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The future of population growth.

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Phil56

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I think it's less about skills, but a good work ethic helps. Does our education system really prepare people for the world of work?

It's also an acceptance as a society that these jobs are important, they make a valuable contribution, and the people doing the work deserve to earn enough money to have a reasonable standard of living without having to rely on Universal Credit etc. to top up their wages.

Cleaning does have it's skills. Such as knowing which cleaning product to use in different areas/different "spills". Knowing to use different cloths for different areas, etc. Knowing when to use hot water for cleaning rather than cold.

I remember being aghast when the cleaner came into our apartment on holiday. She had one cloth and one cleaning spray. She went into the toilet area first, and when she came out (still with the same cloth), she started wiping down the kitchen area! She wasn't "trained" or "skilled" enough to think that using the cloth she'd just wiped the loo with shouldn't be used on the kitchen surfaces!

Even the most menial jobs need an element of training, and ability to understand/use that training!
 
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GS250

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Even considering the article above, I don't like the idea of that in all honesty, as to me, it smacks of pressurising people to adopt a particular lifestyle when that might not be for them.

Remember that having children requires very considerable personal responsibility, financial burden and restrictions on freedom (for example, you can't just pop off to the pub, or to an event, in the evening when you feel like it). Many are happy to pay that price but some of us may not be. I would baulk at "big state" prioritisation of families over a childless lifestyle, and making life difficult for the childless. Should be all about freedom of choice. The role of the "big state", in my view, is to protect the vulnerable (by giving appropriate benefits for example), not to enforce or encourage particular lifestyle choices on people.

Remember also that even softly "pressurising" people to have children (financial incentives, for example) might lead people to have children they don't really want, with the attendant risks of child abuse. Not good. Only those that really want children should have them.

Agreed. I have absolutely no paternal instinct at all. Some have reckoned I'd make a 'great Dad' but its just not for me.

Why is there pressure to procreate anyway? Automation is growing, natural resources are dwindling. Some view 'depopulation' as a horrific scenario...I view it as utterly sensible.
 

Bletchleyite

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Some view 'depopulation' as a horrific scenario...I view it as utterly sensible.

I'm with you. The world would benefit from about a 20% depopulation, I reckon. No, of course I don't mean genocide, I mean a long period of a China style one-child policy to allow it to naturally decrease.

Our present financial systems are pyramid schemes which depend on growth, but it's those systems that are broken.
 

AlterEgo

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I'm with you. The world would benefit from about a 20% depopulation, I reckon. No, of course I don't mean genocide, I mean a long period of a China style one-child policy to allow it to naturally decrease.
China's one-child policy was disastrous and relied on a massive surveillance state as well as a complete evisceration of the rights of women and girls.

A policy of refusing medical treatment to anyone over 70 would be about the same in terms of an infringement on human rights.
 

Bletchleyite

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a complete evisceration of the rights of women and girls.

This assumes that state support in procreating is a right, which I don't believe it is. Procreation is a basic human right, but receipt of taxpayers' money to fund it isn't. State support of anything is not a fundamental human right - I'm in support of it, but it's a privilege that comes from partaking for the greater good in a social democratic society, not a right.

State child-specific support, such as free education, can quite validly be provided for only one child per couple. For a second child, fund it yourself.

The poisonous anti-girl culture in China caused much of the problem, FWIW.
 

Magdalia

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So, yes, the majority of population increase is due to immigration - that's my point. I didn't say there wasn't a surplus of births over deaths, just that immigration is driving the increase. Which it is!

In any case, the main driver of "natural" population increase is a lowering mortality rate. The birth rate remains very low and well below any replacement birth rate, at about 1.6 births per woman. It isn't children being born driving the UK's population increase.
Net migration is about 60 per cent of the increase and excess of birth over deaths is about 40 per cent. That's not a long way from half and half.

Yes, the 2021 total fertility rate was 1.61 in 2021, but that's not representative because of COVID. Go back to the beginning of the 2011-21 period and total fertility rate was more than 1.9 in both 2011 and 2012. Contrast this with South Korea, for example, where the fertility rate is now below 1.

And you may recall that mortality was very high in 2020, also because of COVID.
 
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GS250

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For many men...even those who are desperate to have a family....procreation is only ever going to be a fantasy if you are unable to attract a mate. After all, there is no right to procreate. Just look at the animal Kingdom to see how mate selection operates. Its not unusual for a relative minority of dominant male species to do the majority of procreating. It may be possible that humans are heading that way again.
 

AlterEgo

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Yes, the 2021 total fertility rate was 1.61 in 2021, but that's not representative because of COVID. Go back to the beginning of the 2011-21 period and total fertility rate was more than 1.9 in both 2011 and 2012.
Which is still quite a bit below the replacement rate. The UK has been consistently below this for 40 years and has an ageing population.

For many men...even those who are desperate to have a family....procreation is only ever going to be a fantasy if you are unable to attract a mate. After all, there is no right to procreate. Just look at the animal Kingdom to see how mate selection operates. Its not unusual for a relative minority of dominant male species to do the majority of procreating. It may be possible that humans are heading that way again.
Possibly - 2022's men are pretty crap, but the idea of dominant males having 10+ children while everyone else gets to play computer games isn't exactly ideal.
 

ainsworth74

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You can encourage family creation by having stable employment, affordable housing, and making it cheaper to raise children. This will involve making having a child less of a burden, like having easier to access childcare or simply making it more affordable. Alternatively we may need to think about whether double-income families (which leave nobody at home to actually raise children) as we’ve seen in the west are a societally beneficial development.

If that was the goal then those send like excellent ideas and would benefit society as a whole whether they had children or not! Equally I have no problem with the suggestion of making it easier for couples (or singles) to have children in general. I have no problem with my taxes being used on things like education, child benefits and similar. I'd ditch the two child limit that has been introduced in benefits as a piece of Daily Mail whipped up fury about "PEOPLE HAVING CHILDREN TO GAIN BENEFITS" which has vanishingly little evidence of being a thing whilst there's increasing of evidence it has done things like increased child poverty and the numbers of people having abortions.

My worry is that we'll start to punish those who don't have children, for whatever reason. I don't have children, I have no particular interest in having children at any point and I don't see why I should be punished for taking this view by the state. Control over your own fertility is surely the most fundamental human right that exists (it's one of the many reasons why the One Child Policy in China was so abhorrent) and exercising that to have children (or more children) or to not have children should not be something that the state punishes someone for in either direction.
 

GS250

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Possibly - 2022's men are pretty crap, but the idea of dominant males having 10+ children while everyone else gets to play computer games isn't exactly ideal.

It isn't ideal but its possibly where we are heading. Biologically women do not find the majority of men actually attractive. That's no slight on them at all, its just how nature has programmed the higher IQ mammals. Traditionally this was circumvented by more or less 'arranged' marriages of which kept society in order and ensured a high birth rate of which was key to human survival in the past. Of course the disadvantage of this was that you ended up with a couple who possibly couldn't stand each other but got on with it to keep their place of worship and extended family happy.

I've no idea if 2022's men are apparently 'crap'. Maybe a section are backing out of the dating and relationship market because they aren't getting a look in? Maybe they are happy though being part of the 'computer games' society? And happy is something a lot of todays single women clearly aren't once they hit 40 odd.
 

LSWR Cavalier

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It is quite complicated to forecast population, oftentimes the figures turn out quite different from expectations.

A lot of Polish people moved to the UK, many of them are catholic and tend to have more children than average, but their children are born in the UK and may not have much interest in Poland. Are the children thus 'not immigrants'?

The UK population has increased a lot in the last 25 years, how much land has been built on to house the extra millions?

I think the UK and other countries should be aiming for self-sufficiency in food, if only 6% of the land is built on that should be possible. But what about (independent?) Scotland? How much of the Highlands is unsuitable for agriculture?
 

yorksrob

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There isn't a population explosion. There is a steady decrease in fertility, worldwide, and the annual increase - which is already small - is getting shallower and shallower each year.


If you admit it is a nihilistic worldview then it is not one worth serious discussion. In any case, choosing not to have children doesn't contribute to the country's population issue, because what happens instead is that immigration is necessary to maintain your standard of living. In most cases, those immigrants bring their (often large!) families to the country, and it's immigration which has driven the population increase we've seen in the UK - not the birth rate.


But nobody is arguing for the explosion in population - merely to avoid degrowth.

I was merely using your own words back at you.

Look around you. There is no shortage of people. Some of the mega-cities in the developing world look like genuinely uncomfortable places to live in. If the population shrinks consensually from where it is now, it will relieve some of the stress the environment is under.
 

Bletchleyite

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It isn't ideal but its possibly where we are heading. Biologically women do not find the majority of men actually attractive. That's no slight on them at all, its just how nature has programmed the higher IQ mammals. Traditionally this was circumvented by more or less 'arranged' marriages of which kept society in order and ensured a high birth rate of which was key to human survival in the past. Of course the disadvantage of this was that you ended up with a couple who possibly couldn't stand each other but got on with it to keep their place of worship and extended family happy.

I've no idea if 2022's men are apparently 'crap'. Maybe a section are backing out of the dating and relationship market because they aren't getting a look in? Maybe they are happy though being part of the 'computer games' society? And happy is something a lot of todays single women clearly aren't once they hit 40 odd.

This sounds dangerously like the "incel" argument, to be honest. The vast majority of straight/bi men who wish to do procreate, because in the end not every woman can get the guy off Baywatch so people do actually fall in love with people who aren't that perfect model.

Or put a bit more bluntly, there are plenty of ugly guys with kids.
 

JamesT

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It is quite complicated to forecast population, oftentimes the figures turn out quite different from expectations.

A lot of Polish people moved to the UK, many of them are catholic and tend to have more children than average, but their children are born in the UK and may not have much interest in Poland. Are the children thus 'not immigrants'?

The UK population has increased a lot in the last 25 years, how much land has been built on to house the extra millions?

In terms of the previous figures about population rise from immigration versus births in the UK, children born in the UK to immigrant parents are going to count towards the latter statistic. https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/key-topics/population sticks them together to say that 80% of the population rise is related to immigration. (I'm not endorsing MW, they were just the first hit that appeared to have relevant statistics).
Housing (especially in the South-East) hasn't kept up with population growth, so the answer is "not enough" land has been built on.

I think the UK and other countries should be aiming for self-sufficiency in food, if only 6% of the land is built on that should be possible. But what about (independent?) Scotland? How much of the Highlands is unsuitable for agriculture?

The UK hasn't been self-sufficient in food for about 200 years. I believe we currently import about half our food.
It might be possible to go back to self-sufficiency, but it would require a massively curtailed diet for most people. Hope you like bread and turnips.
Scotland by itself would be fairly stuffed. The hills are good for sheep, but if you want wheatfields then you'd need England.
 

Bletchleyite

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The UK hasn't been self-sufficient in food for about 200 years. I believe we currently import about half our food.
It might be possible to go back to self-sufficiency, but it would require a massively curtailed diet for most people. Hope you like bread and turnips.
Scotland by itself would be fairly stuffed. The hills are good for sheep, but if you want wheatfields then you'd need England.

I think what we should be doing is only importing things that can't be produced here, and be a bit more seasonal about what we eat, i.e. not expect strawberries in January. That's more achievable than completely self-sufficient.

For instance, why New Zealand lamb when we can have Welsh lamb, why Danish bacon when we've got our own pigs etc, and why Argentinian steak rather than British steak?
 

nlogax

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For instance, why New Zealand lamb when we can have Welsh lamb, why Danish bacon when we've got our own pigs etc, and why Argentinian steak rather than British steak?

Seasonality is a major part of it and something we forget when having ready access to commodities from around the world. For instance good luck getting reasonable quantities of British lamb twelve months a year.
 

GS250

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This sounds dangerously like the "incel" argument, to be honest. The vast majority of straight/bi men who wish to do procreate, because in the end not every woman can get the guy off Baywatch so people do actually fall in love with people who aren't that perfect model.

Or put a bit more bluntly, there are plenty of ugly guys with kids.
Yes.... whilst they seem to attract a lot of ridicule, there are some valid points raised. It also has to be said it's surely a big concern for society (given the topic in this thread) that a section of the said society has effectively dropped out and is no longer willing to participate in its continuity. However, if they are happy, then that's their business. I'm not particularly concerned as I think a de-growth would actually assist us in our long term survival.

I stick by my line though theres a lot of unhappy single, childless women over 40 about though. Working at a large educational establishment they are probably the main demographic. They do bemoan the lack of men willing to want to commit to them and start a family. Yes some are childless by choice (like me) but theres definitely an air of what could have been about.

Maybe leaving it too late is adding to the decline in birthrates too?
 

JamesT

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Seasonality is a major part of it and something we forget when having ready access to commodities from around the world. For instance good luck getting reasonable quantities of British lamb twelve months a year.
There's also the slightly counter-intuitive finding that NZ lamb is more environmentally sustainable than Welsh. https://www.ecoandbeyond.co/articles/british-new-zealand-lamb/

It's very much risk versus reward. The UK has had pretty low food inflation for decades, which I'd argue has been in part because we've mostly sided with consumers over protecting farmers. The world situation has fed into large increases recently, but may be acceptable as an occasional blip compared to the likely sustained high prices from trying to push people towards eating more domestically produced food.
 

Mag_seven

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A reminder that the topic of this thread is "The Future of population Growth"

If anyone wants to discuss anything else then they are welcome to start a new thread.
 

najaB

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That’s probably at least partly true, and I don’t see why such a utopia couldn’t sustain double the number of people currently on the planet.
To paraphrase one Dr. Ian Malcolm:
They were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.
 

E27007

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This sounds dangerously like the "incel" argument, to be honest. The vast majority of straight/bi men who wish to do procreate, because in the end not every woman can get the guy off Baywatch so people do actually fall in love with people who aren't that perfect model.

Or put a bit more bluntly, there are plenty of ugly guys with kids.
I do not recognise a connection with "incel", Incel is involuntary celibacy. I do recognise the thinking of "MGTOW".....the growing movement of Men Going Their Own Way . Men who purposely reject the lifestyle of marriage and children as a poor proposition due to the many risks such as property and financial asset stripping by an ex-wife. My contribution to population growth ...ZERO. There is no way I would risk my hard earned assets by fathering children, I meet a significant number of men who have reached the same conclusion
 

Yew

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It should be easier, cheaper and less disruptive to start a family. Many people feel priced out of such a decision and I think it's good that the government promotes healthy family units to try and hit a replacement birth rate again.
I would gladly consider it if a single wage could support a middle class existence for a family. Until that is the case, I can't see the appeal of it.

Why should we trust this link, it can hardly be considered unbiased.
 

AlterEgo

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I would gladly consider it if a single wage could support a middle class existence for a family. Until that is the case, I can't see the appeal of it.
I agree this is the main factor - the necessity of double wage earning to support a family.
 

E27007

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As for future population growth, there are radical feminists thinking our future fifth / sixth wave society should develop as a male: female ratio at birth of 10 : 90, making males a passive minority.
Within this Huxley Brave New World I guess males will be allocated to the tasks women do not relish, the dirty or dangerous work, digging out the sewers, hard physical labour.
 

Bletchleyite

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I agree this is the main factor - the necessity of double wage earning to support a family.

Yes, we could do with sorting that out (though there are parts of the country, primarily the North and also parts of Wales and Scotland, where it CAN be done if you accept a basic lifestyle more like that typical in the 1970s give or take a bit of tech, as it's mostly about house prices). Though how to do it is one for another thread.

However, a continually increasing population will do nothing to help that whatsoever.
 

Giugiaro

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You can encourage family creation by having stable employment, affordable housing, and making it cheaper to raise children. This will involve making having a child less of a burden, like having easier to access childcare or simply making it more affordable. Alternatively we may need to think about whether double-income families (which leave nobody at home to actually raise children) as we’ve seen in the west are a societally beneficial development.

Mind that you need couples to engage before any of that.
You can't force people to engage with each other just to bear children.*
It's a recipe for more dysfunctional families, where both parties are constantly at each other's throats.

As far as I'd like to be in a relationship with someone, I remain single.
I have been since I broke away with the only true love I had in my life six years ago.

I learned with her that for someone to truly engage with someone else, both need to have their life aligned in the long term. I have since refused to find love with anyone else because I fear getting to the point where both will have to part ways because of our studies, careers, or families.

I rather avoid starting another short-term relationship only to break my promise and go through another breakup. I don't know what I'll be doing or where I'll end up in a year or two.

I made a girl cry because I couldn't say I could stay with her. I don't want to make another girl cry again.


*Note: Grammarly refused to accept the word "just" in this sentence. I believe removing it just causes more confusion.
 
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Bletchleyite

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I made a girl cry because I couldn't say I could stay with her. I don't want to make another girl cry again.

Must admit I find it very hard to upset someone that way too. Not casting aspersions at yourself, but isn't hyperempathy one of the effects you sometimes get with autism, which might be one reason why a higher number of autistic people are single? I'm not diagnosed but I work in IT* and like the railway which might as well be a diagnosis, and I can very often be hyperempathetic, i.e. get far more upset when I let someone down than they are about it. And I am single.

* Half the IT industry at least must have some form of autistic traits - when dealing with computers it's very much a positive. Probably true of the likes of mathematicians and scientists as well - you're dealing in facts and rules, not human vagiaries. And IT does contain a LOT of single blokes wedded somewhat to their careers. Which, of course, is fine if that is what they want, getting married and/or having kids isn't compulsory, and society does now seem to "get" that.
 

AlterEgo

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Mind that you need couples to engage before any of that.
You can't force people to engage with each other just to bear children.*
Well no of course not, and we live in an era where marriage and love are rightly divorced from the idea that the relationship has to bear children.

It's a recipe for more dysfunctional families, where both parties are constantly at each other's throats.
It's not. I don't agree that people these days are any more inclined to dysfunction than they were in, say, 1950, when marriage and birth rates were higher.

*Note: Grammarly refused to accept the word "just" in this sentence. I believe removing it just causes more confusion.
You are right! It would be less clear without the "just".
 

DynamicSpirit

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As for future population growth, there are radical feminists thinking our future fifth / sixth wave society should develop as a male: female ratio at birth of 10 : 90, making males a passive minority.
Within this Huxley Brave New World I guess males will be allocated to the tasks women do not relish, the dirty or dangerous work, digging out the sewers, hard physical labour.

I think, as a single male, I could cope with living in a society in which there are 9 women for every man. ;)
 

yorksrob

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I would gladly consider it if a single wage could support a middle class existence for a family. Until that is the case, I can't see the appeal of it.


Why should we trust this link, it can hardly be considered unbiased.

I think the occasion has been reported in various news sites if you wish to google.
 
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