this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2026
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GenZedong
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I'm not well versed in the causes (and am curious what sources people may have on them), but I do want to say, a curious part of any conversation about birth rates to me is how common the assumption is that "falling birth rates = bad". On reflection, I find it to be kind of odd because we're living on a planet with billions of people. I do sort of get that logistically, you don't want to have a country with a disproportionately aging population and not enough youth to take over the roles they were doing. But also, if a society is organized more around need than expansion, it should be somewhat feasible to pull back on what is built out and so on, especially with the increasing capability of automated tools.
I don't know, maybe there's something I'm missing, some factor as to why it'd "of course be a bad thing". But although I don't believe in the "overpopulation" narrative as a climate change issue, I also don't see how birth rates staying the same / going up is inherently a good thing. My most pressing concern is the people who are alive and what world they have to deal with, and so much of the pain in that has so much to do with where resources are going rather than how many people are alive to do the labor. Like in countries where resources are going to military rather than public services, is it even worth talking about birth rates? What difference does it make (toward a humane, sustainable society) how many are being born if resources are not going to people's needs anyway? I don't mean that as a shutdown of talking about it; just questioning where the narrative on it typically arises from and for whose interests.
But I would like to hear from people who know more on the subject.
I was under the impression that birth rates lowering to only approaching replacement rate was just a phenomenon that happens across the board/world at certain levels of economic development, a significant factor being access to family planning and an array of intersections to do with women - women's social expectations in child rearing stagnating behind other advancements, women in more intensive careers, women deciding to start having children (thus timeframe is shortened for more kids) at later ages, single mothers being more prevalent - women having more equality, choices, and autonomy is good, but access to these is only made available thru technological and economic development, as well as design/implementation of social structures meant to facilitate an easier time to parenthood - access to affordable childcare and maternal/paternal leave being just some of the visible parts of that iceberg.
unholy run on sentence sorry
Interesting, makes sense to me.
“falling birth rates = bad” is often said with a hint of "great replacement theory" hidden away in the person saying it.
On the other side of that is nations like south korea where it is actually really bad. South Korea has terminal case of low birth rate. By 2045 there will be 60 people over 65 for every 100 working age people. The death to birth ratio is projected to be like 3:1. This is baked in at this point, it is too late to do anything. They could import a bunch of workers but they need like 2% of the population every year over the next 20 years to avoid demographic collapse. They couldn't assimilate them fast enough to avoid a "Ship of Theseisnt" situation.
Where things go after 2045 is anyone's guess but my guess is Korea will probably be reunified because capitalism isn't sexy enough.