Demen 2 wrote:Augarundus wrote:BY THE WAY:Turn: Population growth is key to checking a population drop which causes dissolution of society
Washington Times 08 (“Taking on the Overpopulation Myth”, Joseph D’Agostino, book review of Steven W. Mosher)
< http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/200 ... tion-myth/>
The world's population growth rate maxed out in 1965 and has been in sharp decline."The unprecedented fall in fertility rates that began in postwar Europe has, in the decades since, spread to every corner of the globe, affecting China, India, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America," says Mr. Mosher. "The latest forecasts by the United Nations show the number of people in the world shrinking by midcentury, that is, before today's young adults reach retirement age." The birthrate of Europe taken as a whole, from Ireland to Russia, is only 1.5 children per woman in her lifetime, far below the minimal replacement rate of 2.1. Latin America's is down to 2.4 and dropping fast. China's is 1.7. South Korea's is a mere 1.1. The United States is the only developed country at or above replacement rate; we're right at 2.1.
It used to be that folks relied on their children to help them on the farm or in their businesses, and especially in their old age. Economic incentives encouraged childbearing. But now socialism has taken over that role of families. "As [demographer] Phillip Longman has remarked, the modern nanny state has created a strange new world in which the most 'successful' individuals in material terms are the most 'unfit' in biological terms," Mr. Mosher writes."In all previous ages of human history wealth and children went hand-in-hand."
This brave new world in which children are both culturally and economically undesired could lead to the dissolution of whole societies, particularly Western ones, as they age and their social security systems go bankrupt through a dearth of taxpaying young people, Mr. Mosher suggests. The abandonment of biblical values, led by the Church of England in 1930 when it became the first major Christian denomination to endorse contraception, is in this area, as in so many others, leading the world down a self-destructive path.
At least Western societies are rich. Other nations facing rapid population aging, from China to Mexico, are still poor on a per-capita basis. This population bomb could become the greatest cost of population control.
Population Low
Population is dropping – especially in developed countries
VOANews 05 ( “Experts: Falling Time Bomb causes ‘demographic time bomb’, Leta Hong Fincher, March 3)
< http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/ ... 2f13f673f2>
For hundreds of years, the world's population has grown steadily. But demographers now believe that within several decades, the number of people on earth will actually begin to decline. "What we're seeing now in many countries is the drop in fertility is so fast, it's literally without precedent in human history,” says Mr. Longman.
Phil Longman is a demographer at the New America Foundation research group in Washington D.C. Mr. Longman says that everywhere in the world, people are having fewer and fewer children. "And what it's going to mean is that countries like China for example, are going to age in a single generation as much as countries like France aged in 150 years," says Mr. Longman. This unprecedented drop in fertility is driven mostly by developing countries. The United Nations Population Division says that in the 1970s, each woman in the developing world had an average of almost six children. By the late 1990s, birth rates fell to about 3.9 children per woman. Fertility levels fell in all but four developing countries. Demographers say there are many reasons for the drop. Over the past few decades, people have used more effective contraception and delayed marriage. Women have had increased access to education and expanded opportunities for work. But demographer Longman says that above all, the rapid movement of people from farms to cities is causing fertility rates to fall. "We're now on the threshold of having half the world's population live in urban areas and the economics of parenthood are just dramatically different. If you're trying to raise a child in a high-rise apartment as opposed to on a farm, children go from being an economic asset to being an economic liability," says Mr. Longman.
Demographers point out that poor countries can benefit from falling fertility levels. Families have fewer children to support, leaving adults with more money to spend and invest. But the flip side to this initial prosperity is that the share of the population that is over 65 years old begins to increase. The younger, working-age share of the population shrinks and has to bear a greater burden for taking care of the elderly. Many analysts say that demography is destiny. Nowhere is this more true than in the world's most populous country, China.
At the beginning of the 1970s, each woman in China had an average of five-point-seven children. In 1979, the Chinese government imposed a coercive policy to control its runaway population growth. This policy succeeded in driving births down to an average of one-point-four children per woman. Not so long ago, the fear was a population explosion that would outpace food supply, causing famine and other disasters. Now, Richard Jackson, head of the global aging initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C., says that falling fertility and longer life spans have created a new demographic time bomb. "Sometimes, though, we get more than we wish for, and fertility, in fact, in China and throughout East Asia has fallen far beneath the replacement level. The problem is when you slow population growth, you not only reduce initially the growth of the population, and ultimately begin to shrink the size of the population, but you also dramatically change the age structure," says Richard Jackson.
You can copy and paste, and insult someone far more intelligent than you.
Good job.
o/
I'd still like a response from my Malthusian answers from Dyakovo, though. Unless he's willing to concede the argument.
