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Comment by vidarh | Hacker News Reader

It's not so much that we "need" replacement as that a too rapid decline would cause immense upheaval unless we first reach a level of automation very far in excess of where we are.

Consider that the faster a population is declining, the more people will live of the productive work of each working age adult.

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We'll not reach that level of automation on time.Anyway we look at it, we are doomed sooner or later. Some country already reach the point of non return. China for instance, they have 1.18 baby per woman. To sustain the actual population it need to be to 2.3 children per women. China will soon lack enough working adults to sustain the massive aging population. By 2035 the percentage of population older then 60 year old is expected to rise to 30%, or more than 400 million people.The working population simply can't sustain the aging people. This will cause unprecedented upheaval . This is just one exemple, Russia is not far off. In fact except a few countries the following decades the very social and political structure of the world will change dramatically and not in a good way . Yes we humans we are not producing enough babies and it is only getting worst.Brace yourself for a changing world.

Population growth under current projections will continue for another 80-100 years, so any country facing upheaval over the coming century will do so because they refuse to increase immigration, not because it's inevitable.

Yes, but this is happening only because life expectancy is increasing and underdeveloped countries are experiencing population growth. 8 out of 10 countries that are expected to experience population growth are in Africa. So, most of the world will lose population. The main issue here is how to sustain the aging population, not so much how much the population will increase over time. If you have 60% of people over the age of 60, it is impossible for the rest to sustain it. Immigration for those that are accepting will help, but this is most likely not enough.

Immigration will be enough for almost a century at current projections. We have a century to find ways of countering the decline, and any improvement in that respect will make it take even longer before a global decline sets in.

China, for example, is now encouraging three children. Whether that will work or not, we don't yet know. But we'll see increasing number of countries experimenting with encouraging, then likely rewarding, higher number of children. Even a modest reversal of fertility rates will prolong the time to global decline significantly.

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