Timeline for How to ensure stagnation of population figures without slaying inhabitants?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 29, 2017 at 18:38 | comment | added | Shalvenay | @jamesqf -- re: your response to Dale's comment: you're conflating population growth rate with birth rate, still | |
| Jul 29, 2017 at 17:55 | comment | added | jamesqf | @Shalvenay: My definition of long-term sustainability includes maintaining a healthy ecosystem. Merely converting sunlight to human food doesn't do that. | |
| Jul 29, 2017 at 17:52 | comment | added | jamesqf | @Dale M: That's my point. If population continues to increase with a 2.1-2.2 birth rate, then that birth rate is too high to maintain a constant population. Seems like simple math to me :-) | |
| Jul 28, 2017 at 11:30 | comment | added | Shalvenay | @jamesqf -- besides, how are you defining "long-term sustainability"? The only definition I can come up with is a ratio of solar irradiance per acre to energy usage per capita within that acre, but that accounts poorly for our ability to store and transmit energy... | |
| Jul 28, 2017 at 5:09 | comment | added | Dale M | @jamesqf population will continue to increase for many decades even when total fertility rate is less than replacement if annual death rates fall - it's called the "demographic transition" see my answer. Also, the populations of Europe, America and Australia are swelled by positive net migration. | |
| Jul 28, 2017 at 4:13 | comment | added | jamesqf | @Dale M: If that was true, populations would be decreasing. Except for a few special cases like Japan, population isn't decreasing, according to censuses. | |
| Jul 27, 2017 at 8:30 | comment | added | Golden Cuy | @jamesqf Japan has had a total fertility rate of below 2.0 since 1975. | |
| Jul 27, 2017 at 1:32 | comment | added | Dale M | @jamesqf This is flat out right - sustainable population fertility rates are 2.1 to 2.2 live births per adult female over their childbearing years. All OECD countries have birthrates significantly below this, typically in the range 1.5-1.8. Population growth in those countries is a result of 1. The time lag inherent in demographics as the post-war baby boomer generation makes its way through the snake and 2. net positive immigration from the rest of the world. | |
| Jul 26, 2017 at 18:54 | comment | added | jamesqf | This is flat-out wrong. The populations of all these places (except perhaps Japan, temporarily) are growing, and are already far beyond the bounds of long-term sustainability. | |
| Jul 26, 2017 at 14:31 | comment | added | CodesInChaos | The OP is talking about a timescale of centuries. The countries you mentioned only reached their current development level only 1-2 generations ago. On longer timescales evolution should compensate for the defect that lead to voluntary reduction in childbirth (e.g. by increasing the desire to have children), if left unchecked by society (e.g. mandatory genetic engineering of children, strictly limiting the number of children a person is allowed to have). | |
| Jul 26, 2017 at 10:21 | comment | added | ZioByte | @Kat: those studies are about the number of children a couple wants, so all You are saying is already taken into account; measured fertility rates (sometimes far higher) are another thing and (in the real world) are strongly influenced by individual ignorance. Of course in any self-respecting Utopia there won't be undesired pregnancies (or worse, like what happened a bit after Yugoslavia collapse). | |
| Jul 26, 2017 at 9:27 | comment | added | user20787 | I'm not sure how accurate this is because unlike a utopia, women in the real world face financial pressures and work-family balancing, which no doubt dampens the desire to have any more babies. Also worth considering that people will feel less inclined to have large families in a densely populated area, but if they're living in a sparsely populated colony they may be more inclined for bigger families? Basically I think this answer has some truth to it, but assumes too much otherwise. | |
| Jul 25, 2017 at 23:02 | comment | added | Shalvenay | @Kat -- exactly -- the ability to plan and execute reliably is the first big step, any class-related stratifications in the plans after that are minor in comparison. | |
| Jul 25, 2017 at 21:21 | comment | added | Kat | @Ziobyte that seems hard to believe. Women with access to cheap and reliable birth control (healthcare) and the knowledge to use it properly (education) are able to wait to have kids until they want them. That, if nothing else, makes a huge impact. | |
| Jul 25, 2017 at 17:42 | comment | added | ZioByte | Education and healthcare, by themselves, have nothing to do with need/desire to have children. Real push is cost/value of the child. All these quantities are loosely (in our western world) linked to average income, so they look correlated even if they are not. Links are quite complex and the first attempt to understand them is in "Limits of Growth"(1972). I cannot expound here, but bottom line is: poor people will make as many children as possible, middle-class will want very few (usually one) while reasonably wealthy people will want more (4+). This regardless of healthcare or education. | |
| Jul 25, 2017 at 15:25 | comment | added | Kaël | About Japan, culture is an important part there too. People are dedicating a lot of their time to their entreprises, and not enough trying to build a family. Work before everything else ! | |
| Jul 25, 2017 at 13:29 | comment | added | AlexP | @BruderLustig: List of European countries by population growth rate; the E.U. as a whole is at 0.25% p.a. Demography of Japan; population growth has been negative since 2015. The population of the U.S.A. grows by about 0.77% p.a., or some 2.5 million people; immigration to the U.S.A. is at least 1 million people per year, about half of the (already small) growth. | |
| Jul 25, 2017 at 12:51 | comment | added | Bruder Lustig | @AlexP Please show viable evidence for your claims. | |
| Jul 25, 2017 at 12:00 | comment | added | AlexP | @BruderLustig: The population of the U.S.A. is growing through immigration. The population of Japan is exhibiting, how to put it, negative growth. Western Europe as a whole is essentially stagnating (population growth 0.25% per year), because at present immigration just about matches natural decline. The entire world is forecasted to enter population stagnation and eventually a slow decline sometime in the second half of this very century of ours. | |
| Jul 25, 2017 at 11:53 | comment | added | Bruder Lustig | So how come that population in the mentioned countries is still growing? | |
| Jul 25, 2017 at 11:34 | history | answered | Shalvenay | CC BY-SA 3.0 |