Global Population to Shrink This Century as Birth Rates Fall
ft.com
ft.com
I'm not a doomsayer that believes that there are way too many of us for the planet to support (IMO we're just bad at distributing resources equitably), but I can't help but assume that fewer people here and there will create less pressure on natural ecosystems.
Certainly it would be bad if the population kept shrinking down to nothing (well, bad for humans, anyway), but I don't think some ups and downs here and there should be cause for much alarm.
Regardless, though, they're talking about having 200M fewer people than expected in 2100, with a total population of 10.2B. Is 2% really going to be that noticeable? And the actual population drop (from 10.3B in 2080 to 10.2B in 2100) they're talking about is only 100M people, or about 1%.
South Korea looks set to disappear, effectively. Goodbye an interesting and occasionally beautiful language, culture, literature, and set of artforms. Japan will be in severe decline also, as will the Baltic states and some Eastern and Southern European ones.
The potential for military adventurism goes up, as relative populations sizes change and previously dominant states look more and more feeble. In 1950, the population of Europe was around 550M, and that of Africa around 230M. Now Africa is around 1.5B while Europe is at maybe 750M.
The cultures that still have high birth rates have little regard for the rights of women, as well. A greater proportion of the people alive in 2100 will have less happy lives than is the case today.
I do agree that would be a bummer, but if that's the choice of a country's population, then so be it. But even if South Korea or Japan get to the point where they don't have enough people to field a functioning country, it's not like their language and culture will disappear; there are millions of South Koreans and Japanese living outside their respective countries today who keep their language and culture alive.
> The potential for military adventurism goes up, as relative populations sizes change and previously dominant states look more and more feeble.
That doesn't really track for me. What matters is the state of a country's military. Sure, that's not completely divorced from population and population trends, but it's perfectly possible to have a formidable military with a smaller population. E.g., the US has a third-ish the population of China, but China's military is not 3x as powerful as the US's. Similar point for India. Availability of volunteers (or ability to conscript) and sophistication and availability of training and materiel are much more important than raw population numbers. Certainly a declining tax base can make it harder to maintain those things, but I'm not convinced this is such an outsized problem.
> In 1950, the population of Europe was around 550M, and that of Africa around 230M. Now Africa is around 1.5B while Europe is at maybe 750M.
I'm not sure how that supports your point, though. Are there African countries today that would stand a chance of successfully invading Europe? I... don't think so?
> The cultures that still have high birth rates have little regard for the rights of women, as well.
For now. A lot can -- and hopefully will -- change in the next 75 years.
Quite a few of my fellow Asian-American friends who are 1.5 or 2nd generation speak the language of their native countries only haltingly, or barely.
Our generation’s kids who are now mostly toddlers or elementary school are faring worse. Many of them are growing up with minimal to zero knowledge of the mother tongue.
I imagine the end state will be similar to other immigrant groups. I.e. n-th generation Italian-Americans or German-Americans that know zero Italian or German. Paraphrasing a fellow Korean-American friend, eventually we’ll become “just Americans that look Korean”. Although if you look at what native Korean-Koreans look like today versus Korean-Americans, even looks are diverging - even disregarding the whole subject of plastic surgery.
I myself would be in that situation (knowing little to no Korean) if it weren’t for having first been hired by a Korean company, then joining a Korean language church, and lastly, marrying a primarily Korean speaking wife.
The classic example would probably be Make Room! Make Room! (the very loose basis for the film Soylent Green), where a United States of 344 million people is so massively crammed and overpopulated that the average person lives on strictly rationed water and food.
Versus sticking our heads in the sand until problems arise? It’s wild that pointing out the logical consequences of changing trends, consequences which don’t manifest for almost a century, can be characterised as “freaking out.”
I see both. (Also, loosening immigration.) In any case, the first step to reforming the system is exploring where it will break.
When raw growth stops then the economic system built to enable that crashes.
That’s a big shift.