Resource depletion is among the highest risks to civilization. Seems straightforward that severe population decline should be desired, and voluntary refraining from reproduction should be welcome.
(Please don't just extrapolate the trend till extinction. See http://xkcd.com/605/. )
But this will be a trend that autocorrects itself after some time, as less elder people will be there in the future. Also, the younger people if both working will create more prosperity than being married with one working and the other one staying at home.
In the short term this sounds bad, but long term doesn't seem that worrisome.
And what happens when you have young people living with their parents ? Far less opportunities for sex.
Young people in Japan live with their parents due to lack of jobs. The Japanese employment market has recently had a massive shift towards part time labour instead of full time labor, leaving young people with jobs that can't support them.
Also, Japan has had a solution for the "opportunities for sex" issue for decades - the massive amount of hourly Love Hotels that are scattered all around the country (and people aren't shy to use - I've had to queue for one).
At my girlfriend's former job, a normal day went like this: the employees were expected to work from 9 in the morning to 8 in the evening (time on contract: 9-6) then attend staff meetings in another city, with one 30min break for the entire day (meant to be an hour, but who's counting?)
Remember that this is for a full-time employee - the main reason companies only want part-time staff now is so they can avoid paying their 50% of your health insurance and for vacations.
Working way too long isn't a new thing in Japan. The company not keeping up their end of the bargain (good benefits, job for life) is. If the govt grew some balls and actually enforced existing labor laws instead of letting companies abuse their employees, maybe people would have time and energy to have more kids earlier.
The fact that you can now not rely on your company supporting your family for life is just the final nail in the coffin.
My gf is actually looking at marriage as an honorable out with her company - if she just quit flat out, she'd be "abandoning" the company and placing a higher burden on her coworkers (company isn't doing too well...), and if she wanted to get a new job, it would be a huge black mark on her resume. Getting married? Well then OBVIOUSLY she needs to quit, it's not her fault.
1) Housing vacancy - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-17/vacant-japan-homes-...
2) We have something here called "Love Hotels" - you rent them by the hour or half-day, and they are EVERYWHERE
The problem is that people in general are living longer but the retirement age is staying roughly the same. So as time goes on you have a higher percentage of the people who aren't working but yet consuming public resources.
In the short term it is bad. In the long term it is devastating. Which is why every developed country is aggressively increasing the immigration rate to compensate. Well except for Japan.
It's obvious that this is an unsustainable solution.
Some people were alarmist about the ageing population in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Their doomsday predictions turned out to be wrong because of technological advances that meant fewer working people could provide the real goods and services for more non-working people.
And what cannot be buffered by technology simply leads to lower unemployment, which is a good thing as well.
My mom's been "retired" for almost a decade now. She's had 2 part-time jobs and usually a volunteer gig too for nearly the entire time.
Oh, wait, you were speaking from the perspective of the corporations and rich investors who have to pay wages.
Funny how you adopted that perspective when you are a worker yourself.....
The underlying problem is that sustainable products almost always have a price premium attached to them. And because the benefits of sustainability are indirect it's hard to convince people to pay more.
That evolution can be triggered by higher prices for ressources. And as they get rarer prices do go up.
In the worst case, it could bring the bloody end of civilization as we know it.
I agree that society and technology could evolve us through a much more desirable path. But the more time we can buy for that to happen, the better.
I would inflect this differently. An open and free society is much more likely to figure out a desirable path for the future than one steered by central authority.
(In fact, it is the accumulation of thousands or millions of small improvements that will, in retrospect, be seen as a desirable path.)
Desiring "extra" conservation of the resources that today seem most limited, might not necessarily be incompatible with an open and unplanned society. But it usually is.
I'm talking about letting people choose not to reproduce (textbook freedom), instead of having a government policy to influence them to revert their choices for the perceived greater good (central planning).
On the other hand, small countries with few people are usually able to accomplish little. Places with few inhabitants are considered rural and have a lower standard of living than places with high extremely high population density, like cities.
I agree with your point that, from a nationalist perspective, population size is basically nation size.
Which recent wars are not about resources, do you think?
You see the US as invading Iraq to control it's oil. I see the US invading Iraq out of frustration and the wish to "send a message" a-la mafiosos.
Most wars are fought over honor and respect.
Which we could have simply purchased at a tiny fraction of the cost of going to war for it.
I'm still waiting for all of that free oil we "won" to start making its way over here. It's almost as if the war wasn't fought for oil, but for oil companies. Gee.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/dissecting-obamas-speech-at-the...
The system only works when there's growth... a huge decline in population (hence births, hence sexual activity ...) is the biggest fear of all governments, as it deflates the foundations current countries/systems/power balances/... are built on. It's also the reason why worldwide "family values" and "the traditional family (unit) as cornerstone of the society" are main political points, independent of culture, religion, ...
That sounds like a bug.
Ideally, the birthrate would be close to the replacement rate. Much lower and you run into very significant problems. If you want to draw down the population, a birth rate of say, 90-95% of the replacement rate would not be so bad.
Fun fact: an evolutionary explanation for "witch hunts" is that when the tribe is low on food, they're an excuse to get rid of less useful / influential elderly people. Which is why they happen more in resource constrained developing countries than rich developed ones.
But it goes to show that if young people feel that the elderly are more burdensome than useful, they may find a way to get rid of them.
So yes, it's pretty bad for some people to limit births. You are essentially diminishing your influence and putting yourself at risk of being swallowed up by other cultures.