Deaths are projected to exceed births in 2031

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61390

by johntfella • 10 months ago

46 66 10 months ago

cbo.gov

delecti• 10 months ago

Importantly, in the US, and before counting immigration.

Still a significant milestone though.

whatever1• 10 months ago

What kind of weird equilibrium is this.

We know that better living conditions (health, income, education etc) lead to lower fertility. In a world that you have both developed and developing countries, the stable equilibrium seems to be world suffering.

Wtf.

MangoToupe• 10 months ago

Can you expound on this? It makes sense to me that global wealth inequality would drive conflict.

arcticbull4• 10 months ago

In a world that you have both developed and developing countries, the stable equilibrium seems to be world suffering.

I think that's the wrong read.

All sorts of animal population follow a sigmoidal growth pattern where there's exponential growth, some degree of overshoot and then a return to a steady level somewhat below that peak.

I think it's more likely, drawing from biology, that we end up at a stable global population level without having to worry about moving backwards along the metrics of education, income or contraceptive access.

Remember it was just a few years ago everyone was absolutely terrified that we would grow to the point where the world simply couldn't hold us all and we'd die off -- and now we're terrified the population will zero out. In reality, neither is very likely. We're probably just going to chill around 8 billion or so until/if we go multi-planetary.

spwa4• 10 months ago

Actually growth patterns of animals vary wildly. There's a whole set of animals that get "unstable" growth - Cats are famous for this, for example. That means that cat numbers in specific areas actually grow to the point that cats die out in the next generation, destabilizing the entire food chain in the process (happened in Australia, for example)

The problem with this instability is that the numbers bounce around wildly. Up and down, by a lot, in as little as 2 or 3 generations. But there's a process that stops the bouncing: hitting zero.

bitmasher9• 10 months ago

I don’t think we’re going to find a number and stay there. Too many factors impacting population size are changing. Healthcare, climate, food science, etc. It’s likely to always fluctuate, and it’s likely to continue to be something people worry about.

dgunay• 10 months ago

The economy depends on some level of growth, so if we can't accomplish that with a stable or shrinking population then it's gonna be a bad time for a while.

EDIT: I did not think I'd have to state this explicitly, but:

yes, I am in fact talking about the capitalist economy the western world currently operates under

growth = economic growth

roxolotl• 10 months ago

Yea my crackpot theory is it’s genuinely something that’s inherent which is causing these declines. That’s why no attempts to reverse them have been successful. I think like you’re saying we’ll end up at some equilibrium.

estimator72922• 10 months ago

It's very dangerous to try and compare human behavior to any pattern seen in nature— particularly human behavior in aggregate. While humans are animals like any other, we are also very much not simple beasts beholden to environmental conditions.

To wit: the current human population is beyond the natural carrying capacity of the places we live. The only reason we can sustain 7bn people today is because we've artificially increased local carrying capacity through artificial fertilizer. If we lost that technology today, a majorty of humans alive now would starve to death.

There's really no reason to assume any environmental factors that don't physically preclude human occupation will have any effect on overall population numbers. We can artificially extend our ecosystem to support essentially unlimited people. The only real hard limit is space to physically put bodies and the amount of energy our society can use without boiling the oceans with waste heat.

If population growth levels out, it won't be for any natural reason because we are already well beyond any natural limit.

akavi• 10 months ago

I think it's more likely, drawing from biology, that we end up at a stable global population level without having to worry about moving backwards along the metrics of education, income or contraceptive access.

There's absolutely no inherent equilibrating force that will stabilize global fertility rates at replacement. Many countries have blown by replacement (the USA included) and continue on a downward trend year over year.

zaptheimpaler• 10 months ago

I think the real problem is the age structure of the population is increasingly skewing older and this problem becomes worse the lower the birth rate. I don't know how we're going to keep supporting more and more people getting past the retirement age and collecting benefits on a shrinking working age population being squeezed harder by taxes. Either retirement spending goes down maybe with higher retirment age or increased healthspan, or we become much more efficient at taking care of the elderly with fewer resources, or the working class gets squeezed harder & harder.

coldtea5• 10 months ago

All sorts of animal population follow a sigmoidal growth pattern where there's exponential growth, some degree of overshoot and then a return to a steady level somewhat below that peak.

Animal populations usually decline because they lack food or have predators and other external factors. Not usually because of a lack of will to reproduce due to social or economic reasons.

saghm• 10 months ago

We know that better living conditions (health, income, education etc) lead to lower fertility. In a world that you have both developed and developing countries, the stable equilibrium seems to be world suffering.

Alternately: in the past, dying was a lot easier, and society adapted to that by creating extra people, and we've reached a point where that isn't as necessary. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be awesome to improve things for the number of people we do have, or that those improvements are easy, but it's not obvious to me why the assumption would be that quality of life only changes if the population continues changing. In other words, it sounds like you're measuring two different things, noticing one of them slowing no longer increasing, and trying to make inferences about the other one without actually establishing how exactly that connection works.

SLWW2• 10 months ago

I am a top 15% earner in my area, have been for 7 years, and I'll be able to afford a home maybe in another 5-10 years.

If you consider starting a family with no hope of ever getting out of renting, as landlords constantly raise monthlies, you might reconsider children.

On top of the issues with people working so often and so hard that they rarely have time to meet anyone outside of work; no wonder people aren't marrying.

arcticbull4• 10 months ago

If you consider starting a family with no hope of ever getting out of renting, as landlords constantly raise monthlies, you might reconsider children.

Generally the less money you make the more kids you have. It's really a question of prioritization. People say they're holding off on kids for X or Y reason but I think this is more of an expressed vs revealed preferences situation. They would rather chase material wealth for themselves than have kids, and to be clear I'm not judging just observing. Through most of human history mud huts weren't a blocker to having kids.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...

cosmic_cheese2• 10 months ago

Right, I think we’re running into the limitations of a scarcity-based system here. Even many well compensated couples would face having to make major tradeoffs with their economic stability, careers, time spent with the kids, retirement, quality of life, etc, and are accordingly choosing the path of least risk.

Even the most generous countries aren’t fully compensating for the costs of raising a family, and the assistance offered by many is less than pocket change. It’s only natural that incentive is going to be low.

pfannkuchen• 10 months ago

Another possibility is that a third factor is causing both better living conditions and lower fertility, not that better living conditions inherently cause lower fertility.

amanaplanacanal2• 10 months ago

I believe lower fertility is most closely associated with education for women. Women with an education sometimes find interests other than being a baby factory.

dylan6042• 10 months ago

We know that better living conditions (health, income, education etc) lead to lower fertility

How do you come to this conclusion. We're seeing that our oh so clever selves have used chemicals/plastics in these nice living conditions to the point they have negative consequences on our health. Having a nice place to live with a job with a nice salary while lending to better health does not lower one's fertility. Maybe these people with the nice jobs and nice places to live are choosing not to have kids which become the reason they can't have nice things. I think you've jumped to an incorrect conclusion

taneq• 10 months ago

This trend has been going on for much longer than the current worries about microplastics and whatnot. Lower fertility doesn’t necessarily mean lower physical fecundity. It can also just mean that generations of kids have been raised to believe having kids early ruins your life, and should only be done much later after you graduate university and your career is well established (by which time you’re in your latter 20s and your fertility is naturally lower.)

tw04• 10 months ago

Perhaps it’s Mother Nature desperately trying to tell humans that current capitalism and the pursuit of endless growth is unsustainable. Other species die out when they reproduce too quickly for the environment to support it. Humans modify the environment right up until they can’t to continue to pursue growth.

robotnikman• 10 months ago

Perfect timing with AI and Robots soon slated to take over most jobs. Not sure if I should add a /s to this.

jeffrallen• 10 months ago

Pretty sure not sure equals, "sure!"

Yoric• 10 months ago

If you don't, how will our Friend the Computer know that you're being sarcastic?

Might wish to add it in ultraviolet, though.

cpursley• 10 months ago

This right here, not sure about "most jobs", but I'm optimistic that this will bring things into balance.

evanwolf• 10 months ago

Beyond demography, Much of this depends on public policy and execution. Will more of us live in conditions that prevent a oidable death or injury? Or another way?

mullingitover2• 10 months ago

It's taken as gospel that the Brave New World automated human gestation centers would be A Bad Thing, but frankly the number of problems that would be solved with this scheme are huge.

I think the first country to do it will be scolded heavily, but only until everyone else figures out how they did it and are able to copy them.

godsinhisheaven• 10 months ago

If human gestation centers are ever proposed in a country, I would hope the countries of the world would declare war on that country for the sole purpose of stopping it

fires10• 10 months ago

Why? I don't understand why they would be bad? Some people can't naturally have children. It is a risk to a woman to be pregnant.

etrautmann• 10 months ago

Who raises these farmed embryos? What is the thought here beyond just more infants?

dylan6042• 10 months ago

Copper top batteries would be one use even if that's a different story line

shadowgovt2• 10 months ago

With 8 billion people on the planet, we are at no risk of running out any time soon.

edflsafoiewq• 10 months ago

Running what are functionally massive orphanages seems like it'd be harder than the purely technical problem of automated gestation.

api• 10 months ago

With how little we prioritize education versus other things it’d be a disaster. They’d be factories for neglected and traumatized children who would have a high likelihood of growing up to be criminals or homeless.

mullingitover2• 10 months ago

I don't see there being any orphanages, you could simply have babies on demand for anyone who wants to adopt them. There are enough couples with fertility problems, women who can't carry a pregnancy to term for medical reasons, etc etc. The adoption process is currently unworkable: couples will routinely spend tens of thousands for a chance at adopting, and the birth parent can reverse the adoption at any time and you've simply set a five figure sum on fire.

You could also incentivize couples to adopt up to the point that the (augmented) fertility rate hits replacement level. That's the ultimate problem to solve here, you're not trying to grow the population, simply put a floor under it to stabilize and prevent demographic collapse.

gregw134• 10 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument

Statistically, we're most likely to be born when the world population is at its peak.

ForHackernews2• 10 months ago

I'll worry about depopulation the very instant my rent ever goes down.

j-bos• 10 months ago

Does that mean employers will value their employees again?

klysm• 10 months ago

NoPicklez• 10 months ago

I've been hearing for a long time in Australia that we have an enormous aging population. It could be that birth rates hadn't kept up with previous birth rates, or it could be that birth rates have sort've normalised.

Either way, we supposedly have a large aging population and as such death rates are going to increase due to old age etc

Deaths are projected to exceed births in 2031

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