Birth rate isn't the only thing, life expectancy and the age of the average population is too. This is a factor that everyone in this thread seems to be ignoring because it proves why there is an appropiate reaction to the bottom 3 countries.
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.8 birth rate is going to be a huge problem for South Korea in a few years. The rest are just "oh no, capitalism's infinite growth will be finite after all"
I mean, South Korea and Japan's birth rate is a serious problem.
The issue is less that they're going 'extinct', and more that the population pyramid is gonna look real fucky going forward, and that comes with... economic issues. And potentially cultural issues.


Those look very similar to me. I would say Japan is now where Poland will be in 10 years. Why it's a problem for Japan but not Poland?
Those look very similar to me. I would say Japan is now where Poland will be in 10 years. Why it’s a problem for Japan but not Poland?
That's the thing about population pyramids - they don't just move up evenly. They're adjusted by the ongoing mortality of each age group and the size of the next age group down. Poland and Japan are on the same trajectory, but Japan is, effectively, much further along. More ~30-40 years than ~10. The emphasis is less on the largest 'boom' generation, and much more on the general trend of the 'youngest' generations shrinking, growing, or being stable. In Poland, it's uneven - closer to shrinking than stable, but more stable than Japan, which is only shrinking.
Even relatively small differences can have an outsized effect in making the older generations an ever-larger proportion of the population despite their lifetime mortality going up with each age bracket. Compare the percentages here. "Boom" generation aside, Japan's retiree cohort is roughly 150% the youth cohort. That's not a good sign. For Poland to end up with those numbers in a decade, it would have to have effectively no mortality in the elder cohorts - extremely unlikely.
That being said, it is a problem for Poland going forward - as well as many other developed countries.
That being said, it is a problem for Poland going forward - as well as many other developed countries.
Exactly, Japan is hitting it sooner but most countries will have the same issue eventually. The main difference I think is that Japan is still refusing to address this issue by allowing more immigration while some European countries are trying to do it already. So I think this is going to be a scary but interesting experiment. Poland will go the way of Japan, Spain will try to support the population growth with immigrants. It will be interesting to see where each will be in 30 years. We can use Japan as a canary in the meantime.
There is nothing that justifies the weird reaction that westerners have towards Asian countries. It's all a spectacle to make themselves feel better.
In EU it isn't serious problem?
It is, but not as bad. The EU's birth rate is higher than Japan's, and the EU is much more immigrant-friendly - and if that makes you suck in air through your teeth, let me clarify - that's a relative estimation. SK and Japan are... infamously hostile towards immigration.
Japan and Korea are both further along the path, and moving more quickly. But yes, much of the EU is still on the same path, and the time to effectively mitigate the issue will come and go before most people notice. This is a problem that always has consequences out many decades from current actions, a timeline just too far along for our hunter-gatherer brains to care much about. It will take much longer to be in a real bind, but by the time it happens it is far too late to right the ship.
That's not birth rates, that's fertility rate. One measures births/1k and the other is an average of births per woman on their "child bearing lapse".
Japan might have a fertility rate of 1.2 but they have 6 births/1000 people. Argentina with 1.5 have 11.1 births/1000
A more relevant measure is "Natural change", it measure people death vs people birth not counting immigration:
India has +13 millions. Japan has -870k. China has -2 millions.
South Korea is "only" losing -77k people per year.
There are like 30~ countries that have negative population per year out of 197. Birthrates and fertility rate are going down each year, but not every country is losing population by it.
Source: https://georank.org/birth-rate
I highly doubt that the birthrate in Italy is 1.14
The government and the media doesn't stop yapping about how it's declining and we are going extinct.
This happens of course for economical reasons, and the government comes up with the most half assed "solutions" to ever cross human mind. Like "reduce VAT taxes on diapers and powder milk" like that is gonna make any difference.
That's capitalism speak. There's way to many resources in the hands of the 0.1%. Should their wealth be redistributed you'd have everyone's needs met
I don't advocate for any sort of culling, but we might want to aim for sustained population instead of infinite growth
We need less humans.
Otherwise we will outgrow this planet and kill it and ourselves.
That's already happening and there seems to be nothing that can be done to stop it
This is eco-fascist propaganda, stop parroting it
So humans constantly multiplying and growing has zero impact on the world ?
Only capitalist overlords want constant population growth. Because that's the only way they increase their wealth.
By stealing it from more people. By having more desperate people who know they are easily replaceable, work for pennies.
Exploitation is the game. And you need more people to exploit people. Boys to fight endless wars.
Especially since their influence on the world is likely to start decreasing life span exponentially.
From my reading, eco-fascists demand eugenics, genocide or anti-immigration laws. Pointing out that fewer people on the planet could help, doesn't seem fascist to me.
The only people parroting the dumb malthusian bullshit at this point are eco-fascists.
There's a hard rule for each malthusian to follow, and there's no room for negotiation on it. If you agree with the ideas, you must volunteer to go first.
Volunteering to have fewer than two children is consistent with a belief that a reduction in the human population is desirable. It does not require suicide.
At what point did I say we need to start killing people?
This post is about having children.
We can all just decide to have less children and most have anyway because capitalism has made it increasingly difficult to afford children and have time to be with them.
I myself never wanted children. I don't have any. And I'm already at an age it would be a higher risk pregnancy.
I have always been of the opinion that if for some reason I did change my mind about wanting children, I would become a foster parent because there are plenty of kids who need homes.
Having a realistic perspective on population growth and it's negative impacts is not advocating for mass killings.
Who the fuck would think that ?
China should go extinct alright

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