Global Birthrate Collapse Will Be Worse than The Black Death

40 thoughts on “Global Birthrate Collapse Will Be Worse than The Black Death”

1. Since civilization began, modern econonies have been based on population growth. When this new situation becomes obvious to everyone, adjustments will be enacted. Productivity per worker will skyrocket. When forced to adapt, medical costs will drop by at least 50%. Efficiency in training new workers will quadruple. Waste will be reduced by 60%.
   Everything that humanity has learned and developed, will be used to address this problem.

2. That less people of working age in certain countries is “worse then the black death” is, IMO to be polite silly. It’s not that nations have “less people, theirs more people on Earth then ever before. The “problem” is the perceived economic value of the population (largely based on “working age”, has gone down). A country’s economic power is based on what it’s working population does. China in the 1960’s executed (definitive word) a draconian population control program. Today, their frantically trying to undo that Mao inspired damage. Good luck. So, their population of young, educated working people has crashed. Perhaps a great example of why governments should stay out of the personal lives of their people? Sounds appropriate for me, and in the end, more productive, not to mention, decent.

   The population decline of working age people in many western nations has not been due to government directed social policy’s, but natural, undirected social change. Hey, people had less kids (or none) because they wanted to have a life. BY THE WAY this attitude is not just a “girl” thing, but one many of us men, also share. (For the record, I’m a guy). So, the decline in “industrially/commercially” people, only worries me, when some think in those terms. Then there’s the bubonic plague (aka: black death). If I may, history please?

   That was perhaps the worse, earliest natural disaster that we still have not-to-bad records of. Most of the people who could read/write at that time we’re catholic monks. They were one of the few (at least reasonably organized) groups who could “do that”, and they kept in touch with other members of their “order” (monasteries). When the only effective way to communicate with anyone was to yell, loudly, those monks had communication channels that were amazingly effective across all of a Europe smothered in darkness. Not bad.

   When Europe “woke up” from the “black death” the mindset of the survivor’s changed the very nature of what Europe became. (Maybe it was less people, but more food, to be cynical). Learning things you did not know, became less “the devil’s work”, and something admirable. Then, people did not understand what caused the black death, (fleas, rats, etc) let alone what to do about it. THAT was a natural disaster. What’s happening today with certain demographic population declines, is not. We can deal with what (we think) we understand. We need to ask the right questions, to ever get the right answers.

3. Please Brian, who cares? At 62 I couldn’t care less… and yes, I’m a female, I didn’t reproduce and I don’t regret it in the least. Life sucks and then you die (and then you’re eaten by maggots). I would never inflict that on another human being.

   • Agreed. Loveless marriages, more than half rich-country children growing up to be parasitic disappointments, 80%+ of the world population doing menial labor – if that – and never aspiring to more, HOAs, homeless rampaging downtowns – protected by groups of anarchists, etc., etc. It seems like there is way to much to fix and so few to do it in the current world configuration.

     • I’m personally tired of people who think love is just something that happens, rather than something you *do*.

       *Lust* just happens. Love requires sustained effort.

       • It’s an interesting thing; always had a pet theory that the fall (or at least chaos) with the quality and quantity of children over the decades in the rich world since, perhaps, the last significant part of the century was due to the lack of adults engaging in their ‘duty’ to marry, procreate, work in traditional roles, and act as civilized members of the general community. Duty then became a bad word. Understandable. As I look at my siblings, parents, friends, colleagues in their bickering relationships and marriages; their childrens’ obvious resentment with same: I thought – I am going to marry my best friend or not at all. Why propogate misery down the generations? So if you reverse engineer that BFF, the people you date are likely the one’s that you have an existing repore and true connection – over an extended period – perhaps through school or work or hobby, well before romance or attraction — not, by swiping left (or is it right?).
         Bad Idea. Unreasonable standards. The world population would be below minimum complexity in a handful of generations. Poor wiring? Ho-hum – continue to demonize the ‘friend zone’.

         • I have been married for almost 50 years and the circumstances were different back then. The traditional roles, bungalow, and family-unit just fit into the economics and community structure at the time. It wasn’t a patriarchy or children-run-wild environment as many who try to compare then and now. The point is that the economics don’t work for the current housing and job descriptions; it takes far greater resources and the percentile of salary goes far less. People didn’t care about the subjugation feel of the domestic roles (perhaps the men wanted to be more involved in helping the kids) and the limited options for work and shopping. WE simply need to undertake a transformation of the family and the housing stock – maybe multi-family with co-parenting. More surrogates and alternative fertility or care choices. Kids are definitely part of the total life, it’s just that it’s fair not to have them if everything else pushes it out. I have only met one or two people who refused to have kids no matter how much money or what quality of mate they had – it’s rare to fundamentally refuse a family, given ideal circumstances.

       • Right you are…

         The uber-intelligent tech blog readers have displayed/betrayed their innermost feelings and they are hopeless, depressed, lonely and childless.

         These comments make me realize I’m actually an Optimist. #gobsmacked

4. What do I know? Not much really. All this seems conjecture.
   Any one have the science links?

   I just get cognitive dissonance with the billion of ‘Optimus’ per year vs we’re screwed without a billion more people a year.. Somehow I think we’ll find a balance. I highly doubt we’re headed to extinction that way. The supply chain is the concern right? If there aren’t enough people/bots to make and deliver all the things we’re used to? If not prices go up and we’re all sad.

   This just in:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNNVK2dz9lE

   The video doesn’t mention it but do you think the first time you see an Optimus that has driven itself to the grocery store and is doing shopping? Before Jan 1, 2030 or after?

   The irony of the folks worried about immigration who are the same folks worried about population loss. I mean c’mon. All those Latin American’s are basically Europeans. They have the same cultural history as most of us already in the United States. Same art, same ‘what did the romans ever do for us’, etc. And really anyone who comes to America willing to stand for Democracy and Human Rights and Decency and who’s willing to work for it is welcome by me. I’d include a stable immigration plan in what’s decent. Balance that with doing more to keep folks from wanting to leave their homes in the first place.

   • I personally know 4 CEO’s and other senior executives from other American companies who are desperate, DESPERATE to get qualified people to fill what are sometimes very specialized highly technical skills. One guy (a CEO) said to me: “I’ll pay anything I can, to get someone who can do this job” Believe me, he could and would pay a hell of a lot. He gave me a “job description”, that included salary and benefits. WOW. Point is American companies are truly struggling to get people to fill the MANY jobs that go unfilled. If an immigrant can fill any job, it’s very good for America’s economy. That benefits everyone. The companies I mentioned are all doing quite well, but they fear that won’t last, if they can’t get the people with the skills they need.

     Under previous US immigration law, people with certain, special skills could if sponsored by US companies, move “up the line” to get in. Trump eliminated this qualifier. As he made it much harder for anyone wanting to follow the rules, and enter this country legally. Be careful who you vote for, they may win.

     • My BS meter is pegging on this “CEO I’ll pay anything for this seemingly trivial job description.”

       Is it not something worth training the individual? Besides like RADAR signal processing experts (example), what trade is in short supply. CEO might need to pay to train someone.

5. One other critique of the depopulation issue. All developed and many of developing countries have structural disincentives built into their economy and society for having and raising kids. In the U.S. it has been the cost of housing, health care, and education. Now add to it this rampant inflation. In the case of Japan and likely South Korea, it is the domestic economy being based on extracting money out of you every time you turn around. These costs are dramatically increased for those having kids. South Korea has something even more pernicious, mandatory retirement at age 50. This means lots of order people driving taxis or running cheap restaurants and coffee shops to stay afloat financially. Now if you are a 20 year old kid, what do you think your life strategy if going to be to get around this? Obviously making as much money as possible while living the “minimalist life style” (Aaron Clary) in order to retire to the beaches of SEA when you are 50, if not before. Of course this is going to drop the fertility rate down to near zero.

   With regards to the U.S., read what’s at the following link carefully and remember all of it (you will see this material again):

   https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=250038

   Every single point Karl raises in this posting MUST be resolved before there is ANY POSSIBILITY of fertility rate increase in the U.S. Pretending otherwise means you do not sincere in your concern about the problem or you are simply emoting rather than discussing real solutions.

   • I live in Spain, here we had 46 million people living in 2000 now we are 50.1 million with a decreasing fertility rate where dogs are more common than children.

     What is happening? I will be politically incorrect but what´s happening is that locals are substituted by foreigners (as is happening in the U.S.). The skills and education level are being diluted in a sea of ignorance and lack of the right skills for the society they want to live in.

     We in Spain are surrounded by arab women who are always pregnant and African boys of military age who come here ALONE, and this is what is creating the population GROWTH here.

     Of course, finding the right skills in this group is hard…to say it politely.
     We are being substituted by people from countries that can´t sustain their irresponsible population GROWTH and export their ignorant, criminal, and uneducated to us

     • Spot on! Just like Portugal.

   • The link, a convoluted rant written by somebody in the business world. I don’t need to say anything more on the narrowness of the conclusions.

6. As yet, I’m not convinced this problem is real. For one thing, we have been constantly bombarded with the population explosion disaster since 1968. Yet the problem resolved itself on its own. I see no reason to fear this one either.

   There are several predictable corollaries if population decline is real. One is real estate should be slowing declining in value. Another is age discrimination should no longer exist and the so-called “up or out” HR policy should be gone as well. The rampant credentialism, both in the form of unnecessary college degrees as well as many of the other senseless criteria for jobs should no longer exist.

   I will consider the depopulation problem real when I observe all of these corollaries. They have yet to happen to date.

7. But it’s OVERpopulation that’s going to kill us all! Hollywood’s been saying so for years! 🙂

   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/

8. Well, that’s great. We’ll be back to a population of 100 million whites in 100+ years. Then the population and economy will start growing again due to natural selection for fertility, cultural changes, and reduced economic and environmental pressure. A natural cycle that only optimizes the genetics and culture of the population. There’s no reason to be sad. The main thing is not to lose knowledge and technology during the period of population decline and not to be conquered and destroyed by civilizations that are now growing demographically. They will become especially dangerous at the moment when the white world and China begin to shrink, the world economy will die and lead to the collapse of Africa, India, and the Arab countries, famine there, and endless war, which will give rise to a kind of barbarian invasion. In short, forget about stimulating the birth rate, trust your nature, don’t let migrants in, and save up nuclear bombs and viruses, they will help you survive when you are old and in the minority.

   • I don’t think that it is so much a Whites thing as a G7+ thing. The cultures of this world have been diverging for decades. The US, UK, Canada, Australia, and parts of north-western Europe/ Japan propelling us from Industrial Revolution to post-Industrial to abundance based on technology, work ethic/ identity, and consumerist-hedonism – likely leading us to a rich, stagnant, but knowledge-expanding existence – way under-achieving our potential, whether we stay at current population levels or fall 50% – no worries, we will maintain a significant level of complexity to keep our standard of living, consumer choice, employment levels, military borders, and the odd, isolated adventure to the moon and beyond – though off-world colonization unlikely this century in this scenario. China is an unknown entity with delusions of grandeur yet a population that is providing some real knowledge, productivity, and inspiration – but I am not convinced that the government can herd such Peoples to really be a world power beyond their petty skirmishes in the pacific, minor space-faring episodes, and the ambitious-but-fruitless Marco Polo trading belt adventures. This is a fake it-till you make it-type civilization that will continue to copy, emulate, and factory/mine out-produce the world with little of the associated benefits and successes. I see signfiicant quality-of-life issues in the middle-class and below with crashing populations in this country. Eastern Europe and Russia are 2nd-tier cultures with little likelihood of major technological, living-standard growth even under a minimum replacement rate, as they are stuck in the past and wil endlessly quibble with their glory delusions. These peoples have survived crashes and will be unchanged as they are a very under-utilized and inefficient socio-economic zone. If we can stop Russia from spreading beyond their current Ukraine lines, they will be less of a nuisance and disruption to western Europe. Africa and the Middle East are lost causes and will be sources of impotent nonsense drama for generations – who cares, no matter whether they grown 200% or fall 50% – they’re stuck. But hey they’ve got Tik-tok.

     • Some eastern european countries (despite being stuck for almost 50 years in way less productive commieland) already caught up or have higher standard of living than some, as you call them, ‘1st tier culture’ western Europeans. Division is artificial. They are the same people – Europeans, and in time all european countries will more or less converge in terms of HDI and productivity. When some decent money will be there, brain drain will stop and ultimately reverse, people will come back (already slowly happening), ultimately you will see similar level of science and tech output per capita.

       • I understand what you’re getting at – most of my family is eastern European and I talk to them regularly. But deep down, for all the good jobs, nice cars, smarter academics, tech proclivities, love of history and family and community,… they’re still peasants at heart. Family over job. Constant criticism of the government on ‘control’ topics, not taxation/ economy topics. Deep sense of hierarchy and a mis-trust of company culture, no true entrepreunarialism (as in doing something new not just starting another family business). Still more of a ‘low-trust’ culture in academic terms. They are not, and will not likely embrace soon ‘true dyed-in-the-wool’ capitalism – true self-interested exploitation of their fellow man, nature, and community for profit. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. The Poles, Hungarios, Bulgarios, Romanios, Czechs, Slovaks, etc., etc. will never seek specifically to go to the moon, asteroids, mars, and beyond for profit or business; never seek domination of energy, computers, biotech for the sheer enjoyment of wealth and did-it-first profit. They will likely be the top thinkers, doers, and adventurers in such exploits – but the buisness case – not this half-century. And this will lead their culture to still be ‘quaint’ for generations and beyond.

9. I may be so bold as to imagine a point of view that women may have on this whole ‘hand wringing’ by a bunch of old men about world population decline. Maybe we should step aside and concede to them (females) tobe in charge and lead us from here on, as the irresistible decline of the entire human race seems to be the end result of all our best and brightest male minds focusing on our material success priorities. Maybe there is something beyond the logical, masculine numeric/mathematic focus being the prime drivers shaping our world, and the allocation of resources therein. Just throwing it out there for the yapping dogs to chew on.

   • The current world has been absolutely feminine in its essence for about 70 years now. It is governed by feminine values ​​and it values ​​feminine types of behavior in both sexes. God. Yes, even now, during the war in Ukraine, Western politicians are literally the opposite of masculinity. While Ukrainians have been fighting for 3 years, pouring rivers of their own and other people’s blood into Eastern Europe, Western politicians are whining about “preventing escalation” and “peace.” When a breakthrough like AI appears, everyone starts screaming about “danger.”

   • Short version: *Yawn* Longer version: women do most the child-rearing and teaching, so any negative traits in society you blame “old men” for are the fault of the same females you want “in charge”.

10. Looking at decline in total population actually understates the problem. Take South Korea for example. At a tfr of .7 each generation of young people is only 1/3 the size of the last. So in just 4 generations (just over a century) the population of young people drops to just 1/3^4 = 1.2%. So a drop of 99%. Effectively South Koreans are functionally extinct in just over a century if the current tfr does not improve.

    • The good news is that there’s a certain subset of the population with a set of genes that compel them to want to reproduce at all costs. Eventually the population will collapse to whatever percentage have that set of genes. So it’s not the whole population that’s collapsing, just the ones who don’t like kids.

11. This should make real estate a terrible investment.

    As the population declines, there will always be excess supply.

12. The worst idea that in human history is that an eighteen year old married mother is a failure of a woman and is is something society needs to eliminate.
    People see raising the age to marry for woman is 18 is a mark of an advanced progressive society.
    Modern civilizations rejoice that teenage pregnancies are eliminated as they fail to see that they are committing population suicide.
    If we want to save our civilization we need to lower the minimum age of marriage to 16, encourage teenage marriages, and PAY women to be mothers.

13. We’ve had this discussion before, but here again are the salient rebuttals to the Population Decline Doom Scenario (PDDS):
    – The best countries to live in are those with stable (e.g. U.S.) to declining populations (e.g. Japan, South Korea, EU countries, China). The worst countries to live in are those with rapidly growing populations (e.g. subsaharan Africa).
    – Education & opportunity matter far more than sheer numbers of people in advancing GDP (which itself is a flawed statistic) or quality of life.
    – The most unstable regions are those with a surge in young people (e.g. Middle East, Africa). These areas tend to have bad governance too.
    – The Earth needs a break. Yes, NBF & others provide 1,000s of technological fixes for our problems, but they aren’t happening fast enough and resources are being depleted too quickly, pollution increasing too rapidly, land use, wars, and poverty re-accelerating or just happening too much.
    – We may be a decade or so away from major life-extending technology, which would make 80 the new 70, and allow people to be productive longer.
    – We may be a decade or so away from artificial wombs (we only need to close a ~20-week gap between Petri dish IVF and earliest incubator options). When this happens, plus extensions to female fertility caused by active research into the anomalous aspect of female reproductive organ shutdown while half of female potential life lies ahead, the window of fertility will expand significantly, probably without additional risk of genetic offspring damage.
    – AI and robots will take over much of the grunt brain & brawn work from humans, obviating the need for so much drudge work.
    – co-living, blended families, and other arrangements will make parenting less onerous and costly. Right now, cost of raising children is just too high OR people have uncontrolled reproduction and provide substandard childcare, leading to less productive adults; neither outcome is optimal and both lead to wasted human potential. Good, productive human beings don’t just “happen.” It requires a blend of public policy and good parents (more intact families too).

    • “The best countries to live in are those with stable (e.g. U.S.) to declining populations”

      I think you’re missing how this plays out in the long run.

      When birth rates FIRST decline, you get the last generation before the decline in their productive years, while you have reduced expense raising children and everything looks great.

      It looks great because you’re eating your seed corn.

      A while later when that last generation are going into retirement, and nobody is replacing them in the workforce at the other end, things look rather different! You’ve run out of seed corn to eat, and there’s no new crop of corn to harvest.

      But, at that point, you’re screwed, it’s too late to plant that crop.

      I think part of your confusion here is getting causality backwards. Declining birth rates aren’t causing higher standards of living, (Except for the contribution from eating your seed corn.) higher standards of living seem to clause declining birth rates. The only countries still above replacement are poor countries.

      So, it looks like declining birth rates are great, if you just look at the short run.

      Now, *maybe* AI and automation will save us. But it seems to me rather like not sweating the engine going out on your plane as you approach mountains, because you assume you’ll invent a parachute before you crash.

      I think we’re approaching the point where, by the time people become motivated to do something about this problem, something serious, it will be too late to reconstitute the society we all grew up in, we’ll be looking at something like Brave New World, with baby factories and AI powered robot nannies raising the replacement generation to be dependable statist drones. A rather dystopian future.

      • Yes!. I’m here for Brett’s comments as much as the articles.

      • Have you considered the benefits of immigration? It hasn’t entered into your considerations

        • Of course I’ve considered the benefits of immigration. I’m literally married to an immigrant!

          But that’s not a solution, that’s just deck chair shuffling. The under developed world has declining birth rates, too, just not as low yet. What are we supposed to do, keep them poor and ignorant so that they’ll keep reproducing, and then raid them for population replacements?

          You know, if you’re bleeding out, you go into shock, where your body cuts off blood flow to not immediately essential organs, to keep the core functions operating a bit longer. But if you don’t stop the bleeding, that just delays your eventual death, doesn’t prevent it.

          Keeping the 1st world afloat by stripping people out of the 3rd world is the same sort of delaying action. It’s not even a tourniquet! It’s just the world going into shock.

      • “we’ll be looking at something like Brave New World, with baby factories and AI powered robot nannies raising the replacement generation to be dependable statist drones. ”

        Assuming longevity treatments don’t start kicking in. And no they don’t have to be the full monty of “immortality” even comparatively modest increases in lifespan/health span of say 10-15 years would have huge effects demographically. Pushing the death/end of life care/Nursing home care expenses back say 10- 15 more years of your continuing to work (or at least not requiring expensive care even if retired) would have huge effects economically and socially. With fewer young people available to replace you on the job companies (prodded by the government) would have to be more accommodating to older workers staying on as opposed to being pushed out the door.

        • It would have a significant economic impact. It wouldn’t solve the problem; While men can remain fertile until they die, women start out with a finite number of eggs, and female fertility starts dropping off in the early 30’s, and has essentially hit zero by the mid 40’s even if they haven’t actually gone into menopause.

          So all you’d do is make the glide path shallower. Without finding some way to either convince young women to have children, or restore older women to fertility and *interest* in having children, population will keep dropping even with life extension.

          You know, I believe we WILL achieve a technological solution. I’m mainly concerned that it’s going to involve really dystopian social changes if it comes after normal reproductive culture has been extinguished.

14. Not sure if the number of people really matters too much. A country with a population of 100 million and GDP of 1000 billion will be roughly just as happy as a country with a pop of 10 million and GDP of 100 billion. Except the smaller country will have more space and countryside. A 30% economy loss for a country with 30% less people is probably fine.

    A bigger problem is the shape of the population pyramid caused by declining birth rate. Most of the world’s population increase is now coming from the increasing number of old people, who will all need supporting by (proportionally and numerically) less children. The world may already have passed ‘peak child’ a while ago.

15. Many countries tried to boost birth rate and failed but they learned some effective tactics: provide economic incentives, promote traditional values, focus on young females, reduce population density, reduce housing and education cost… China just need to copy these tactics then melt them into a working strategy (that’s what China good at) then push it to an extreme level (“go big or go home” is a part of China mindset/culture). Once China sucess, other countries will have a blueprint to follow.

    • China’s about thirty years too late to implement a working strategy on this, they’re going to be on the front lines of population degradation

16. Those cultures that prioritize having children will ultimately inherit the world. certainly it won’t be western culture though.

17. That’s why we need antiaging / rejuvenation tech ASAP

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