Nextbigfuture has tried to simplify the reason why global population decline is not something to be ignored. While the world was fine when we had 4 billion people in 1974, we will be deep into disaster if the world population declines to 4 billion in 2080-2120. Fertile women would drop to 5% of the population versus 22% back in 1974.
If world population is like airplane altituce. na airplane that was flying up through 10,000 feet with all engines is safe. The engines are population growth. A plane at 30,000 feet has lost engine power will start plummeting uncontrollably. I am saying hey the world has lost three out of four engines for population growth and this is not good.
The current best pro-baby policies will not be enough and this has been shown with detailed statistic and analysis in the journal Lancet.
It is a global problem shown with statistical analysis and all of the fixes that we have tried even if adopted by everyone are not enough. There has to be far stronger fixes and changes. the problem is and will be all countries, so reasoning about conditions only applicable to one country are likely wrong.
Here is GoatGuys Comment
Partially. You are on The Money though. I would say that in addition, the abandonment of the Nuclear Family as a “life ideal” is really centrally at issue. Today, many (the majority?) of women WANT to have productive careers, to fulfill a sense of socially optimal purpose.
In “The Day” not so long back (say for argument, 1954 or 70 years ago), women were proud to achieve a High School education (unlike many of their Moms); the jingles of the 45 singles records industry were pumping out love songs, life happily ever after, a passel of kids in a station wagon with Dad smoking a silly pipe and cooking inscrutable hot-dogs on a flimsy BBQ. The Jetsons were part of the ideal. Spindly everything, and a space-craft and robot coming to a town near you!!! For Reals!!!
No one really talked much about the dichotomy though: the split between “working hard enough to get through High School” and the ideal of “staying home to make a sweet family life for kids and hubby”. Simpler minds might conclude that the High School diploma was a bit of an overkill. Hardly needed for the life path. But none-the-less, back then (and frankly up until and including the present) having a higher-education degree kind of shook out all the suitors from all the suitable darlings. For both sexes.
For this reason alone, women weren’t dissuaded from choosing “remarkably unemployable” high school tracks, or even College degrees. The Humanities rejoiced at have gazillions of really smart chicks focussing their boundless energies on Humanities majors. Life was good. Those ladies who either chose, or were chosen to follow career paths inevitably DID find relatively solid, relatively decent paying work with their skills. Thus, it all kind of worked.
Today however, we don’t have these sentiments. Rightly or wrongly! In fact it has become remarkably abstract, the whole social dynamic of What is My Purpose in Life. We’ve pushed, pushed, pushed that everyone even modestly able to Go To College ought to do so. We’ve (rather well) funded females to go to colleges, to take all nature of degrees, especially since there’s no intrinsic limitation on them achieving the highest attainment in ANY field. There simply are no “men’s” and “women’s” particular fields. So…
Soooo… we have an abundance of very well educated people of both sexes now. However, given the work that it takes (what, 16 to 18 years?), “at the other end” the graduates are loathe NOT to deploy their hard-won skills into the career marketplace. Gone are the days of getting Art majors and going home to raise a happy family with a decent man. Gone. Our newly minted overachieving ladies are more-than-willing to put in long hours, hard work, to advance their careers. Once the hook is set, they by their own inclination, almost always want to follow it, to see how far it goes.
Unfortunately, Mother Nature has decreed that there are only about 20 to 25 years after College graduation for a woman to take the career-detour of having (and competently raising) a pair or trio of kids. In a remarkably short period of subjective time, women are approaching their 40s. Their careers however, are humming along, their societally chosen “purpose” is fulfilled. Things look up — just as they do for men of the same age — career wise. So… the kids aren’t pursued. Demographics be dâhmned. Careers rule!
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If one goes very far down this line of reasoning, its almost certain that the (naïve) conclusion is ginned up … maybe women shouldn’t be so career oriented? Well … for demographic reasons, of course so! By comparison, all the social “emergency engineering” principles mentioned by the Author … of funding stay-at-home moms, funding kids, funding funding funding, is not a bad idea, but patently silly. Finding — especially in the medium term — finding ways to lionize Motherhood, and Family-hood, is about the only lasting solution. And it is a bit of a bitter pill.
VERY probably, there is no pragmatic solution to this that is socially acceptable. Seriously, the pretty picture of women “barefoot and pregnant” in the house … isn’t pretty at all to many of our newly awakened young women. Abhorrent! You’ve gotta be kidding me!!! That’s ALL our lives are for? Away with you, CAVE man!!!
Mmmm, hmmm…
We’re all heading to the Japan not-so-ideal. Teeny-tiny houses (no one needs a McMansion), teeny tiny cars, living in ultra-dense city centers cheek-to-jowl packed into prim little pods. The cost of living becomes jaw-dropping-inexpensive … but like the Japanese, the price of those pod-housing dormitories on a square-meter basis … SKYrockets. Absurdism takes hold. Justification of million dollar glorified potties without room for clothing.
Could well spell the future. It certainly is for many, many Japanese, Koreans, others close by.
And — were we to be really, REALLY honest — perhaps it is also the solution to the Global Warming by way of CO₂ emissions problem. Go micro-sized. Lop off having kids. Have fast-paced, city-centric lives with 2 incomes, endless paper maché degrees and rules, rules, rules, and more rules.
Then the population seriously drops. And — when I’m being really honest — this outcome has a strong social responsibility dynamic that almost certainly lays strong pavement for broad societal acceptance. No one need have McMansions, McTanks for cars, and live 2 hours into “the burbs” to burn packages of hot-dogs on flimsy BBQ sets.
Man. Smell the roses already. This is depressing.
By the way, reading the rest of the comments, and your article more closely, it looks like in one fashion or another (this is a cactus with a LOT of spiny arms!), we are generally agreed, but not in a way that has been mentioned explicitly so far.
We’ve talked ourselves into this
Yep. That simple statement actually covers just about every motivation that has been adopted to not-have babies. We’ve simply talked ourselves into defining lives-of-meaningfulness as to outright deny the acceptability of purpose of having children, and replaced it with the (religion? of) purpose of maximizing education, career, independence, modest living and extra-low personal hardship attaining it.
Kids, like ‘em or not, embody the polar opposite of these now nearly-encompassing ideals.
And we’ve talked ourselves into embracing the anti-family ideals for all the reasons — essentially superficial — that any of the readers of NBF can give. Good for the environment, good for one’s personal attainment, good for resource conservancy, good for sophistication in one’s life purpose.
Thus, we will be temporarily doomed.
HOWEVER — again somewhat contrary to the article — however, no matter how far down the self-absorbed decline path we travel, hardship, war, pestilence, and societal reformation could come to play at any time to reinvigorate Humanity’s path toward demographic stability, or ideally, growth.
in a way not irresponsibly far from credibility to entertain, Humanity has had its bottlenecks many times in the past. Unheralded for the most part, sometimes focussed upon in the Histories,times of famine, pestilence, war, widespread dementia (the rotten-rye problem in Europe), volcanism and other natural disasters have seriously consolidated Humankind … at least 35 times since the days of Pharaoh. And every time, demographics be damned, Humanity has recovered, recoiled, and renewed its demographic interests.
It is in remembering that, that I have ultimate hope in all of the clades of Humans on planet Earth. We don’t even need to go to Mars to do it “all over again” when someday the need be.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Traditionally a woman had at LEAST two children in her teens AFTER she was married.
If you were an alien breeding humans, then Homo Sapiens females SHOULD have their first child around 16 years of age, this gives the healthiest children and a young mother to care for them.
Gonna stop you right here:
“The cost of living becomes jaw-dropping-inexpensive … but like the Japanese, the price of those pod-housing dormitories on a square-meter basis … SKYrockets. Absurdism takes hold. Justification of million dollar glorified potties without room for clothing.”
Tokyo is the most expensive city in Japan, but you can find apartments close to a train station pretty cheap; there are many options for a 1 bedroom that are much less than $1,000 a month:
https://blog.gaijinpot.com/how-much-is-the-average-rent-in-tokyo/
You guys are talking about timelines in the 2080-2120 frame for the depopulation problem to show up. That is a very long time from now, 6-10 decades. I don’t we can project trends of any kind like this that far into the future.
It is happening a lot sooner. Japan’s economy already hit because people are older. Median age in Japan 49.1 now. Was 38 in 1997. Peak population was in 2007. Yes, the drop of overall population was 128M to 122M but the working age was 87 million in 1997-2000 and is now 74 million. 85% of the peak working age population. GDP peaked in 1996 and has gone down while the US and other countries without demographic problems tripled GDP over the last 30 years. Japan dropping to less than 59 million working age by 2040. China is declining in population now and could lose 30-40% of working age population by 2050. The number of fertile women has declined and the number of females 0-17 will be the 18-34 year old women in 17 years. This is dropping 30% or so for Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Spain, Italy etc… This is now unavoidable. This projection is ironclad. Females age 0-17 will become the 18-34 fertile cohort. The working age population age out is unavoidable. Those now 48-65 will age out and be replaced with 3-25 year olds. The next 17 years for working age demographics is fixed in stone. The number of new births is not turning around without massive change. The numbers keep dropping for reasons of urbanization, womens education, contraceptives, etc… It is very safe to run the birth estimates as flat or slightly declining line for 10 years. This will be highly accurate for years 18-27 out in the future when this next cohort ages in.
Japan is different culture than others, more introverted.
Less people is a good thing for the environment and living better lives with more nature, less human waste. Really don’t need more than 8 bill, so everyone isn’t even more cramped up in tiny spaces. I really don’t like the idea of Earth turning into giant metropolis with even more pollution and bigger strain on the resources.
We will find solutions and robots will work for us, automation tax,…
Natural evolutionary selection is great, when population is too big, it gets down a bit and then again it rises up.
Can we at least agree that the overpopulation argument against anti-aging life extension is dead (pun intended). Ya think?
It’s dead especially when fertility technology, in conjunction with anti-aging technology, means a couple can have a child every 50 to 100 years and still have a big family, assuming Aubrey de Grey’s optimistic estimates are correct.
OMG who cares? Why does it always have to be an ‘acute’ crisis? One decade it’s styrofoam and the ozone layer, next global warming, covid, overpopulation, underpopulation, plastics or mercury in the fish. Always a crisis. Always a reason to make the government bigger. Always something for those in the ‘studies’ to work on with tax money.
I welcome depopulation – we are way too top [government] heavy.
I did my part, and I didn’t do it for humanity. As my friend said when he married a woman many years younger, “Of course we had to have kids…. What else were we going to do? Look at each other for the next 30 years?”
If you’re a normal hetero, the challenge is actually limiting how many offspring you have.
Yes. But it appears to be an asymmetric issue – the dumb, poor, lazy, violent, and potential-less of the World appear to be declining at a lesser rate, making the ratio of 1st Worlders -to- Others ‘untenable’ and all the loss of modernity that implies.
The women’s view is starkly missing here.
See this video on artificial wombs, by an attractive woman of child-bearing age who says she’d use one if it was available.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLYMAkgvZsI
Women, you know, see childbirth differently, for all the health risks, even risk of death. Plus, they know they will be the primary caregiver for at least the early childhood years, no matter what most men say.
When did Next Big Future become Next Big Past?
The future will have artificial wombs – already here experimentally: https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=The-Coming-of-Woman-Free-G-Artificial-Wombs_Fertility-230109-920.html (and this article is >1 year old, the video 6 years old).
Life extension is happening, not fast enough, but it will ramp up with AI discovering new cures and therapies. And it won’t be voluntary. The I-don’t-wanna-live-longer people will be outweighed by the I-don’t-wanna-pay-for-senior’s-medical-bills crowd, including the wealthy, who ironically, won’t be satisfied with just extending their own lives if it means they still have to pay high taxes to support those who can’t afford the same treatments. It’ll still be cheaper to extend average 70-80 year old’s productive lives than to pay for them for cancer, dementia, diabetes and nursing home care. This will be spurred on by republican’s raising the retirement age, possibly as soon as next year if they take the White House back and flip the Senate (likely) and keep the House (possible). Something has to give, and it’ll be average lifespan…upward.
AI will accelerate all kinds of discoveries, and also make college fairly obsolete. Why spend 4 years learning stuff that is obsolete once you graduate, if not before (college professors are notoriously behind the latest science)?
Women aren’t going to go backwards, with one huge caveat for the poor, religious fundamentalists, and other anti-science backwards looking sects. If THOSE people take over, we’ll die of famine, disease, and wars, instead of voluntary de-babymaking. The latter is much more preferable.
We need to enhance men to become chads, so they are desirable to women again.
There are many incels that have never been on a date in their life.
Well, at least one group of people are having no problem raising kids. In fact it is an exponential growth curve – which means they will soon hit some push-back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Amish_population
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-08-01/why-the-amish-population-is-exploding?embedded-checkout=true
Most governments are relying heavily on borrowing money from those who are not yet alive. Logic raises the issue on how that debt will be repaid by fewer people who are burdened by ever heavier tax burdens to pay the debt. Absent simply walking away from the debt, hard to imagine other than a gloomy economic future for a depopulated world.
Experts have long claimed that increasing human population could cause civilization collapse.
Now we have experts telling us that decreasing human population could cause civilization collapse.
While experts should be listened to, after all they are smart and have spent a lot of time studying the scenarios, but one thing is for sure, the future is not linear and will not be as simple as experts extrapolate. One commentator mentioned how 40 years ago Japan was planning Arcologies to house 1 million people.
My own view, just as the last 100 years proved that Communism does not work, so we are finding that Capitalism, in its current form, is all about creating more consumers and encouraging them to buy, discard, then buy more, while the ecosystem gets trashed. We have seen continuous shocks to the economic system that are becoming more interconnected and complex while the debt burden rises. I cannot see this as sustainable, in fact just the opposite.
Yet Capitalism has evolved and can evolve. It may be that some reinvention of Capitalism is the way forward, but it cannot just be left to the rich elite to make the rules then decamp to their remote fortress havens in New Zealand when things go bad.
I also think, along with others, that robots, AI, life extension, and possibly artificial wombs will play into this in a significant way.
One final observation. I guess that most of the comments on here are from males discussing policies on how to get females to have more babies. Understandable as that is just a feature of the site’s audience. But it might be nice hear input from the other half of the population.
I am interested in Goat Guy’s commentary which I usually enjoy and credit with mathematical reality.
I have been criticised on this site for repeating the concept that CO2 increase follows the increased global temperature rather than following it. The “hockey stick” model is being disputed and disproven (even in US courts) almost as quickly as Neil Ferguson’s shameful Imperial College model of Covid virulence and mortality. Pick your model- I don’t argue with the concept that the northern hemisphere is becoming warmer, which is actually a benefit here in the Great White North, but does require a slightly different approach to management of crops and water.
As Goat Guy is able to provide mathematical models for many of his comments, I would hope that we will see some consideration of solar cycles and planetary orbital variations in his statement that human energy production is driving the climate change (let alone cow farts!)
We eat diesel. Model the population decimation if we had a year when diesel oil became unavailable. 8 billion people are fed on industrial agriculture with tractors and machinery, all diesel powered, and transport (ships and trains) similarly dependent on diesel engines. Would 2 or 3 billion humans survive at the end of that year? The population in 1890 was about 1 billion.
The complexity and interdependence of our modern society is certainly dependent on growth and production of surplus wealth. Does that really benefit the average citizen? In the third world the numbers of humans living in subsistence poverty has certainly decreased over the past century, but in North America the inflation adjusted wage/wealth has not improved with increased “productivity” since about 1970 when I finished high school. Gasoline was 47 cents/Imp.gallon and beer was C$2.56 per dozen. Most of our neighbouring mothers hadn’t needed to work through our classmates’ elementary school sojourns, 10-12 years for families of 2-6 children. The increased taxation and concentration of wealth in the upper few per centiles of the population certainly increased the disincentive for large families in the lower 97%.
Goat Guy implies that there are 20-25 years of good fertility after college. I would recast this as “possible” fertility, often with technological assistance. Actual fertility declines steadily from late teenage in most women, especially for first babies. Without consulting actuarial tables I would prefer having a patient planning pregnancy at 38 after a previous baby than a 34 year old nulliparous woman. If a woman receives a BA in “Studies” at 22 she then has about 13 years of easy pregnancy, not 23, and as noted is more “picky.”
I don’t see that “progress” depends on a large population. I argue that it is the velocity of progress which is numerically dependent, the dreaded “area under the curve” in calculus. I posit that the milestones would be achieved, albeit somewhat later, with a smaller or less technically educated population. Moore’s Law would then be a three or four year function, not 18-24 months, which would not offend me at all, and as an older human might actually make life more manageable.
I just don’t get why so many are in a blind panic about a gas that is the foundation of the food chain rising from 0.03% to 0.04 or 0.05% of the atmosphere in a few hundred years. Isn’t more plant food good for biodiversity and humanity alike? Where is the evidence that in a nitrogen+oxygen-dominant atmosphere, such minor fluctuations can and have triggered a “tipping point” and caused “climate chaos” in the past? Earth should already be a lifeless rock according to this “logic”.
[ if women can’t arrange children and career, then ’employers’ (or self-employed) are just inflexible with providing (creating) suitable work space conditions?
Religious groups include life-respecting conditions more likely into ‘their’ society concepts, naturally?
Raising children at a camp (ground) is knowing what their possibilities might get, probably?
Will there be something like a ‘zenith’ for humanity? ]
I don’t really see a big problem. Soon all work will be automated. Some people will become super rich, some will become poor ballast. The super rich reproduce well. The poor are dying out. A wonderful world is coming, consisting only of the elite and their robotic servants. I would even speed up this process by involving unnecessary poor people in the war. There they will be able to bring 2 benefits – kill enemies and capture minimal resources and die themselves.
But if you really want to, just shell out some money for an artificial womb and a genetic database. Then in 100 years you will be able, if you want, to make the number of stupid representatives of the middle class you need
American women have been taught by their SJW classes that men are evil and the oppressors. That is why 80% of the divorces are filed by college educated women in a marriage. When things go wrong they turn on the man cause they have been trained, like a dog, to attack those oppressive man.
Women swipe right only on the top 10% of men thinking that they are all the top 10% and “deserve” men who are all over 6′ and make 6 figures minimum. They will settle for no less since they are now also wage earners and any man who makes less is not acceptable. 1/2 of the women 30 and older will never be married and have families.
“Passport men” are the only alternative for many men who want a wife and mother. They have not been trained to resent men and think of marriage as a partnership to have a family.
The only successful alternative is Muslim structure where women are oppressed and made to stay in the home.
Not all accept the faith of Babylon.
Many will follow the dogmas of the secular faith and look for meaning in life as defined by the current pop culture. People are bad for the environment, women should not look to hearth and home but to business and work for satisfaction, nuclear family is an outdated consept of the patriarchy, abortion is great and anyone who says otherwise is evil, money is more important than children.
The future belongs to those who see beyond the day to day, and place value on the connections formed from having children. Mostly religious folk fall into this category and although some faiths are declining in numbers – mostly those that have become more worldly in their beliefs – others continue to grow in numbers, slow but steady. Perhaps there are a few outside religious circles who also seek fulfillment through family. All in all it will be self selecting. Secular folks will not produce, religious folks (LDS, traditional Catholics, Evangelicals, Amish, etc…) and those with strong desires for family will.
My father paid 2% (+2% for employer) Social Security, and they raised it to 3% (+3%). I paid over 6% to start. When I became self-employed I paid “both ends” and it was 15%. My father paid 13% of his income to state and federal taxes during his working years. I pay both entities more than 13%. So do you. We pay sales taxes not of 3 cents but over 10.
Besides the excellent points you have both made, it is important to know that the government has grown a great deal in the last 70 years. A family must now have two or more incomes to stay afloat just from taxes. And you should likely mention dollar devaluation and inflation as contributing factors to forcing the need for extra income just to keep up. And once the inflation has hit, it’s hard to reset those prices.
If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather we not go back to 1974 for the oil embargo, racism, stagflation under Carter, and all the other problems. Not that today’s problems are trivial! I don’t know a good solution to depopulation. I wish someone had a really good solution, and the power to act on it.
In 2024 in the U.S., 60% of reproductive age women have not graduated from college and in the world generally the percentage is much higher. In the next decade, many women who have degrees will become unemployable as their skill sets are replaced by AI.
The narrative that a population collapse is occurring because women have all started chasing careers applies only to narrow segments of humanity.
The real crisis is the looming destruction of jobs. The middle class was drawn into going to college by the promise of good employment and that’s going to end very soon.
The same necessary change that guarantees everyone a just share of wealth that’s needed for a post wage work society also would eliminate the penalties the current system imposes on raising children.
Whatever you do, don’t let people have land to which they can migrate on which to perform social experiments to which they, as mere human subjects, consent! Some experiment, somewhere on the planet, might not consent to include _you_ in their experiment. That, alone, is enough justification to bomb them into oblivion. Oh, but that’s not the worst of it! If they exclude you and people like you, they might flourish. Worse still is the possibility that other experiments that _include_ people like you crash and burn. And then your Stats101 smoke screen of “Correlation doesn’t imply causation.” might get blown away!
I get the sense you are referring to a specific case but no idea which one. You are going to have to spell it out.
If having all these non-fertile, non-women on the planet is such a problem one could always kill everyone who isn’t a fertile woman (except for a small number of sperm producers). Problem solved. You then have nearly 100% fertile women. Very efficient.
Let me suggest an escape pod: We are accustomed to being absorbed up to 25 years or so in getting degrees and post docs. And partying…
after that we spend the next 10 to 15 years ascending the ladder of our careers up to our forties, when we have our first middle age crisis.
the fact is that we are going to be productive up to our 70. at least.
Dames are in their peak as mothers from 20 to 30.
we could split our studies in three tiers: up to our 20 learning common ground math, history , languaje, geography, logic, arts…. from 20 to 30 will be devoted to having kids and studying subjects with no practical use: philosophy, major in arts, Dostoyevsky, comparative cultures, mathematics. Those subjects will be taught without a clear limit, selected at will, with as little cost as possible. In your 30 starts the studies for career forming: engineering, lawyer, professor, doctor, business. Everybody is encouraged to have kids of more than 4 or 5 years at this age, as to be independent enough to be in daycare kindergarten while their parents are studying. After 5 years in those high school, mummy and daddy start the rats race as they are 35.
They are going to have medium life crisis at 50, when kids are in its 20 and better prepared to see daddy chasing chicks in his new corvette.
I really like this idea.. Seems like 80% of folks would probably do better in a world like this but there are still the 20% that are so talented that they belong in advanced education earlier. And there are many who are thrust into careering early because of family obligations. But anyways the idea of having this ‘one thing at a time’ progression could really chill out the anxiety of doing it all at once in our society. That said, I’m still not convinced we have a population crisis in this country.
The tech solution to population decline is life/health span extension with lab-created egg and sperm and artificial wombs when following the current college/career/kids path.
The non-tech path could be college/kids/career if a cultural shift can be made.
In a manner reminiscent to the Industrially, and the Neolithic revolution the first government that embraces artificial wombs, and genetic engineering will completely outpace the rest in economic, technological and political power. Given it gives this nation a potentially unlimited supply of people with vastly superior intellectual and physical attributes to the rest of humanity.
All we need is one government out of two hundred to socially embrace these technologies, and the rest will be forced to adopt or be dominated just like the other technology paradigms that have occurred in human history.
Humans with altered genetics vs AI…
Of course, the altered humans will also have AI but I wonder if the relative increased cognitive performance will be large enough and soon enough to be significant.
AGI (or ASI) is maybe less than 10 years away and then the AI systems will start to improve themselves faster than what we can do.
Altered genetics is much farther away. It’s also very complicated and time consuming. We probably need AI to bring sense to all genetic factors leading to increased intelligence. I’m sure it will happen but interfacing/integrating with the machines will come first.
The tech solution is the one that usually gets implemented because its the one that is least coercive. That’s why its often referred to as the positive-sum solution.