A declining population will bring a few challenges, none of them "unprecedented". The main issues will be A) increased difficulty in funding a welfare state which was predicated on baby boom demographics, and B) a related decline in quality of life among the poor--particularly the elderly, and C) the likely end to the 150+ year trend of a constantly rising stock market.
These things will sort themselves out, though.
Historically, the driving force behind childbearing was the notion that children were your retirement plan. If you wanted to be sure that there would be someone to take care of you in old age, you'd sure as heck better have a few kids. The fewer kids, the higher the likelihood that, once you were too old to work, your life would end in poverty. The more kids you had, the more likely they would be able to take good care of you.
The combination of Government social guarantees, general prosperity and a constantly rising stock market have obliterated this natural incentive structure. Children are no longer required to ensure a certain standard of living in the future--they are perceived as a financial drain, if anything. The moment the social security programs dry up and the stock market flattens out, women will quickly perceive the new reality, wherein having more children is a direct personal benefit, and not having kids is a dire economic risk. Once this occurs, fertility will skyrocket and the cycle will repeat.
survirtual•7mo ago
You may be overthinking it.
It is simple. This world as it stands has no future, and is too stressful. It is incompatible with happy women. Unhappy women destroy this world. Not with war, but with apathy. Take away the passion to exist in women, and the planet dies.
Consistently taking away women rights, belittling them, ignoring their complaints, and making everyday life a needlessly complicated rat's nest of intricate nonsense tends to kill any desire to procreate.
Make a world worth living in, that is safe, fun, prosperous, and happy, then people will have kids again.
No one cares about your retirement. They also don't care about their own retirement. They sure as shit aren't having kids for their own retirement plans. It would be extreme narcissistic selfishness to have kids as a retirement plan, I can't imagine anyone in the real world thinking that way.
marcusverus•7mo ago
> Consistently taking away women rights, belittling them, ignoring their complaints, and making everyday life a needlessly complicated rat's nest of intricate nonsense tends to kill any desire to procreate.
This is totally detached from reality. Women in the West have more rights than elsewhere, but much lower fertility. Their fertility rates have halved over the last 50 years, even as we have reordered our societies entirely for their benefit.
> It would be extreme narcissistic selfishness to have kids as a retirement plan, I can't imagine anyone in the real world thinking that way.
Having kinds for economic reasons has been standard operating procedure for all of human history. Reality doesn't cease to be simply because you "can't imagine" it.
more_corn•7mo ago
Weird comment bro.
“Reordered our societies entirely for their benefit?”
That statement has some odd implications for your state of mind.
tuatoru•7mo ago
This is an optimistic take. There are precedents, it is true. Probably the best match is the decline of the western Roman Empire into the Eurpean Dark Ages. The dark ages were dark because population reduced.
Infrastructure fell into ruin because no-one could afford to maintain it. Quality of life suffered for everyone, evidenced by the declining stature of skeletons they left us, and the evidence of malnutrition in the bones.
We can expect:
An ever-greater proportion of economic activity going into elder care, especially healthcare of the aged.
Higher taxes and lower savings - the elderly don't save. Lower investment: faced with declining sales generally, investors will demand a higher rate of interest - the hurdle rate for investment will go up, while disinflation makes holding cash or equivalent more worthwhile. Meanwhile entrepreneurs have to return investors' money with a declining forecast revenue curve.
The elderly to have an even greater stranglehold on the political process than they do now, creating a policy environment unfriendly to innovation. There will be more pressure for taxpayer-supported elder care. Other public goods like infrastructure will be neglected as a result. There will be pressure to increase weekly working hours for those of working age.
Governments eventually wiill realise that (low skilled) immigration doesn't solve the problem long term, but makes it worse because immigrants get old too.
As for the reaction of women perceiving a new retirement reality: they may decide to have no children at all, instead saving hard for their retirement. China has not much in the way of social security or elder healthcare (except for party members above a certain rank), and China's fertility rate is way lower than the USA's.
marcusverus•7mo ago
These things will sort themselves out, though.
Historically, the driving force behind childbearing was the notion that children were your retirement plan. If you wanted to be sure that there would be someone to take care of you in old age, you'd sure as heck better have a few kids. The fewer kids, the higher the likelihood that, once you were too old to work, your life would end in poverty. The more kids you had, the more likely they would be able to take good care of you.
The combination of Government social guarantees, general prosperity and a constantly rising stock market have obliterated this natural incentive structure. Children are no longer required to ensure a certain standard of living in the future--they are perceived as a financial drain, if anything. The moment the social security programs dry up and the stock market flattens out, women will quickly perceive the new reality, wherein having more children is a direct personal benefit, and not having kids is a dire economic risk. Once this occurs, fertility will skyrocket and the cycle will repeat.
survirtual•7mo ago
It is simple. This world as it stands has no future, and is too stressful. It is incompatible with happy women. Unhappy women destroy this world. Not with war, but with apathy. Take away the passion to exist in women, and the planet dies.
Consistently taking away women rights, belittling them, ignoring their complaints, and making everyday life a needlessly complicated rat's nest of intricate nonsense tends to kill any desire to procreate.
Make a world worth living in, that is safe, fun, prosperous, and happy, then people will have kids again.
No one cares about your retirement. They also don't care about their own retirement. They sure as shit aren't having kids for their own retirement plans. It would be extreme narcissistic selfishness to have kids as a retirement plan, I can't imagine anyone in the real world thinking that way.
marcusverus•7mo ago
This is totally detached from reality. Women in the West have more rights than elsewhere, but much lower fertility. Their fertility rates have halved over the last 50 years, even as we have reordered our societies entirely for their benefit.
> It would be extreme narcissistic selfishness to have kids as a retirement plan, I can't imagine anyone in the real world thinking that way.
Having kinds for economic reasons has been standard operating procedure for all of human history. Reality doesn't cease to be simply because you "can't imagine" it.
more_corn•7mo ago
tuatoru•7mo ago
Infrastructure fell into ruin because no-one could afford to maintain it. Quality of life suffered for everyone, evidenced by the declining stature of skeletons they left us, and the evidence of malnutrition in the bones.
We can expect:
An ever-greater proportion of economic activity going into elder care, especially healthcare of the aged.
Higher taxes and lower savings - the elderly don't save. Lower investment: faced with declining sales generally, investors will demand a higher rate of interest - the hurdle rate for investment will go up, while disinflation makes holding cash or equivalent more worthwhile. Meanwhile entrepreneurs have to return investors' money with a declining forecast revenue curve.
The elderly to have an even greater stranglehold on the political process than they do now, creating a policy environment unfriendly to innovation. There will be more pressure for taxpayer-supported elder care. Other public goods like infrastructure will be neglected as a result. There will be pressure to increase weekly working hours for those of working age.
Governments eventually wiill realise that (low skilled) immigration doesn't solve the problem long term, but makes it worse because immigrants get old too.
As for the reaction of women perceiving a new retirement reality: they may decide to have no children at all, instead saving hard for their retirement. China has not much in the way of social security or elder healthcare (except for party members above a certain rank), and China's fertility rate is way lower than the USA's.