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ChipNDip posted:In Europe, at least, people actually want more kids than they are having, and women tend to desire more kids than men do. Only a handful of countries show desired fertility below replacement, and a handful are quite a bit above that - Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, and Ireland are all around 2.5 desired kids. In Sweden, paragon of gender equality, single digit percent of young women want less than 2 kids, while close to half of want 3+. Hell, even in the low fertility countries, Austria is the only one where more than 25% want 0 or 1 kid. Sub-replacement fertility is more a factor of modern life making it harder to provide for the size family you want than a function of women not wanting to reproduce. Yeah I think another issue we have in a place like the States is that our economy is so hosed up that a lot of people that would otherwise want children literally can't afford to, ever without ultimately subjecting themselves to a life of abject, crushing poverty. Yeah you can get food stamps and rent assistance for children but that's all you will have. The system makes loving sure of that and thanks to the right this is getting even worse. Setting oneself up to actually provide properly for a family as well as ensuring that you can afford to get them a college education probably means acquiring an advanced degree for both parents, paying off the loans, and pursuing a career, often putting off having children until far, far later than women would in the past. Parents are sometimes not having children until the woman is in her late 30's or early 40's when her fertility has absolutely tanked, if she's capable of having babies at all. I've met quite a few women in my life that have said things like "Oh I'd love to have like six kids but we can't afford it." While it's true that increased education and economic opportunity reduces birth rates I really do think that the choice to have children or not also comes down to a lot of people finding they don't want to make babies they can't afford. The other thing I'm wondering if part of this is just the economics of it being impossible. A lot of people are saying "birth rates below replacement rates is really bad" but we're already seeing the effects of overpopulation all over the place. Global warming is a big example. There is also only so much of this rock and everything on it to go around. 7 billion people might just turn out to be too goddamned many. Keeping our numbers in check could very well turn out to be a good thing. Now that we have reliable birth control it's entirely possible that we could keep a cap on our population. Of course it's also possible that we might not even need to actively do that as, like has been pointed out, people will often just not have children they can't afford. If resources get scarce many people can't afford children and just won't. Even so, I'd say it's probably a good thing for the human race as a whole if our birth rate dips below the replacement rate for a while. Assuming, of course, that we don't gently caress off into space.
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Dec 6, 2014 23:27
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Pimpmust posted:Lowish birth-numbers for now being a good thing, while true, I kinda wonder just how big a change there would have to be in society to "fix" the issue once it actually becomes pressing to get "replenishment" up when a country can no longer rely on importing young people (granted, a long while off). It does indeed not seem like current modern society is "sustainable" on this matter, mainly out of a family-economical perspective. One of the weird things about humans is that a woman can probably have like fifteen children over the course of her life if she really wants to. This could be one of those things were family planning becomes society. If somebody crunches the numbers and decides "oh hell we need to have more babies born right loving now" then you could have things like government incentives to have babies. As in "OK, any babies born between X date and Y date will have their education paid for when they become adults and will net the parents free food for them and the baby for 20 years." Economic incentives are a powerful thing and as we've already gone over parents that want children but otherwise couldn't afford them would be all like "oh yeah, it's baby time!" Really I feel like this is one of those things that is going to turn into something that's organized on a more societal level rather than an individual one. There are solutions it's just a matter of finding them. That and getting any sort of government program past the rising conservatism in the world.
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Dec 6, 2014 23:49
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Vitamin P posted:The link between global population and global warming is iffy at best, and it's often used as a soft smokescreen against environmental controls, ie "It's this inevitable. uncontrollable fact of life that's causing global warming, so we may as well just let transnationals be,". If we are honestly concerned about not irrevocably loving up the planet then 'stopping people having babies' is a very minor and very complex (and very fascistic) measure that would be a long way down a practical list of interventions. What? More people = more consumption. More consumption = more emissions. Therefore, more people = more emissions.
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Dec 8, 2014 00:46
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computer parts posted:Only if per capita consumption is constant. The technology currently exists (more or less) to replace the vast vast majority of emissions and it would be infinitely more palatable than trying to do population control for the populace. Unfortunately we have a situation where much of the world, especially the developing world, is relying on burning fuel rather than cleaner power sources. Meanwhile everywhere that isn't the first world is striving to consume like the first world. The first world, of course, worships consumption and as we've seen in the U.S. conspicuous consumption is rampant in wealthier parts of the world. Americans also loving love their cars and seem loathe to give them up. As the world stands now it's ultimately true that more people = more emissions. We'll see if those problems can be fixed but currently it doesn't look good as there are people attempting to actively sabotage cleaner fuel and, for better or for worse, burning coal for power is just so loving cheap. Yeah the technology largely exists but using it would involve changes that a lot of powerful, wealthy people would hate and sacrifices that first world populations are not exactly willing to make. It's certainly possible the question is can we convince the human race to do it.
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Dec 8, 2014 02:55
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