We know that better living conditions (health, income, education etc) lead to lower fertility. In a world that you have both developed and developing countries, the stable equilibrium seems to be world suffering.
Wtf.
I think that's the wrong read.
All sorts of animal population follow a sigmoidal growth pattern where there's exponential growth, some degree of overshoot and then a return to a steady level somewhat below that peak.
I think it's more likely, drawing from biology, that we end up at a stable global population level without having to worry about moving backwards along the metrics of education, income or contraceptive access.
Remember it was just a few years ago everyone was absolutely terrified that we would grow to the point where the world simply couldn't hold us all and we'd die off -- and now we're terrified the population will zero out. In reality, neither is very likely. We're probably just going to chill around 8 billion or so until/if we go multi-planetary.
The problem with this instability is that the numbers bounce around wildly. Up and down, by a lot, in as little as 2 or 3 generations. But there's a process that stops the bouncing: hitting zero.
Obviously that's more at the upper end, but for an obligate carnivore that is an amazing multiplier.
All economies do not inherently rely on growth. It's just that capitalists have brainwashed themselves into believing capitalism is the only type of economy possible and that growth can go on without bound literally forever.
It's exactly as stupid as it sounds.
Japan is a good example of a country where the population has been in steady decline for a long time now. The economy has stagnated, but it has not collapsed.
The more worrisome part of what we're seeing in Japan is the total hollowing out of the countryside as the young systematically pack into the three large cities that increasingly dominate all economic activity, namely Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka.
"We find a robust association between density and fertility over time, both within- and between-countries. That is, increases in population density are associated with declines in fertility rates, controlling for a variety of socioeconomic, socioecological, geographic, population-based, and female empowerment variables."
To wit: the current human population is beyond the natural carrying capacity of the places we live. The only reason we can sustain 7bn people today is because we've artificially increased local carrying capacity through artificial fertilizer. If we lost that technology today, a majorty of humans alive now would starve to death.
There's really no reason to assume any environmental factors that don't physically preclude human occupation will have any effect on overall population numbers. We can artificially extend our ecosystem to support essentially unlimited people. The only real hard limit is space to physically put bodies and the amount of energy our society can use without boiling the oceans with waste heat.
If population growth levels out, it won't be for any natural reason because we are already well beyond any natural limit.
There's absolutely no inherent equilibrating force that will stabilize global fertility rates at replacement. Many countries have blown by replacement (the USA included) and continue on a downward trend year over year.
Alternately: in the past, dying was a lot easier, and society adapted to that by creating extra people, and we've reached a point where that isn't as necessary. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be awesome to improve things for the number of people we do have, or that those improvements are easy, but it's not obvious to me why the assumption would be that quality of life only changes if the population continues changing. In other words, it sounds like you're measuring two different things, noticing one of them slowing no longer increasing, and trying to make inferences about the other one without actually establishing how exactly that connection works.
If you consider starting a family with no hope of ever getting out of renting, as landlords constantly raise monthlies, you might reconsider children.
On top of the issues with people working so often and so hard that they rarely have time to meet anyone outside of work; no wonder people aren't marrying.
Generally the less money you make the more kids you have. It's really a question of prioritization. People say they're holding off on kids for X or Y reason but I think this is more of an expressed vs revealed preferences situation. They would rather chase material wealth for themselves than have kids, and to be clear I'm not judging just observing. Through most of human history mud huts weren't a blocker to having kids.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...
Aside from that, it's merely observations/anecdotes, but from what I’ve seen people who have managed to achieve a massive uplift in economic status (say from minimum wage in their mid-20s → net worth north of $500k-$1m in their mid-30s) are more likely to have children than people who’ve always been wealthy. I would theorize that such individuals feel a greater degree of economic freedom, having lived at the bottom and being able to make more effective use of what they have.
Even the most generous countries aren’t fully compensating for the costs of raising a family, and the assistance offered by many is less than pocket change. It’s only natural that incentive is going to be low.
How do you come to this conclusion. We're seeing that our oh so clever selves have used chemicals/plastics in these nice living conditions to the point they have negative consequences on our health. Having a nice place to live with a job with a nice salary while lending to better health does not lower one's fertility. Maybe these people with the nice jobs and nice places to live are choosing not to have kids which become the reason they can't have nice things. I think you've jumped to an incorrect conclusion
Might wish to add it in ultraviolet, though.
I think the first country to do it will be scolded heavily, but only until everyone else figures out how they did it and are able to copy them.
Statistically, we're most likely to be born when the world population is at its peak.
delecti•59m ago
Still a significant milestone though.
dhosek•48m ago
didgetmaster•16m ago
The current administration is trying to make it so fewer people will want to violate our laws and sneak into our country.
Those two things actually have very little to do with each other. That is why some of the biggest supporters of border enforcement are those who came here through legal channels.