A certain type of person loves to obsess over an arbitrary point of "fertility falling below replacement" as if that is the point of no return for population collapse.
One of the reasons we sometimes see upswings in birth rates following downswings is changes to the ages of childbearing I.e. a postponement of births is followed by a catch-up/‘recuperation’..
Yes the threat of population ageing is exaggerated in some quarters. For me however a key point is that higher birth rates generate a younger population but not necessarily a better population. They add to child dependency, and this increase effect is more immediate than any reduction effect on aged dependency. The value of any reduction of aged dependency in the distant future is hard to predict. Higher fertility also raises population growth - and there are all sorts of issues which relate to that!
Well there goes a key thesis in Peter Zeihan’s latest best seller
One of the reasons we sometimes see upswings in birth rates following downswings is changes to the ages of childbearing I.e. a postponement of births is followed by a catch-up/‘recuperation’..
Yes the threat of population ageing is exaggerated in some quarters. For me however a key point is that higher birth rates generate a younger population but not necessarily a better population. They add to child dependency, and this increase effect is more immediate than any reduction effect on aged dependency. The value of any reduction of aged dependency in the distant future is hard to predict. Higher fertility also raises population growth - and there are all sorts of issues which relate to that!