DailyDirt: Dealing With Zero (Or Negative) Population Growth
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Pessimistic economists have predicted overpopulation problems based on exponential growth trends, but statistics point to lower birth rates as countries become more industrialized. So now, there's a different kind of problem -- aging populations and minimal population growth in certain countries. How will we deal with people living longer and having fewer and fewer kids?- China has officially ended its "one child" policy, allowing its citizens to have up to two kids. An estimated 400 million babies "avoided conception" since 1979, but now that the Chinese population is skewing older, more 25-64yo workers will be needed. However, the social norm of having only one child might be more difficult to reverse than simply lifting a ban. [url]
- The Government of Singapore has been trying to encourage its citizens to have more kids for many years, partnering with ad agencies to create some goofy campaigns. A few years ago, on "National Night" (Aug 9th), Singaporeans were called upon to perform their civic duty... and make some babies. (The government has also tried tax incentives, paid maternity leave, and programs to help singles develop long-term relationships.) [url]
- Denmark also has an aging population problem -- and a goofy ad campaign to "do it for mom" to get people to think about making grandkids. The country is even throwing in a vacation package discount because statistics show that couples tend to have kids after romantic, exotic getaways. [url]
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: ad campaigns, babies, birth rates, china, demographics, denmark, national night, one child policy, parenting, singapore, zero population growth, zpg
Reader Comments
The First Word
“More people?
Let's put it this way-with 7 billion people on this planet, there is not one good reason for more people to have babies.We're on a course for self-extinction the way we are. Putting more people in it for sake of having future workers is pretty short sighted and ignorant.
Don't worry, we won't have to live here forever, will we? We'll colonize Mars any day now, won't we?
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
What’s Our Most Valuable Resource?
So maybe in the smart, forward-looking countries, the Government will start to offer subsidies and other assistance to those willing to have children.
“Nanny state”, did you say? Yes, it will have to come to that.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
mmm... i dunno
I suspect the real problem is, it generates less taxes for governments - and less people propping up the economy...
What I see, however, is that it's a giant ponzi scheme. We really should consider global population attrition as a real thing. The problem is, the stupid people are going to produce kids regardless of what is good for society, and we're likely to end up with a situation straight out of Idiocracy.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Live Long and Die Out
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Matter of fact, the necessity of your own continued existence is questionable. I mean, you're only going deeper and deeper into that unbearable future, propping up "the system" (or "society" as people used to say. "civilization" even, once or twice upon a time.).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Once Upon a Time
Unfortunately, our standard of living has been robbed. We can argue about who has done the robbing, but I want to assure you that it HAS happened. Until that trend changes, the birth rate is going to decrease.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: What’s Our Most Valuable Resource?
Isn't that what family assistance programs do? Incentivize single women to have children? Granted, they're mostly low-income, minority women.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
More people?
We're on a course for self-extinction the way we are. Putting more people in it for sake of having future workers is pretty short sighted and ignorant.
Don't worry, we won't have to live here forever, will we? We'll colonize Mars any day now, won't we?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Granted, they're mostly low-income, minority women.
And why can’t all women enjoy such benefits?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Some call it an invasion.
In any case - it's a problem..
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: What’s Our Most Valuable Resource?
As for the rest, it's pretty clear today in most places that having a kid is a burdensome task with no support whatsoever. We will see many countries struggle with diving birth rates exactly because it isn't worth having kids. See the major cities around the world for evidence that the environment we as a society are giving wannabe moms is simply terrible. Want a kid? Throw your career through the window and be screwed by the system in various manners! Awesome incentive.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: More people?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: What’s Our Most Valuable Resource?
Then you go on about how children are a burden. This is the point though, collectively society benefits by sharing the costs to reduce that burden. Even if you don't believe that the government should make changes on the scale of population demographics, making things harder for parents is just not helpful to anyone.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: What’s Our Most Valuable Resource?
However we agree in all the rest. In most develpoed places having kids has become a heavy burden which is why birth rates declined. Governments are now trying to revert the trend. Which is a good thing. Parents should get more support from the Government.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: What’s Our Most Valuable Resource?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What’s Our Most Valuable Resource?
Like all power, it will be abused and this is exactly what will happen and is happening. No, I am not referring to vaccinations but common core and other things. When you hand over power to another entity, that entity will abuse it every single time.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What’s Our Most Valuable Resource?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: What’s Our Most Valuable Resource?
Parents do need more support, but not necessarily from the government. Employers also need to support the parents by having wages and benefits that are adequate to live on and by allowing paid leave for both parents for child related issues. It's rare nowadays to find a household where one parent works and the other stays home and takes care of the household unless the one working parent has a high salary. Raising the minimum wage isn't enough; there has to be something said about the cost of living.
When a household becomes a single parent household by incapacitation or death I have no problem with the government helping out, though I wish employers would help out as well. Those households that are single parent by willful choice however...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: What’s Our Most Valuable Resource?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: mmm... i dunno
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sustainability
You can't sustain destruction and survive.
Entire continents will dramatically shrink due to loss of land due to sea level rise.
Then you want to increase the population on the remaining land area mass-which is what will happen with shifting populations away from coastal areas which have become flooded due to sea level rise.
Economics aside, the human race is definitely over the limit and sustaining what we have right now is a loss leader.
Perhaps we ought to look into that thing called global climate change because, heck, what's a few million acres of arable land worth to us, anyway?
Problem is that we're destroying the very means by which we sustain life, and that's the real problem.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What’s Our Most Valuable Resource?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Sustainability
I'm very awry of talking about climate change because people seem to become blind by carbon dioxide and atmospheric pollutants and in my view they are hardly the worst problem once you consider Earth has been much hotter in the past and there are indications of another ice age coming anytime in the next few thousand years. We should be focusing in less consumption, more means for people to use sustainable transportation and energy sources. This includes stopping being dumbasses about nuclear power and giving it more resources to be developed and the radiation/nuclear waste issue be dealt with or eliminated altogether.
The day we start using our heads instead of our anuses to think and agree with some measures based in pure logic and not in "what I'll gain from it" then we'll see improvements. Otherwise we'll see extinction. I'm betting on the second option now, honestly.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What’s Our Most Valuable Resource?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"tax farming"
and they do call you cattle
[ link to this | view in thread ]
call Bill Melinda Gates foundation
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Once Upon a Time
Africa is projected to balloon to 3 billion people by the end of the century. The Islamic Middle East, with their 12 kids for 12 wives covered in bin bags and who knows how many illegitimates from the 72 harem girls, is projected to grow about as much. This barbarity is now overflowing into the E.U. and U.S. with help from idiotic, self-serving politicians who salivate at the notion of cheap labor and provisions from taxpayers under the guise of "humanitarianism."
So no, the birth rate is only going to decrease among Westerners who are saddled with the cancer of third-world immigrants who refuse to assimilate and adopt the responsible and sustainable practices that we've cultivated and they see as decadent and sinful (yet can't wait to partake of the generous benefits that we hand out like Halloween candy because we're not overrun with a billion people like China is). Those Westerners aren't going to be stupid enough to let their grandkids experience Rotherham on steroids and will eventually die out. The global standard of living is slowly but surely going to revert to medieval levels as the medieval world encroaches on its modern "oppressors."
They will have won the "war on terror" without firing a single shot. Well, except sperm bullets, but you get my point.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
A dozen kids to a dozen wives, all covered in bin bags and forced to contribute future terrorists for Allah from the first moment of menarche. That's not counting however many illegitimate offspring popping out of the harem girls.
Does the word Rotherham mean anything to you?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: call Bill Melinda Gates foundation
Maybe he can get Clippy to help.
[ link to this | view in thread ]