In light of new data showing China's population shrinking for the second year running, a Shanghai-based think tank has drastically changed its 2100 forecast.
Because almost every country and economy has been built on the assumption of exponential growth of a constantly renewing pool of young workers that will pay for the upkeep of the growing elderly population. For example, currently 18% of the Chinese population is over 60. It's going to be roughly 40% by 2050ish.
The planet will definitely be happy though. Humans, not so much.
You need a lot of company and knowledge and luck to survive without a bigger network (eg a whole country) and without task splitting communities (eg a whole country) supporting the little and big needs just for food, let alone clean water or medicine or hygiene or energy or defense or whatever.
That bunker is just a fancy way to die a little later. He may carry on for a year, maybe even two before lack of everything will kill him - if noone capable attacks that bunker which pretty sure will happen within weeks as it's a prime target after everything else had been looted.
By 2100, the world's second-largest population could number just 525 million, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) has predicted.
The report came on the heels of Chinese statistics bureau data showing that more people died than were born in China for the second consecutive year in 2023.
"It amazes me how everyone seems to agree that the planet already has too many people whose demands for even the basics of existence like food, water and shelter are placing intolerable demands on the ecosystem—yet as soon as the population of a country begins to decline, its government reacts with near panic," the Associated Press quoted June Teufel Dreyer, Chinese politics specialist at the University of Miami, as saying.
This can lead to a shortage of skilled workers, decreased labor supply, and increased pressure on a country's medical and social welfare systems.
To this end, both the central and local governments have in recent years introduced measures to entice couples to have larger families.
However, these have so far had a limited overall impact in the face of changing preferences among young urbanites, China's slowing economy, and the higher cost of living in first-tier cities.
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