Birth rate decline: Good or bad?
I just finished reading an article in the Atlantic Daily newsletter: The Real Reason People Aren't Having Kids.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/a...Atlantic+Daily
I'm not sure you're going to be able to read it, but essentially, it says that while people are focusing on the economic reasons for the increasing numbers ofpeople who are choosing not to have children, the underlying factor may simply be that they find no meaning in it.
That need is for meaning. In trying to solve the fertility puzzle, thinkers have cited people’s concerns over finances, climate change, political instability, or even potential war. But in listening closely to people’s stories, I’ve detected a broader thread of uncertainty—about the value of life and a reason for being. Many in the current generation of young adults don’t seem totally convinced of their own purpose or the purpose of humanity at large, let alone that of a child. It may be that for many people, absent a clear sense of meaning, the perceived challenges of having children outweigh any subsidy the government might offer.
First question: What do you guys think about this hypothesis that the lowering birth rate is because people find lack of meaning in having children and perhaps even in their own lives?
Second question is:
Many people believe that birth rate decline is a crisis because there won't be enough workers to cover the nation's economic/workforce needs
Many people believe that birth rate increase is a crisis becuase the more the population rises, the faster the Earth will be plundered--the Malthusian approach.
Then there's my permaculture teacher, who believes that the size of the population is not the primary issue--it's the rate of consumption that's the issue--the Daniel Quinn "leavers and takers" approach. Our individual footprints are too large, and that's what we have to reduce.
Which "crisis" is the biggest one: the deline of population, the increase of population, or the rampant overshoot of our ecological footprints?
