Comments on: Framing Population Decline as a Good Omen

By: Melani

Melani — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 07:59:53 +0000

People have a good reason to fear of the population drop; it leads to a economical and social disaster. Not IT MAY LEAD, it LEADS, always. It’s because population decline which is due to low fertility causes aging of that population turning country into a gigantic senior home. The disease and death rates skyrocket while the poverty explodes following not some exotic link with pop growth but simply because productivity shrinks as 70-year worker can’t work as a 40-year one.
This is not a theory statement. I’m in an Eastern Europe and this is happening. The rest of the continent don’t care much yet, but the fall will be rapid there too (at this moment it’s slight only because the process is at its very begining) and when their average inhabitant will be 60 years old they will!
What’s the worst, the population decline is incredible hard to stop ones it occurs. For Eastern Europe, I’ll say it’s already beyond control and it will procced until population drop to zero. The developed Europe will probably somehow survive, but with much effort. Thus countries which are not hit with decline by now should do everything they could to prevent it!

By: Vladimir Orlt

Vladimir Orlt — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 13:54:44 +0000

You need only to look at the analogy of bacteria in a petri dish… sustainable growth is an oxymoron, as is probably sustainable development… the Earth will not survive a world-scale Western standard of living. Our growth paradigm is a fallacious one, a fact which we, and our ‘leaders’, conveniently ignore.
Of course, it’s easy to just talk and do nothing…

By: Phila

Phila — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 16:54:29 +0000

The only other thing I’d mention is that fear of population decline/demographic shift has a strong racialist component in many quarters, particularly as regards the alleged “overbreeding” of Muslim populations. Right-wing commentators like Mark Steyn have forecast that Europe will be ruled under Sharia by 2025, and other demagogues have complained that “Islamofascists” are consciously attempting to outbreed “us.” Similar arguments are common among the anti-immigration extremists. The pedigree of this kind of rhetoric is fairly obvious, I think.

By: Siel

Siel — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 03:56:50 +0000

Ok — I agree with you about needing a measure beyond the GDP, but in terms of the Q re:why so many people react with fear at the idea of a population drop — in some countries, this has to do at least in part with cultural identity.
For ex, I was talkin’ to my mama about this (we’re Korean) and she felt some of the fear had to do with the fact that 1. S. Korea’s a v. small country that’s, in recent history, been at least politically conquored by other countries that did little to respect Korean culture, and 2. No other country (‘sides N. Korea, but I mean besides the 2 Koreas) speak Korean — so with a pop decline, that would mean even fewer people speaking Korean. There’s an active fear that Korean culture and language might get subsumed, obliterated, or at least watered down in many ways, including via a pop decrease.
So esp. in nations that’ve placed undue (in my opinion) emphasis on bloodlines, declining pops do lead to some other, less-GDP related worries –