World population to shrink in 21st century amid birthrate fall: UN
World population to shrink in 21st century amid birthrate fall: UN
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The world population is expected to start shrinking within this century after hitting a peak in the mid-2080s due to lower fertility
The world population is expected to start shrinking within this century after hitting a peak in the mid-2080s due to lower fertility levels, particularly in China, according to the latest projection by the United Nations.
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That's a pretty long prediction window, no? I feel like a lot can happen in even just 20 years to mess up any assumptions, like open war between super powers (maybe China and USA over Taiwan), big water migration movements by worsening climate change, new pandemics, countries intervening in their sinking birth rate trends, things like that.
Pandemics and wars do not appreciably increase birth rates.
Countries attempting to stem population decline have generally had poor results, case in point, Japan, Korea and most other developed economies.
Japan and Korean attempts at increasing birthrate completely ignore the problem that is their horrible work culture that prevents people from having actual lives
I was more thinking that they decrease populations, throwing the estimate off in the other direction.
The problem is that even if everybody started fucking now, it wouldn't change the fact that many countries including China are on pace to not be able to even maintain their current GDP in the 2030's and other than doing something to replace human labor (bringing people in or automation) to maintain or increase their GDP, there is nothing else they can do. It is too late.
Everyone is in trouble here but some are worse off than others. Especially when they're going to have to figure out what to do with people that will be aging out of the workforce.