Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Guardian thinks immigrants from poor countries will be happy to take care of the old folk in rich countries who chose not to have kids. Or maybe robots will sort it all out.
Why declining birth rates are good news for life on Earth
Laura Spinney
Thu 8 Jul 2021 19.00 AESTIn the midst of a climate crisis with 8 billion humans on the globe, it’s absurd to say that what’s lacking is babies
Fertility rates are falling across the globe – even in places, such as sub-Saharan Africa, where they remain high. This is good for women, families, societies and the environment. So why do we keep hearing that the world needs babies, with angst in the mediaabout maternity wards closing in Italy and ghost cities in China?The short-range answer is that, even though this slowdown was predicted as part of the now 250-year-old demographic transition – whose signature is the tumbling of both fertility and mortality rates – occasional happenings, such as the publication of US census data or China’s decision to relax its two-child policy, force it back into our consciousness, arousing fears about family lines rubbed out and diminishing superpowers being uninvited from the top table.
…
In the 19th century, a country needed youth to operate its factories, consume what they churned out and constitute a fighting force in times of war. That became less true over the 20th century, and in the 21st it bears very little relation to reality. More and more of the jobs that require stamina and strength – including fighting – are done by machines, while a nation’s products are consumed globally.
Gross domestic product (GDP) might influence a nation’s geopolitical standing and a large GDP fills government coffers, but there’s no evidence that young workers are any more productive than older ones today. Twenty-somethings and 50-somethings have different kinds of intelligence, says gerontologist Sarah Harper of the University of Oxford, but both play a part in entrepreneurship. And if you care about human wellbeing you should pay more attention to GDP per person than per country.
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That doesn’t mean we don’t have to adapt to the new reality. We do, in part because the way many countries distribute resources is also rooted in the 19th century and is unsustainable. More people need to work longer, for example. Although creativity doesn’t fall off with age, skills change, and we need to replenish those that are lost from the workforce. And when elderly people do finally stop being productive, we need to find new ways and new workers to care for them.
Immigration – which tends to bring in young adults – is a critical component of that adaptation, smoothing the demographic transition for richer countries while redistributing capital to poorer ones where fertility rates remain relatively high. The evidence is overwhelming that, in general, immigration is good for societies – economically, but also socially. Closing doors to it is, in this sense, self-destructive.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/08/why-declining-birth-rates-are-good-news-for-life-on-earth
I think the idea that we no longer need young workers is a little premature. Machines have made significant inroads, but we are still at least a few decades away from the end of manual work.
I also think it is a big assumption that the current low birthrate trend will continue. Going forward, the gene pool is going to be increasingly dominated by the offspring of people who bucked the demographic trend by having large families. Sooner or later people who want large families will begin to dominate, and population growth will resume.
Have you been many elder care settings?
Kids or not much of the staff are immigrants.
Guardianistas are deluded fools.
And you?
There is a second severe heat event in Western USA this week, another year of drought, record area of fire burned… extreme temperatures in northern Finland and Lapland, for a second time in 5 years, second year of record Siberian temperatures, heatwave in E europe and Russia and so on…
The evidence of a changing climate is right there in front of you, year on year
🤣. FFS griff, that all means nothing. Grow up, chicken little.
As usual, Warmistas confuse weather for climate whenever it is convenient.
And cherry-pick only the warm events and ignore the meteorological explanations for them while also ignoring the ever-increasing cold events.
Oh dear Griff. You can do better than that. Heat wave in the USA? Tell that to the Mayas or the Toltecs, whose civilzations were destroyed by them. Extremes in the Baltic countries? Well last time was a century ago, but go to the tundras and start digging. What you will find is well-preserved trunks of the trees that grew there not so long ago. Melting glaciers in the high Alps? Go have a look at the remnants of old forests that have reappeared, or ask the locals about the mountain passes that they had heard of only from tales. Extreme weather downunder? look at what Dottie McKenzie wrote a century ago: I love a sunburnt country/A land of sweeping plains,/Of ragged mountain ranges,/Of droughts and flooding rains. I wonder what she meant. And so on …
History is full of evidence and reports of extreme weather, nothing new there. And nobody here disputes that climate changes. But the delusion is the idea that we are causing it, that therefore we can control it. The arrogance of thinking that we sit at the same table as the good Lord himself. Mankind is at most a louse in nature’s pelt and the Earth will just shrug and shake us off if it feels like it whatever we do or not do.
“record area of fire burned”
Provide a link griff. This statement is FALSE and you know it.
As for “record temperatures”, those always occur, record high highs and record low lows, record low highs and record high lows, but you only speak or think of record high highs. And the record is less than 200 years in almost ALL cases, which is nothing in the time scale of human recorded history, much less for human existence..
Griff
what is the right temperature?
what is the right amount of CO2?
Take a look at this
?resize=780%2C572 and tell me which period represents the ideal period in your mind.
I am hindered by old-fartism, but still it’s pretty hard to envision not needing plumbers, electricians, painters etc for the housing market. Similarly, equipment operators, shovel-weilders, etc. Then there’s appliance repair, preventive maintenance on everything from cars to HVAC to street to bridges. And on and on. Manual labor is not going away.
They want state-employed workers to maintain your state-issued apartment in the new utopia. That is unless your social credit score is poor. Then. it’s out on the street.
You will own nothing, and be happy.
Klaus will own everything (including governments) and he will certainly be happy.
When my children were at school leaving age and deciding on college or apprenticeship my advice was pick a job that can’t be exported to China and can’t be done by a machine. One repairs cars and the other was involved in fitted kitchens, now sales. Neither went to college in the end.
You mean like this –
Exactly like that.
your just a little off, change Robert to Roberto or Beto, does the same work as Robert but half the wages. why do you think they want illegals or open borders, they fill the job you can’t export
When you no longer have running water in your government issued temporary life sustenance shelter, what use will plumbers be?
You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy. (Or else!)
On a drive through local industrial, one will see many help wanted signs. Many places are looking for heavy equipment operators, drivers with an air-brake endorsement, truck drivers, etc. Those skilled jobs aren’t going anywhere soon.
“a local industrial park”, that is.
I also think it is a big assumption that the current low birthrate trend will continue
Thanks to the first lockdowns in spring last year the birthrate was and is still increasing, at least what I see in my surrounding
Actually, births in the USA were down about half a million year-over-year, which is significant to the point of being catastrophic, you and your “surroundings” notwithstanding.
Yes, USA, the country where some of the most crazed malthusians even attempted a legalized killing of new born babies.
Have you checked how many unborn babies are killed all over your country, every day.
You may find out that you earn the first higher place, globally… per capita… in the legalized killing of unborn babies.
A luxurious activity.
The champ country, there, maybe… or maybe not… but you own to check it first, before concluding.
cheers
In most countries it is legalized so I don’t see your point.
YES, and the founder of Planned Parenthood could not be more happy with the results of her organization created to limit the growth of populations of color, since a great disproportionate number of k!lled babies are OF COLOR.
Progressives and their plans. Heck, “progressive” politicians of color support PP and are supported by PP.
BTW: Why do you hate the USA?
And it is only LEGALIZED in most states because of judicial activism. Just like almost all leftist goals, not achieved through legislation, but by the courts.
Drake, I love USA… for what it is and stand for.
And I am not totally against abortion.
But when it comes to USA, you are the most modern country.
And is expected that you posses better knowledge, due to experience and science-
technology.
And there lies the responsibility,
but still you have people like Fauxi and company,
completely irresponsible charlatans that don’t care much about the wellbeing of USA… let alone the rest.
But it pains me to see Americans hate USA…
Sorry but that is what I see.
Yes, and in a few months any significant impact of the “vaccine” on fertility should become apparent.
But it does not matter as people at large have already decided to buy in the big lie.
It is not yet there, I think, not at that stage yet, but most probably soon enough it will be applied, most probably an masse.
Once people get comfortable and feeling safe with it all.
It most probably will be offered for free at that point.
cheers
I sincerely hope the impact is very small, but I fear the worst not just for women of child bearing age. I suspect something is very wrong, I hope it’s me.
A question that may raise in such a given is “whether this kind of new “vaccine”, the “vector targeting”, has being used previously to COVID19, like in seasonal flu shots as an added ingredient in the mix.”
Just a question.
cheers
That’s worrying prospect, thankfully I’ve never had a flu shot.
I am sorry for worrying you or any one else.
It is not my intention.
Am simply trying to highlight a point from my view point.
In the end of the day what we talking about it is a medication.
Actually a powerful one…
as far as I can tell.
But still a medication.
Basically it has been widely used before COVID19, for quite a long while, in many forms.
Even in some cases dubbed as a “vaccine”.
Like for example as an allergy “vaccine”.
You see, a hammer can be a tool but also a weapon.
Arbitrary en masse
application of any medication is very risky, with a wide profile of consequences.
In my understanding, which it may be wrong,
the same kind of medication is used as a shot after abortion… especially with healthy females.
As it helps with the healing and clearing of the womb.
I may be wrong in this one, ofcourse, but just putting it forward for a check.
I will very much appreciate a feedback in this one, from anyone there, that could help.
Thank you Notanacademic.
🙂
No apology needed. Its our lying politicians, msm and so called experts that worry me. You merely highlighted a possibility that I hadn’t thought of.
It’s difficult to get accurate numbers, but what we do see from gov sources does not appear to be good in any way.
https://dailyexpose.co.uk/2021/07/09/official-government-data-shows-a-5400-increase-in-number-of-women-whove-lost-their-baby-as-a-result-of-having-the-covid-19-vaccine/
Thalidomide 2.0
Unless the side effect is a higher rate of sterility when given to prepubescent females. Then we won’t know for a decade at least and the global impact will be devestating.
I doubt that it will be the case, but it might have made sense to do a longitudinal study before making a new technology widely
availablerequired.Carbon neutral: one woman, one man, two for Posterity, and one or more “burdens”… a wicked solution.
Emigration reform to mitigate [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform and collateral damage at both ends of the bridge and throughout.
Can they abort the child, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her carbon pollutants, and have her, too?
You are amazing.
👇✌
They would be amusing if morons like this were not so dangerous.
Japan has been in the midst of of a crisis caused by their very low birth rates. They have a large number of retirees and fewer and fewer workers contributing to the retirement system. The problem, according to my Japanese friends, is only getting worse.
China is facing this situation now due the impact of Mao’s “One Child Policy “. They have more people retiring and fewer people people entering the work force.
In the US the question is when the Social Security System will be bankrupt.
Like most of these “great” ideas, reality is not part of the equation.
” like most of these “great” ideas, reality is not part of the equation.”
The most important quality needed to deal with reality is common sense, our leaders have none.
The problem with common sense is that it’s not so common…
In government its as rare as rocking horse sh*t.
Last time I saw an official report, about 10 to 15 years ago, the best guess for Social Security to empty the trust fund was somewhere around 2025.
SS has a fixed outlay. To remain viable, it is necessary to control inflation. The problem lies with the underfunded Medicare, and the unfunded Medicaid (e.g. Obamacares), where there are progressive prices and availability. But the problem is especially single/central/monopolistic solutions that force distortions and cost shifting. A large overweight, metabolically compromised population doesn’t help.
Obesity in the US has been accepted and to some extent encouraged. The health consequences are downplayed.
Ironically, that obesity may help social security, as it leads to a decline in life span, somewhat easing the burden. We’re already seeing it in the working class. Covid picking off a whole bunch of low hanging fruit also probably helped. If one were conspiratorially-minded, he/she might think this was all part of the plan.
China and Japan have it particularly bad, due to their restrictive immigration policies preventing an influx of cheap young immigrant labor. China’s also got a secondary problem that the one child policy cause, an imbalance between men and women. Female babies were aborted or abandoned or worse (infanticide) in order to save the precious one baby allotment for male offspring, resulting in a dearth of females in that age cohort. Having a society with a bunch of young single men with no prospects of finding a mate is generally a pretty dangerous problem to have. Historically, the only way to solve that problem is war.
SS was set up , from the beginning, to be bankrupt at all times
all money goes to the fed ,to be spent.. if the fed((the gov) ) runs a deficit,
there is no money for SS till they print it..
all SS has is bonds.. and they almost ran out of them in 1981..
ss taxes were increased and there is now about 3 trillion in bonds..
If immigration is so good for society, what happens to the “society” left behind by the emigrants. Doesn’t that exacerbate all the problems just mentioned in those places?
Of course it does.
Particularly since it’s typically the best and the brightest who have the resources, determination, and drive to emigrate. The result is a HUGE brain drain on the old country.
I’m sorry but this is absolute nonsense. This is the fallacy promoted by lunatics like Anatoly Karlin. I’m not sure what mechanism you propose will be responsible for cementing a preference for large families in certain groups across several generations, but the structure problems within modern societies that cause people not to want children are not going away any time soon.
Organic population growth will not resume until the population pyramid resembles its natural condition again. That means that the decline will go on for centuries until it finally stabilizes at a much lower level of social organization.
Statistically speaking, there is a trend towards people from small families to want small families, and for people from large families to want large families.
This can of course be over ridden by economic factors.
Agreed
The general consensus is that education of women and moving away from an agrarian-based economy are the biggest factors in reducing fertility rates. A secondary issue is declining sperm counts and motility in men in developed countries. Neither of those things seem likely to be reversed on a whim.
If anything, the opposite is more likely, with fertility rates in developed countries continuing to spiral downwards. South Korea’s birth rate is barely HALF of the replacement rate (1.1 births/woman versus 2.1 needed for replacement) and is well on it’s way towards catastrophically sinking below 1.0. I think it is more likely the USA and Europe join them on that downward spiral rather than reverse the trend.
More BS to support the narrative.
There is a COP meeting coming up all the warriors are out writing the propaganda.
I’m thinking the “youths” in question (using the European sense there) will be happy to “take care of” (Chicago sense) the poor elderly seniors.
How could Erhrlich have foreseen that – this Spinney woman and her ilk.
Folks sooooo consumed by selfishness there isn’t a scintilla of Humanity left.
The nominally “secular” Pro-Choice religion denies a woman and man’s dignity and agency, and reduces human life to a property. Deja vu.
In private eye they used to have pseuds corner for this sort of stuff, nowadays it’s mainstream
Here in canada we are increasing immigration, even though most of our immigrants come from poor warm countries, so when those people come to cold energy intense Canada their CO2 footprint automatically accelerates 5-10x.
Not that our brain dead liberal government understands how such immigration totally negates our supposed net zero targets.
People just cannot think logically, to be progressive is to be stupid I guess
Eric-
I got a different meaning than you did from the article. The message I got was that young people are needed. The way for rich countries (US, Canada, Europe) to get those young people is by immigration from poor countries with high birth rates. To me, the message in the article was in the line “…immigration is good for societies”.
In the comments, someone mentioned the problems Japan was having as its population ages. Japan is an island nation that historically has valued conformity over diversity. Very few are immigrating to Japan.
So even though the article comes from the Guardian, perhaps there is some truth in it.
Perhaps Lara might be interested to know that China’s 2-child policy, apparently now being being “relaxed” was itself a relaxation of China’s 1-child policy, changed to 2-children way back in 2015 a whole 6 years ago.
Life looks after itself without any help from pseudo intellectual elite buffoons like Malthus, Ehrlich or David King / Viner, everyone at the Guardian etc. So please all would-be doom prophets, do us a favour and shut your useless mouths (yes yours are the only truly useless mouths) and let nature take its course. You might even learn wisdom in silence.
“More and more of the jobs that require stamina and strength – including fighting – are done by machines…”
Machines that depend on fossil fuels. Oh dear…..
Yes that’s typical of these boofhead watermelons. Their standard of living is entirely due to the productivity of fossil fuels creating all that ‘surplus value’ and enabling a plethora of stinkers in residence. They have no comprehension that biting the hand that feeds them will see them surplus to requirements and easy prey for a rerun of Pol Pottyism or the Gulag work camps. Long hours with the hammer and sickle aint much fun stoopids.
“require stamina and strength – including fighting – are done by machine”
Really? Machines? For everything?
Who the heck is going to load ordnance and even to replace the tracks on the tanks?
(Tesla has robots to do that?)
“including fighting…done by machine”
Like Steel (Twilight Zone) or Real Steel?
“Going forward, the gene pool is going to be increasingly dominated by the offspring of people who bucked the demographic trend by having large families. Sooner or later people who want large families will begin to dominate, and population growth will resume.”
My wife came from a family of 11 children, and her eldest brother also had 11 children. Other siblings had varying numbers of children (she had none). I came from a family of two children, and five cousins. It was a very pleasant cultural shock to marry into a family with hundreds of first, great, and great great nieces and nephews (we married in 2017). I’ve attended more weddings (and funerals) since 2017 than I had in my entire life prior to that (I’m 67).
My wife describes her family as “hillbillies”, and they fit the appellation perfectly. They are also the most industrious, successful, and above all happy people I’ve ever met (you’ll never see a happy Leftist). They don’t care about power, stupendous wealth (though a few have a net worth greater than mine) or what anyone thinks of them. They’re generous, friendly, and loving. They are what I consider America to be.
It’s a small sample size, but growing. I hope it continues to grow along the Fibonacci curve it’s on…
Large families is now a genetic trait? That died out quickly here since Victorian times!
If you have a kid nowadays, that’s instant poverty and social exclusion, and a lot of mothers end up being single parents.
It’s a huge risk and so much hassle and most people are smart enough not to buy this lottery ticket.
You tend to get what you pay for. From (admittedly limited) personal experience, women from multi-generational welfare “families” tend to see getting pregnant as a ticket to independence (from their often unpleasant upbringing) because becoming a mother qualifies them for independent benefits and paid (probably miserable) housing of their own.
There’s those ladies too, but I’m talking about the risk for normal people who otherwise would have had family if it was not made so impossible to live normally and succeed at parenting without cannibalizing yourself.
Women are not having kids because it’s a bad deal for them.
Feminism hasn’t freed women, it just redeployed them as workers, declared motherhood to be an optional hobby and forced women to ‘man up’ (literally)
It’s a total fake, and it will not last because it’s not real freedom.
Most of the ‘west’ has been below the replacement (2.1 children per woman) rate since the 70’s. Regarless what the media and politicians say about immigration, it would appear the ‘west’ would be in a bit of a quandry without it.
Example Japans current “demogrpahic crunch” https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/11/26/the-challenges-of-japans-demography
Empty Planet: Preparing for the Global Population Decline
“Amidst warnings of overpopulation, such a trend might seem like a good thing, especially for the environment. But, a declining population will also lead to massive economic upheaval, with fewer people available each year to buy houses and cars and baby strollers, and fewer taxpayers available to support the health-care needs of an aging population. And when some of the big superpowers, like Russia and China, start losing population, the tensions could strain hopes for world peace.
In this presentation, Bricker and Ibbitson assert that to combat depopulation, nations must embrace both values – though the first is difficult and the second, for some, may prove impossible.”
A lot of “healthcare” has few proven benefits and lots of risks.
There is little evidence anti Alzheimer drugs work.
We are probably causing Alzheimer with too many drugs (some seniors take 10 pills a day).
Generally speaking immigration is bad for the receiving country. In some cases extremely bad like Sweden. Which went from a welfare state paradise with beautiful people to the second most dangerous country in Europe with the true Swedes fearing for their lives and the immigrant gangs ruling the streets. Oh it also rape capitol of Europe. Only because of their generous immigration policies.
When you import the third world you get the third world problems with it. Immigrants do not work but are a severe drain on the welfare state. Unemployment of up to 80% and the 20% are phony government created “jobs”.
The agenda is simple: western civilzatition must be destroyed and itś ruin a Socilaist paradise will be build. From th eopenly Communist UN to the powerdrunk WEF and suppeted by the toiletpaper called The Guardian, they have declared war on nomral people. Immigrants are their footsoldiers, assasins and cannonfodder.
Immigranst are simply to dumb to contribute to developed countries. If they couid, they would have developed their own countries.
2 links that will make it all clear:
https://nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2017/08/04/mass-immigration-hurts-economy/
Bell curve deniers will avert their eyes.
The ghost cities in China are purely “tofu-dreg.”
Clearly we don’t kneed more young journalists of the type that write such rubbish in the Guardian. However we could do with a lot more young people who think rationally and make decisions based on evidence rather than belief.