Excellent article on 1st world birth rate decline

[laurence]

and it's possible effects. Euorpean, Russian, and Japanese birthrates are well below what's needed to maintain the population, and all countries should see a significant decline in their population by 2050. In addition, their population will age greatly, with some having over half their population over 50 by then. By way of contrast, the U.S. is actually holding steady at around 2 births per adult female (and that's for whites, blacks, and hispanics).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12888599/site/newsweek/

Will this be the advantage that keeps the U.S. in front of it's rivals?

Of course, there is always China...

 

[haha]

Replacement birthrate is usually estimated to be between 2.1 and 2.2 live births per woman. So even the US as  a whole is not replacing, and definitely the Euro-American population is well below replacement birth levels.

Check this response of one European country to birth dearth.

"Portugal is going to reform its pension system. This is hardly 'breaking news', but still it is something. Details at present are few, and probably it is a case of too little too late, but nonetheless there do seem to be some interesting details. Like the idea of attaching contributions to the number of offspring. This makes a good deal of sense. In the short term this will not change things very much, but it may be a step in the right direction:

Workers with fewer than two children will have to contribute more to their government pensions under planned reforms to prevent the collapse of Portugal's retirement system, the prime minister said in an interview published Monday.

Contributions would stay unchanged for people with two children, decrease if they had more than two and increase if they had fewer, according to an interview with Socialist Prime Minister Jose Socratesto .

From  http://demographymatters.blogspot.com/

Ha

 

[MasterBlaster]

As I recall the Russians now pay mothers to have additional children. That's a holdover from the Soviet days.

Per Portugese pension contributions. US law is somewhat tilted in that direction through the income tax. Since Children are deductable for income taxes those without children necesarily must pay more.

 

[Cut-Throat]

Meanwhile the U.S 'Con Population' is deeply concerned with keeping immigrants out of the country. I listened to program last week that said we would be literally fighting over immigrants in 2020.

It's kinda funny watching the conservatives now in support of CAFE Standards for vehicles. Didn't they see this coming? -

 

[laurence]

I think the article pegged the U.S. rate at 2.1, but it's different for whites, blacks, and hispanics, slightly, anyway.

So in the end, will Europe be outsourcing high end jobs here to our vast labor force?

 

[haha]

I think the article pegged the U.S. rate at 2.1, but it's different for whites, blacks, and hispanics, slightly, anyway.

So in the end, will Europe be outsourcing high end jobs here to our vast labor force?

So we would import scientists and engineers from India and China, and Germans would ship their R&D to us?

Aside form the fact that the Europeans are already doing a pretty good job of it themselves, why not cut out the middleman and outsource directly to India and China?

BTW, the article you cited mentions social factors as possibly important in the differences between European and US birthrates. There is a great movie about life for young people in Iceland, called Reykjavik 101. Ha! It's a wonder that any children are ever born there!

HA

 

[laurence]

I'll have to check that out, I figured how cold it was there would lead to cuddling=more children.

 

[youbet]

Eventually the citizens of Earth must learn to live with a steady or slowly declining population. Only so many souls will fit here on terra firma. Should stabilization be at today's population level? Or after another doubling? Or another doubling after that? Or another doubling after that?

 

[wabmester]

Eventually the citizens of Earth must learn to live with a steady or slowly declining population.  Only so many souls will fit here on terra firma.  Should stabilization be at today's population level?  Or after another doubling?  Or another doubling after that? Or another doubling after that?

Good question.   Ecologists have this concept called "carrying capacity."   Obviously a hard number to estimate for Earth, but some estimate that we've already passed that number and we're now depleting renewable resources (clean water, topsoil, clean air) faster than they can be renewed.   (And, of course, there's that Peak Oil thing too.)

Here are some estimates:
http://www.ilea.org/leaf/richard2002.html

 

[youbet]

Good article wab. Thanks!

From the chart, looks like expert opinion is that we're somewhere between already being over the sustainable limit and one more doubling putting us over the sustainable limit.

Overpopulation used to be a popular doom and gloom discussion topic but has currently fallen out of favor. Don't understand why. We're only a few decades away from the poop hitting the fan. And this despite the one child per couple policy in China and lower birth rates in the first world countries.

 

[wabmester]

Overpopulation used to be a popular doom and gloom discussion topic but has currently fallen out of favor.  Don't understand why.

Yeah, I had an ecology professor a while back who used to be one of those doom-and-gloomers, but he told me that later he saw the light and stopped worrying.   I never asked him what the "light" was, but given his interests in feedback systems, I think he finally decided that the problem would be self-correcting.    Once you start exhausting resources, eventually a bunch of the population dies off and the earth heals itself.   So, the earth will be fine in the long-run, and there will probably always be a few humans around. 

 

[youbet]

Well, here's hoping that the correction will be a "soft" one. Trying to have an enjoyable RE while billions are perishing from famine, disease or whatever would be tough!

 

[Cut-Throat]

Well, here's hoping that the correction will be a "soft" one. Trying to have an enjoyable RE while billions are perishing from famine, disease or whatever would be tough!

Naw! - Just remind urself that most Right Wing conservatives view these hopeless soles as lazy goof-offs looking for a free ride on the rest of us. They are getting what they deserve! If they had any gumption or work ethic, they would pull themselves up by the bootstraps and become Millionaries!

 

[razztazz]

are getting what they deserve! If they had any gumption or work ethic, they would pull themselves up by the bootstraps and become Millionaries!

Or get rich parents.. or inherit some protected copyrights....

 

[youbet]

If they had any gumption or work ethic, they would pull themselves up by the bootstraps and become Millionaries!

Or they would marry a ketchup heiress and achieve instant mega-wealth. What's wrong with them?

 

[astromeria]

Or they would marry a ketchup heiress and achieve instant mega-wealth. What's wrong with them?

Or marry the boss's son and end up out-earning him (like my Mom).
Or marry an oil & old money heir whose father's friends & political allies protect from financial failure (like Laura Bush).
Or marry a weasely political climber (Newtie's 3 wives)...