yet the population of the UK keeps increasing. Any ideas? Whatever the reason, extinction of the human race isn’t an immediate problem on our little island.
Indeed, extinction of the human race isn’t a problem at all. As environmentalists keep telling us, we’re just another species, with no greater right to exist than bonoboes, lizards or slugs. It’s not as if it’s going to happen overnight. If the human beings of the 31st century are worried about extinction, I’m sure they’ll be able to clone a few billion extra people as necessary.
No, the only real problem is the one you opened with, the ecological damage caused by pharmaceuticals – it’s not just the pill. Environmentalist feminists are going to have to grab this bull – cow? – by the horns.
Over to you, Dr Lucas.
I’m no eco warrior by any measure but I can find no sensible argument against reducing the global population given the still accelerating consumption of finite resources, human caused species extinction, pollution & the A.I. / Robotics revolution that’s surely coming and will affect job prospects for the poorest most of all. There are several billions too many of us already. It’s madness to suggest that more humans is a good idea and as I understand it the only proven way to reduce population without harm is the education and empowerment of women. It goes without saying we should be fighting for this on a global scale in all countries (even without the benefit of not clogging up the planet with more consumers, obviously).
who in their right mind does not want population to shrink?
The whole article though interesting has a slightly odd flavour in that environmental concerns about overpopulation (whether well-founded or not) are not even mentioned. Clearly if population growth is going to flatten and then go into reverse then populations will inevitably age and the proportion of young people decline. An oft mentioned ‘solution’ to this is to increase immigration from poorer and younger countries, but as we know this also has its political, social, economic and cultural issues. And with a replacement fertility rate already having I believe fallen to about 2.5 worldwide, this will eventually itself become less and less feasible, at least without huge harm to the ‘people donor’ countries themselves.
However surely it should not be beyond our competence to reconfigure social care, tax and pension systems need to adjust to the new population realities. Although what extent voters want to retire later and work longer is of course another issue.
We seem to be addicted to doom-mongering scenarios whichever way we face; the population is too big, then it it is becoming too small….
The left has an obsession with abolishing the family?! First time I’ve heard.
Given that we are quickly depleting the ability of the planet to sustain the human population we have, this article is bizarre. The spectre of underpopulation is really the spectre of consumption that doesn’t meet the increasing demands of capitalism.
What’s really very interesting, in terms of the availability of artificial contraception, is that feminism, or women’s liberation, or equality of the sexes, is so very dependent on this technological intervention to make it possible – as if it is only by making women less female that we can see them as equal, or shape society to give them equally good lives, dignity and respect. Without access to these products, our vision of ourselves as enlightened about women and their role will fall apart very quickly.
In a way artificial contraception is a perfect mirror to unrestrained capitalism, severing the connection between action and result, creating the illusion that by consumption is a right and that the consequences of that consumption are an imposition, and allowing us to think we can and should be able to construct a good society where we care for others without the necessity for personal self-restraint.
And there we find the elephant in the room. The inherent point of sex is to produce life-changing consequences. Using contraception to gut a fundamental aspect of biology of its purpose is always going to be awkward and, from a classical philosophical point of view, be immoral.
Maybe we could start enjoying our families again?
Here in Scotland ScotGov funds an increasing number of free childcare hours. Up to 35 hours a week now. Both to encourage women’s participation in the workforce and to try and increase the birth rate by supporting families. We need more people up here.
I saw a UN report that predicts the population of Africa will increase from 1.3 billion now to 4 billion by 2100. So an extra 2,700 million people. I don’t think we’re going to run out of people anytime soon…
Stop abortion and then they’d be enough people.
Frances,
Be careful what you wish for:
https://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/abortion-crime-research-donohue-levitt/You’d have a lot more crime, and more poverty.