Dropping birth and death rates

[Blind groper]

It is interesting that the world is going through a major drop in birth rates. Fertility (the number of children per woman) has gone, in 50 years, from a global average of 5.5 to 2.4, which is barely above replacement rate. The only thing that keeps the population rising as it does is that people are not dying off as quickly as they once did.

None of this happened as the result of any plan. Governments and churches had nothing to do with it. It appears that as soon as easy contraception became available, women started using it, and using it enthusiastically. So this trend is one genuinely of the people, rather than driven by the rulers.

It is kind of ironic to look at the following. China did a top down system, in which its rulers decided to stop the population growth by force. Before 1955, they had fertility of 5.59, and they enforced a one child rule, which got fertility down to 1.73, being a 69% drop. In exactly the same time period, with no coercion at all, Sri Lanka went from 5.7 to 1.88, being a 67% drop.

Who needs coercion?

[Tero]

What will happen to capitalism? It will collapse if population levels off. It only works in a growth model.

[cronus]

What will happen to capitalism? It will collapse if population levels off. It only works in a growth model.

Capitalism collapses leads to feudalism and failure of contraceptives then baby boom leads to capitalism and contraception uptake - cycle repeats...until humans die out from ebola.

[Brian Peacock]

Birth rates fall as things like child mortality rates, economic output, civil order and democracy, access to healthcare and education rises.

[cronus]

Too busy down mill to think about 'aving kids. OK till the resource limits of water, cotton and oil are reached.

[Blind groper]

Brian is correct.

Fewer children are born where things are more prosperous. The highest birth rates occur where people are engaged in subsistence farming. ie. self sufficiency leads to overpopulation. Empowering women through education and higher paid jobs drives lower birth rates.

The reverse is shown by the Amish in America, who have big families, and live primitive lives. It is shown by poorer peoples in Africa and Asia. Everywhere people break free of the subsistence trap, family size falls.

Families are smaller in cities than in the countryside, and city dwelling is much, much less harmful to the natural environment on a per capita basis than country living.

[Seth]

Fewer children are born where things are prosperous because it means better medical care and better food. In the third world, and historically, many babies die before they reach age two, and in agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies, even kids got dead with some frequency, which is why women used to have 6, 8 or a dozen kids in a lifetime...because most of them didn't survive to adulthood.

That, combined with the doubling (and more) of the average life span is what keeps populations high.

A good world war or plague or two every couple of generations helps weed out the weak and make some space.

[klr]

In a richer society, it's also much more expensive to have & raise children, relatively speaking.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Fewer children are born where things are prosperous because it means better medical care and better food. In the third world, and historically, many babies die before they reach age two, and in agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies, even kids got dead with some frequency, which is why women used to have 6, 8 or a dozen kids in a lifetime...because most of them didn't survive to adulthood.

That, combined with the doubling (and more) of the average life span is what keeps populations high.

A good world war or plague or two every couple of generations helps weed out the weak and make some space.

All of this is perfectly true, until you factor in dogmatic pronouncements from prominent, religious leaders that (for example): deny contraception, insist that sex is sinful except for procreational purposes and urge adherents to multiply aggressively. Add this to prosperous societies and you end up with insane population bubbles. There is a very noticeable correlation between states with strict religious adherence and those with high birthrate - this is largely independent of the technological development (an concomitant decrease in infant mortality) of the states in question.

[JimC]

God hates sex, but wants us to make lots of babies!

Do it guiltily in the dark!

[Seth]

In a richer society, it's also much more expensive to have & raise children, relatively speaking.

Especially to one's egoistic narcissistic need for hedonism....

[Blind groper]

A good world war or plague or two every couple of generations helps weed out the weak and make some space.

Now I understand why you love guns so much.

[Seth]

Fewer children are born where things are prosperous because it means better medical care and better food. In the third world, and historically, many babies die before they reach age two, and in agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies, even kids got dead with some frequency, which is why women used to have 6, 8 or a dozen kids in a lifetime...because most of them didn't survive to adulthood.

That, combined with the doubling (and more) of the average life span is what keeps populations high.

A good world war or plague or two every couple of generations helps weed out the weak and make some space.

All of this is perfectly true, until you factor in dogmatic pronouncements from prominent, religious leaders that (for example): deny contraception, insist that sex is sinful except for procreational purposes and urge adherents to multiply aggressively.

Well, for them it is sinful outside of marriage and what you say is entirely wrong anyway. Catholics believe it's just fine to have sex whenever you want, and enjoy the heck out of it, with your married spouse purely for the purposes of pleasuring one another, but with the understanding that both spouses must be open to pregnancy and willing to nurture and raise any child that might result from that union if God decides it's time for another baby.

And what are the two segments of the world population that have higher than replacement birth rates? Take a guess at who is going to run the planet in the next few generations. Clue: It ain't going to be the narcissistic, selfish, hedonistic, tree-hugging, liberal guilt-ridden nitwits who think that not having children is a good thing. And it ain't going to be homosexuals.

It's going to be Muslims and Catholics.

You really should learn what your talking about before you advertise your ignorance.

Add this to prosperous societies and you end up with insane population bubbles. There is a very noticeable correlation between states with strict religious adherence and those with high birthrate - this is largely independent of the technological development (an concomitant decrease in infant mortality) of the states in question.

Imagine that...societies where religion encourages procreation out-procreating societies that allow women to kill their unborn children at will. What a concept.

[Seth]

A good world war or plague or two every couple of generations helps weed out the weak and make some space.

Now I understand why you love guns so much.

Yeah. When weeding season opens, I want to be a gardener, not a weed.

[Blind groper]

There is a very noticeable correlation between states with strict religious adherence and those with high birthrate

I doubt it. For example, in Catholic Italy, the centre of papist strength, the average fertility is 1.3.