These countries tried everything from cash to patriotic calls to duty to reverse drastically declining birth rates. It didn’t work.
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If history is any guide, none of this will work: No matter what governments do to convince them to procreate, people around the world are having fewer and fewer kids.
In the US, the birth rate has been falling since the Great Recession, dropping almost 23 percent between 2007 and 2022. Today, the average American woman has about 1.6 children, down from three in 1950, and significantly below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 children needed to sustain a stable population. In Italy, 12 people now die for every seven babies born. In South Korea, the birth rate is down to 0.81 children per woman. In China, after decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy, the population is shrinking for the first time since the 1960s. In Taiwan, the birth rate stands at 0.87.
Like is it necessary to have replacement? I’m just think it’s not such a bad thing if population shrinks a bit, I’m only referring to the US. Like I think we find ourselves in a housing and inflation crisis because our parents and our parents parents had a bunch of kids. Am I the only person thinking a decline in population isn’t such a bad thing? Could it be possible to have a flat population?
You are not the only one. We stopped at one because there are too many people. When I was born there were almost half the number of people there are today. I’m 43. In 1980 I don’t think there was an “oh my god we don’t have enough people” vibe.
Especially in a time where we are all worried about our future on this planet, more people means more sources of pollution. More people want a car, more people getting on planes, more people consuming goods and throw away items.
Seems like sometimes less is more.
P.s. If the trend hadn’t changed, we’d have been on track for around 16 billion in 50 years.