I’ve never understood why a declining population is in itself a bad thing (for individuals).
Everywhere there seems to be labor shortages it’s almost always the low-end jobs that can’t fill vacancies (that’s a good thing for living standards). Plus benefits like less inheritance splitting, greater capital per person (roads, houses, etc.). And at the far extreme, developing countries often have high growth rates and widespread poverty as a result. On the flip side, if I’m an only child and inherit my parent’s house, that is a huge increase to my living standards to never have to carry a mortgage.
The argument usually seems to be that old people consume resources without working, but isn’t that true of both children and the elderly? The elderly need a lot of hospitals, doctors, nurses, etc., but kids need teachers, doctors, school bus drivers, universities, daycares, etc. Both groups might pull family members out of the workforce for years to care for them. But the elderly often have their own assets to draw from to pay for some/all of this, whereas kids come into the world with nothing.
What am I missing?
In: Economics
Because every economic system depends on the next generation having more people to replace the current workforce that is about to either retire or die. Advances in medical care means those people are expected to live longer so they will consume more resources after they retire.
Most of the world’s economies are essentially a pyramid scheme built on an ever-increasing population. That all falls apart when the population stops increasing.
The “decline” isn’t the same across all ages. What you have is the normal effect of technology (improvements in medicine, etc.) that lets people live longer, but in general families decide to have fewer babies.
So what you get is an AGING population. Babies do consume
resources, but adults 18-50 are the primary working force, and fewer babies now means fewer adults in about 20 years or so. So there will be fewer babies, fewer adults, and MORE older people (as everyone ages).
Well for the united states at least. As boomers continue to retire the non working population becomes much larger than the working population. Retirees depend on Medicare and social security, both of which will be fucked soon as there aren’t enough working people to fund them. It’s very possible (maybe even likely) that anyone in a generation below the boomers will not have any access to these programs as they may no longer exist
A declining population is great for the environment and for resources conservation but absolutely terrible for the economic health of the country and gives a bleak outlook for those working and those who have yet to enter the workforce.
Edit: and people are living longer. Social security and Medicare weren’t meant to support people for as long as they are now having to.
Social safety nets are predicated on more people paying into the systems than taking money out. If your society is skewed heavily towards retirees that means there aren’t enough workers paying into it to fund it. Bad times.
>The argument usually seems to be that old people consume resources without working, but isn’t that true of both children and the elderly?
Children are like an investment for the economy, they (most likely) will contribute most of their lives to it. The elderly are in something like the “reward” period of their life, where they don’t need to contribute to it anymore, and should just focus on enjoying their life.
Less children means less adults in the next 10-20 years. This is actually fine overall, IF we are shrinking slowly enough.
Otherwise we simply do not have the ability to feed and support that many people if they are not also somehow contributing.
To add, we definitely can handle degrowth if we radically change our economical system and standards, and we can even do that without neglecting health and huge amounts of quality of life stuff. But we also have the people who aren’t necessarily wrongly doing their best to ensure each generation will live in more and more luxury. It’s a great thought and a great thing to work towards, if you can also come up with a way to support it
There are many reasons and unfortunately there’s nothing simple about economics and declining population but…
Essentially it all comes down these simple statements:
Less people = Less people paying taxes.
Less people = less demand.
Less people = less workforce
When you have a declining population, infrastructure, society and everything that is built around that population is now underutilized. Everything we have done has been built to be supported by more and more people.
You don’t build and expand a city, to support a town. You don’t build a town, to support a village, you don’t build a village to support 1 family.
When you have large sprawling metropolises, you have to have people being born in or moving to these places to keep things running. Basic necessities are required like trash pickups or grocery store employees. Once these people start disappearing, the demand for a service doesn’t go away, but you start getting holes. Stores that can’t support their staff close, and options start getting spread out. The once sprawling, thriving metropolis turns into a literal bunch of urban islands, where resources are still needed but the demand has fallen and the supply is further away.
The need, stays, but the demand falls off. The people aren’t there to support it.
Less people, means less utilization.
We’re completely built on the idea of growth and expansion. Noone built for sustainability or conservation.
It’s not inherently or objectively bad. But some societies are structured around expected growth, and if the growth stagnates or shrinks, then the economy colapses.
For instance in the US, a declining population would mean declining demand and declining output. The housing market would shrink, so fewer houses would need to be build, so construction companies would go out of business. Investments that were made expecting continued growth would fail, such as Social Security (and many stocks). It’s expected that individuals will, on average, produce more than they consume. So if the population drops, then production falls by a greater amount.
There are economic models that don’t rely on continued growth, but they aren’t attractive to the capitalist mindset. Finding an equilibrium is all well and good until someone in power decides that they want to use available resources to get richer.
If there are fewer young people working relative to retirees receiving pensions, social security ( who are also living longer) than either taxes need to increase or benefits need to get cut.
Also labor shortages will affect availability and cost of medical professionals, caregivers for all the elderly.
It shouldnt be. There are too many people consuming too much of the planet resources. We need to scale back in the next 100 years and share the planet more with other species, have more green space and share the planet.
The economic system needs to change to be in balance with nature.
Latest Answers