- 7 hours
That’s not birth rates, that’s fertility rate. One measures births/1k and the other is an average of births per woman on their “child bearing lapse”.
Japan might have a fertility rate of 1.2 but they have 6 births/1000 people. Argentina with 1.5 have 11.1 births/1000
A more relevant measure is “Natural change”, it measure people death vs people birth not counting immigration:
India has +13 millions. Japan has -870k. China has -2 millions.
South Korea is “only” losing -77k people per year.
There are like 30~ countries that have negative population per year out of 197. Birthrates and fertility rate are going down each year, but not every country is losing population by it.
Source: https://georank.org/birth-rate
- 23 hours
Birth rate isn’t the only thing, life expectancy and the age of the average population is too. This is a factor that everyone in this thread seems to be ignoring because it proves why there is an appropiate reaction to the bottom 3 countries.
- 17 hours
That’s capitalism speak. There’s way to many resources in the hands of the 0.1%. Should their wealth be redistributed you’d have everyone’s needs met
20 hoursI don’t advocate for any sort of culling, but we might want to aim for sustained population instead of infinite growth
.8 birth rate is going to be a huge problem for South Korea in a few years. The rest are just “oh no, capitalism’s infinite growth will be finite after all”
- 23 hours
Lower birthrates are less an issue that people think.
For any living being self replication can explode incredibly fast, and it’s usually the case when numbers dwindle, due more resources available per person.
Big birth numbers are more worrying and limited resources lead to fast “too little resources for everyone” situation.
I remember reading that part of what took Europe our of the dark ages after the black plague was that survivors thrived in an post plague environment. Also remember reading that dutch population growth actually taller because after so many people died survivors got more meat and food in general available to them, so their children grew a lot.
So in general I’m always more worry about high birthrates than low birthrates.
- 18 hours
The problem is we have retirement these days. And also the plague would’ve killed the old and frail leaving the young and capable behind. Whilst birthrate decline means there are less young people relative to old people. This burdens young people who have to take care of the old. A problem that didn’t exist when all of the old people died.
- 18 hours
I suppose the worst case scenario is old people having to work because they cannot retire as soon.
They are already saying it that new retirement ages would be in the 70s
Not ideal, but far better than starving or being homeless because you don’t have resources for so many people.
- 11 hours
So I’m paying taxes all my life so old people don’t have to work but I might never be the beneficiary of this system myself
- 9 hours
Yeah. Why not make the old people of today work to fix the mess they created? Oh wait, old people rule the world. They will just favor themselves and the rest isnt their problem. Like they have always done.
- 11 hours
Not sure if I should be sad that I’ll never be able to retire or happy because I never have to save for retirement
- 17 hours
It’s either that or allow immigration or start forcing women to have more children than they want.
It’s becoming clear which way the ruling class wants to go.
- Zarobi@aussie.zoneEnglish19 hours
This was true back when the economy was vague and vibes based and people kind of just died and it was ok. But now we have pensions, and it’s considered unacceptable for people to starve to death and economies to collapse, so an upside down pyramid starts to get wobbly rather than “self-resolving”.
Can you elaborate? Why 0.8 in South Korea is so much worse than 1.08 in Poland?
The growth (or in this case decline) is exponential. 1.08 is bad, 0.80 is terrifying. 1.08 is roughly half of the fertility needed for a stable population (about 2.1 children per woman). This means that per generation your population shrinks by half its size. 0.8 is another 25% lower. At an exponential rate these differences add up fast. The first one gives you (roughly) one child per 8 great grandparents. The other one needs 18. So over 3 generations the population shrinks by another factor of more than a half.
- 22 hours
Wait, is the chart ”births per person” or ”per woman”? I was reading it as per person, so 1.08 per person would be about 2.16 per woman.
Edit: probably per woman. Lines up better with https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=JP . Grumble grumble numbers without units.
- 24 hours
But the birthrates are still falling everywhere. Countries that are at 1.08 today will be at 0.8 soon. I think they are just hitting the problem sooner, not that they are facing a different issue.
- the_strange@feddit.orgEnglish23 hours
Here’s a visualization of the birth rates of Japan, Poland and Germany against those of South Korea:
https://georank.org/birth-rate/japan/south-korea
https://georank.org/birth-rate/poland/south-korea
https://georank.org/birth-rate/germany/south-koreaJapan and Poland have been stable, maybe slightly declining, since the early 2000s, and Germany has been stable for 50, all below replacement, whereas South Korea is still going down.
I am no demographic expert, so take this with a grain of salt, but for the moment it doesn’t look like the other countries are going to hit the same problems at the same severity anytime soon whereas South Korea is going to get hit by the full force of their demographic issues within a few short decades.
- 9 hours
Far from comprehensive, but a good primer.
The problem is similar to climate change. The effects of today will ripple several decades into the future, and people everywhere are more short-sighted than they would like to think, you and me included. Our brains are built for hunter gatherer lifestyles, sensing urgency in actions that will come back to us in 40-50 years just isn’t how we are programmed. Germany is already entering the danger zone, the effects won’t be stark for another 30 years or so perhaps, but if we delay much then there will be nothing to do to counterbalance it effectively. Demographic collapse is an issue that is way past mitigating by the time it becomes an acute problem. An ounce of prevention is not a pound or even a ton of cure, it’s the only cure. And when it starts to hit noticeably, that means you are just going over the side of the waterfall and it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Korea is just starting to tip over the edge of the waterfall, in 5-10 years it is going to get much worse.
The takeaway from the meme isn’t that we are overreacting to their situation, it’s that we are underreacting everywhere else. The real insidious issue is that in most nations having this problem, society largely panders to its politically active and (comparitively) wealthy elder base, and the best way to boost the birth rate is to shift support from them towards the young, which is politically problematic. So we are stuck in a situation where those with power have to act against their interest, in order to avoid problems that will happen far later than our brains are hardwired to care about. In short, the prognosis is very bad. Imho, the only chance most western nations have is watching things get very ugly for the elderly in Asia, and using that to scare their constituents enough to convince them that short term sacrifice is needed to avoid similar conditions for themselves. But I’d say it’s a long shot.
- 22 hours
Japan and Poland have been stable, maybe slightly declining, since the early 2000s
I just checked Poland and it’s not what they are reporting:
Number of births:
Birthrate:
Systematically falling for the last 10 years. Yes, it was better before that but experts say it doesn’t look like stopping anytime soon. But I guess we’ll see.
Those are data from GUS, the official statistics bureau of Poland.
Westerners just REALLY want wealthy, peaceful Asian countries to be uniquely awful.
- 1 day
Most of the former nations can at least offset this with immigration, while the latter ones don’t
- 18 hours
Can’t have racism if you don’t let anyone not of the majority ethnicity live in your country 🤔🤔🤔
-Asia
- 1 day
racism is just that guy standing in front of the real final boss in Asia: xenofobia
In humanity. Some people exclude others because of the order in which they apply spreads to scones, some because they disagree about whether the bread they’re eating is literally or metaphorically a man’s body, and some because they like a different sports team.
- 15 hours
Ok, but what happens when you have 500 million retirees that have to be supported by 300 million workers that are also trying to feed and house themselves and their children?
Korea actually has a lot of migration of Koreans from China and Western Asia. It is actually a pretty unique situation. The Chinese Koreans already speak Korean and their culture align perfectly with Korea.
It’s in all ways a better situation than western countries. But no, let’s pretend that Asia is collapsing. Better than fixing issues in the west.
I highly doubt that the birthrate in Italy is 1.14
The government and the media doesn’t stop yapping about how it’s declining and we are going extinct.
This happens of course for economical reasons, and the government comes up with the most half assed “solutions” to ever cross human mind. Like “reduce VAT taxes on diapers and powder milk” like that is gonna make any difference.
- 18 hours
It happens because women have more choice over when and how many children to have.
That’s why you see it still falling in countries that have good economic and social safety nets.
I mean, South Korea and Japan’s birth rate is a serious problem.
The issue is less that they’re going ‘extinct’, and more that the population pyramid is gonna look real fucky going forward, and that comes with… economic issues. And potentially cultural issues.
Those look very similar to me. I would say Japan is now where Poland will be in 10 years. Why it’s a problem for Japan but not Poland?
Those look very similar to me. I would say Japan is now where Poland will be in 10 years. Why it’s a problem for Japan but not Poland?
That’s the thing about population pyramids - they don’t just move up evenly. They’re adjusted by the ongoing mortality of each age group and the size of the next age group down. Poland and Japan are on the same trajectory, but Japan is, effectively, much further along. More ~30-40 years than ~10. The emphasis is less on the largest ‘boom’ generation, and much more on the general trend of the ‘youngest’ generations shrinking, growing, or being stable. In Poland, it’s uneven - closer to shrinking than stable, but more stable than Japan, which is only shrinking.
Even relatively small differences can have an outsized effect in making the older generations an ever-larger proportion of the population despite their lifetime mortality going up with each age bracket. Compare the percentages here. “Boom” generation aside, Japan’s retiree cohort is roughly 150% the youth cohort. That’s not a good sign. For Poland to end up with those numbers in a decade, it would have to have effectively no mortality in the elder cohorts - extremely unlikely.
That being said, it is a problem for Poland going forward - as well as many other developed countries.
- 24 hours
That being said, it is a problem for Poland going forward - as well as many other developed countries.
Exactly, Japan is hitting it sooner but most countries will have the same issue eventually. The main difference I think is that Japan is still refusing to address this issue by allowing more immigration while some European countries are trying to do it already. So I think this is going to be a scary but interesting experiment. Poland will go the way of Japan, Spain will try to support the population growth with immigrants. It will be interesting to see where each will be in 30 years. We can use Japan as a canary in the meantime.
There is nothing that justifies the weird reaction that westerners have towards Asian countries. It’s all a spectacle to make themselves feel better.
- 9 hours
Japan and Korea are both further along the path, and moving more quickly. But yes, much of the EU is still on the same path, and the time to effectively mitigate the issue will come and go before most people notice. This is a problem that always has consequences out many decades from current actions, a timeline just too far along for our hunter-gatherer brains to care much about. It will take much longer to be in a real bind, but by the time it happens it is far too late to right the ship.
It is, but not as bad. The EU’s birth rate is higher than Japan’s, and the EU is much more immigrant-friendly - and if that makes you suck in air through your teeth, let me clarify - that’s a relative estimation. SK and Japan are… infamously hostile towards immigration.
- daannii@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
We need less humans.
Otherwise we will outgrow this planet and kill it and ourselves.
- daannii@lemmy.worldEnglish11 hours
So humans constantly multiplying and growing has zero impact on the world ?
Only capitalist overlords want constant population growth. Because that’s the only way they increase their wealth.
By stealing it from more people. By having more desperate people who know they are easily replaceable, work for pennies.
Exploitation is the game. And you need more people to exploit people. Boys to fight endless wars.
Especially since their influence on the world is likely to start decreasing life span exponentially.
From my reading, eco-fascists demand eugenics, genocide or anti-immigration laws. Pointing out that fewer people on the planet could help, doesn’t seem fascist to me.
- VibeSurgeon@piefed.socialEnglish21 hours
The only people parroting the dumb malthusian bullshit at this point are eco-fascists.
There’s a hard rule for each malthusian to follow, and there’s no room for negotiation on it. If you agree with the ideas, you must volunteer to go first.
- daannii@lemmy.worldEnglish11 hours
At what point did I say we need to start killing people?
This post is about having children.
We can all just decide to have less children and most have anyway because capitalism has made it increasingly difficult to afford children and have time to be with them.
I myself never wanted children. I don’t have any. And I’m already at an age it would be a higher risk pregnancy.
I have always been of the opinion that if for some reason I did change my mind about wanting children, I would become a foster parent because there are plenty of kids who need homes.
Having a realistic perspective on population growth and it’s negative impacts is not advocating for mass killings.
Who the fuck would think that ?
- 16 hours
Volunteering to have fewer than two children is consistent with a belief that a reduction in the human population is desirable. It does not require suicide.
That’s already happening and there seems to be nothing that can be done to stop it
Let’s start with russia, that will free up a lot of land for neighbouring countries
