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Comment by tokenadult | Hacker News Reader

When I was a child in the 1960s, this news story was predicted to happen by the turn of the last century. Population growth has slowed considerably in its rate during my lifetime.

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&#...

Further increase in population from this already large base is predicted for what is predicted to be the rest of my lifetime, but it is now foreseeable that the world will eventually reach a peak population,

http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Other-Information/Press_Release_W...

and then decline in population over time, as is already happening in many developed countries.

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Reminded me of the Hans Rosling Ted talk on global population: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_on_global_pop...

"The world's population will grow to 9 billion over the next 50 years -- and only by raising the living standards of the poorest can we check population growth. This is the paradoxical answer that Hans Rosling unveils at TED@Cannes using colorful new data display technology (you'll see)."

Phillip Longman spoke at the Long Now Foundation about the coming depopulation problem. Developed countries have fewer children (near or below replacement rates) and increased life expectancies. So much of the world population growth is from fewer deaths, not more births. This trend will pose new economic challenges for health care and social security because a shrinking workforce will be supporting a growing elderly population.

If families in developed countries continue to have just one child, few children will have brothers, sisters, aunts, or uncles! In Phillip Longman's talk, he says that some developed countries like France and Australia already have subsidies and programs encouraging couples to have more children.

http://longnow.org/seminars/02004/aug/13/the-depopulation-pr...

Though there's also a plus side. I assume that world consumption of resources will go down, since one person not born in a developed country is equivalent to probably 2+ not born in a developing country.

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