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DD & CFLarsen's Birth rate thread

Lisa Simpson said:
I split it from the original thread. And the topic seemed like a social issue.
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Very well, but your version of the OP is a crime. The post I was refering to when I said "The above post is one of the reasons why the developed world is dying out" was the post by Luciana, not the one you have arbitrarily made the OP of this thread.

Kindly rectify your mistake.
 
CFLarsen said:
There is no above post. There is no spoon, either.

I still don't understand why you think the developed world is dying out.
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Not much to contemplate. It's just statistics: No developed country in the world is currently producing babies enough to even counter the dying of the old.

Look it up.
 
DanishDynamite said:
It's just statistics: No developed country in the world is currently producing babies enough to even counter the dying of the old.
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For whatever reason, the United States is an exception - perhaps the only exception - to this rule.
 
CFLarsen said:
A game it not is, young apprentice. I've looked, and am now asking you why you think the numbers are going down.
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Why is a separate matter - but it is not clear from your response whether you concur that the birth rates are too low to sustain a stable population level.
 
dd said:
The above post is one of the reasons why the developed world is dying out.
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A small % of decrease would be China I would think. They have the largest population and have been actively trying to reduce their population for years. What kind of statistics and where are you basing your statement from?

I agree that a decrease in population is not a bad thing.
 
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DanishDynamite said:
No developed country in the world is currently producing babies enough to even counter the dying of the old.
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I'm okay with that. I don't think underpopulation will be of any concern in our lifetimes.

Unless you're the Pope (I believe the last one scolded Italy for not going forth and multiplying).
 
HarryKeogh said:
I'm okay with that. I don't think underpopulation will be of any concern in our lifetimes.
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It's not a question of overall underpopulation, I think, so much as of civilizational decline and transition. I understand that the current birth rates in Europe are thought to be the lowest in the Continent's history, and that there is no precedent for a society ultimately bouncing back from rates that far below replacement level.
 
I don't think so. But if you have any evidences for those claims, I'd like to see them.
 
ceo_esq said:
For whatever reason, the United States is an exception - perhaps the only exception - to this rule.
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I think one reason is immigration. First of all, the US population is growing more due to immigration than to women having lots of kids. Secondly, many of the women that are having lots of kids are new or recent immigrants.

If you could elimiinate new or recent immigrants I wonder if women in the US have more kids than countries in Europe. If so I bet it woudln't be by much.

Also, recent immigrants aside, the US is more religious than Europe and that may be a factor in women having more kids.
 
DanishDynamite said:
The above post is one of the reasons why the developed world is dying out.
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I don't agree as I have seen no evidence of yours to indicate it is so.

More important...Why do you think "the developed world" is some sort of exclusive club?

"Sorry!...No developing-country-people allowed in here matey! Use the tradesman's entrance at the back." :boggled:

What do you mean by "the developed world"?

China is developing, but the world of Shanghai and many other Chinese cities is developed, in some ways more so than in the West.

Am I in a developed world in Shanghai, but not in Anshan?
Am I in a developed world in Boston, but not in Ragan?

.
 
ceo_esq said:
It's not a question of overall underpopulation, I think, so much as of civilizational decline and transition. I understand that the current birth rates in Europe are thought to be the lowest in the Continent's history, and that there is no precedent for a society ultimately bouncing back from rates that far below replacement level.
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There's also no precedent for currently living people to have such long life spans. As our technology and medical knowledge grows, so does our life expectancy. It's a good thing if the birth rate drops as life expectancy increases, otherwise we'd be overcrowded. Which is better for a country: to have a smaller but longer-lived population, or a large but shorter-lived population?

The answer is: it doesn't matter to the country. It matters to the people in question. Which is more important: the quality of life of existing people, or the quantity of life of hypothethical people?
 
DanishDynamite said:
Not much to contemplate. It's just statistics: No developed country in the world is currently producing babies enough to even counter the dying of the old.

Look it up.
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Maybe if we didn't have so many young people dying in Iraq and Afghanistan our birth rate would catch up. Either way, the earth can only support so many people, a notion that seems to escape the anti-abortion crowd. Would it be better if the U.S. had the largest birth rate in the world if we couldn't properly take care of them? And what is it that makes the children in developed countries so special?
 
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http://unstats.un.org/UNSD/demographic/products/indwm/ww2005/tab1c.htm


From this world list, here's a list of countries with <=0 Population growth

Armenia -0.4
Georgia -1.1
Kazakhstan -0.3
Belarus -0.6
Bulgaria -0.7
Czech Republic -0.1
Estonia -0.6
Hungary -0.3
Latvia -0.6
Lithuania -0.4
Poland -0.1
Republic of Moldova -0.3
Romania -0.4
Russian Federation -0.5
Serbia and Montenegro -0.1
Slovakia 0
Slovenia 0
Ukraine -1.1



You may spot a pattern there.
 
I don't know what to make of that pattern. I guess I'm surprised-not necessarily that these countries have negative population growth but that others, particularly some African countries, weren't on the list, too. Interesting.
 
sphenisc said:
Well, for one thing they are completely contiguous and all members of the former Soviet bloc. That's two things.
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And yet:

Azerbaijan 0.7
Kyrgyzstan 1.2
Tajikistan 1.1
Turkmenistan 1.4
Uzbekistan 1.5

Also members of the former Soviet bloc.

We could also take a look at some ex-communist states:

Albania 0.4
Bosnia and Herzegovina 0.3
Croatia 0.2

And, of course, the two left still communist:

Democratic People's Republic of Korea 0.6
Cuba 0.3

That pretty much shoots it down, doesn't it?
 
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