Why are declining birthrates a problem?

All of a sudden, after years of people freaking out about Earth's expanding human population, there are pundits/researchers/organizations suddenly acting very concerned that humans in some geographical areas are not replacing themselves, and somehow they are implying that us regular people should be concerned too.

As someone who grew up reading about the 1 child policy in China, and being told that responsible people didn't have more than 2 children, I feel a little like, "duh - what did they expect would happen?"

I have watched a few videos on the subject, and I admit that as a permie who raises Muscovy ducks (who adore having babies), I'd like to raise some points that often aren't made clear.

1. We really *do* live on a finite planet. At some point, we *have* to stop exponentially increasing the number of humans if we want those humans to have any sort of quality of life.

2. We unfortunately, currently in North America and much of the developed world, and maybe even much of the undeveloped world, have an economic system that thrives on expansion. Thus a very big point made is that if we don't start making more people, our economy will collapse. Anybody who hasn't read about Gert yet, I suggest you take a detour and realize that if our economy tanks, the best way to survive that is to have a wonderful life like Gert's.  ( https://permies.com/t/gert )

3. Personally, my opinion is that the current economy favors the wealthy, and the middle class and poor are effectively scraping up the crumbs. Unfortunately, I don't have a magical better economic model, because most of the approaches seem to involve the wealthy sharing much more of the pie with everyone else and they don't much like any suggestion like that and they're the ones in power.

4. That leads me right back to Gert and wanting to generate many more ways that average people can decide that being Gert is better than chasing the next promotion. But what would some retired lady know about that? I do have a son who has definitely figured out that having a "good job" that's riding distance from where he lives, is a much better approach, than keeping up with the Joneses.

5. However, one point the experts are clear about, and right about, is that the transition will be painful. We used to have an expanding population supporting a shrinking number of senior citizens. Somewhere I recall reading that about 70 years ago, the average time a male lived post retirement was less than 4 years. Health care has expanded that. My in-laws and mother lived to 90. That's a *long* time to be receiving pensions - multiples longer than 4 years. Now we have a decreasing population supporting a growing senior population and quite frankly, the only way I think there's any hope of that working out is to massively change our North American expectations where everyone has their own home, their own car, their own everything. But we have entire generations who grew up doing that. The farm kids I met rarely, used to share beds with their siblings like my mom did. But as a kid from the urban 60's, we all had our own beds. Simple things like that are an example of problems we need to overcome to get through this.

6. Some of those "experts" seem to believe that if human population crashes, it will never recover. I think that's scare mongering. Let me use the example of the tent caterpillar. It goes along gradually increasing in numbers until, boom, it has a huge population explosion. Then along comes this tiny parasitic wasp who lays eggs in those caterpillars and the next spring, there are very few caterpillars. Human population recovered from the Black Plague. Humans who survived it, generally grew up with a better quality of life than those who lived before it. I believe in human resilience, and I believe we can get through this. (Probably not me personally, as this will take time I likely don't have, but I believe I will have grandchildren and that they will survive.)

7. We are the humans currently alive, and any that we create in the next 2 decades, are going to have to live through this experience, and it is going to be tough, and there are going to be winners and losers. To me, what we need people doing is working hard at finding solutions that will help us have a softer landing, rather than people pushing the status quo. I think permaculture is a huge part of that solution.  All the things we encourage here on permies, particularly reducing the toxic gick in our lives and on our planet, are things we can do in our everyday life. Some are dead simple - make a clothesline or a clothes rack so you don't need to use a dryer. Some are more complicated - could someone please invent a way to clean up PFAS and similar forever chemicals that may be a big part of the low fertility in many humans that would have children except they can't.

Permaculture - the problem is the solution - let's do it!

I sometimes wish I had not brought my children into this world that seems to be collapsing.  Perhaps the future will be better than I am expecting it to be.  I try to make decisions and actions in the hopes that it will.

G Freden wrote:I sometimes wish I had not brought my children into this world that seems to be collapsing.

You are not alone, G. I didn't cover that specifically as I see it as connected to our ever extending population and lifestyle which has been encouraged and sometimes almost forced upon us. Poor city and urban planning that forces people to drive instead of using active transportation would be an example (and down-play the number of deaths it causes. Deaths due to car accidents dropped considerably in areas that had Covid lock-downs and work-from-home mandates.)

It does worry me. Do I encourage my son and daughter-in-law to make me a grandchild or two? Is that a "kind" or "moral" thing to do? Am I rationalizing it? I would love to have a grandchild, so I look at our fruit trees and our big enough piece of land and figure if any young couple is going to give the next generation a fighting chance, we're it?

My wife and I made the decision not to have children based upon the concerns already expressed and more.  We are in our 70s and have zero regrets.

My impression is that a substantial chunk of the uproar about the declining (Anglo-Saxon) birthrates just now is a branch of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory.

what I seem to understand about this whole situation is that due to real advances we've made in technology in environmental cleanup and energy sources*, "overpopulation" (as I grew up worrying about) is not the Big Scary Problem we thought it would be in the 70s. The real problem, it seems, is distribution, like Jay mentions in points 2 and 5 - the people who need the most help are even poorer and more desperate than they were back then. Poverty and misery have not gone away, they've become more concentrated.

*when I was a kid, we had family in Queens, NY, on the beach. Today it's billionaire land, but back then it was literally a trash hole. Needles on the beach, garbage barges sinking and hospital waste in the bay. It was literally toxic. That area has been cleaned up and they are literally growing oysters there you can eat now. You can kayak in that waterway, and every year there are whales there. We have the technology to clean things up, and I don't think I'm being pollyanna-ish saying that we are going to continue to invent better ways to make this planet better.

I didn't have strong feelings about having kids, but do agree that some of the loud voices seem concerned that "their type of people" may be declining-- that is nothing new, either.
I do agree, as also mentioned above, that some recent concern seems to be from the fact that people just now realized the economic model only works with growth. Still, nobody seemed to care too much about that over the last year or so as people are gleefully talking about replacing 90% of jobs with AI (not much tax base if 90% of people are unemployed).

I went ahead and had kids, even though I thought things are crappy and bordering on worse. But I also know that since we have had written word, people have thought that the end is near, that The Youth are layabouts, that everything's going to hell in a bucket.
Personally, it was more important to me to do better for my kid than the way I was raised, and if I can say I did one thing right in this life, that is what I have done.

I wanted to teach her that life is good, you can learn to do things, you can be proud of what you do with your hands and your brain, and you can be happy with what you have. Love is important. Beauty is important. At the end of the day, you can be happy. You can create your own family and your own circle of people you love. My kid is 24 as she's graduating from college and going into a job market that is a hot mess, but she knows how to do a whole range of things and she's not afraid.
I think the kids will be okay.
Thinking in terms of ecology, the world will be okay. Maybe not the same, but it is always changing anyway. The world adapts. I agree with Jay- the world is resilient. People are resilient. Life finds a way. I'm glad to be part of it.

Tereza Okava wrote:... "overpopulation" (as I grew up worrying about) is not the Big Scary Problem we thought it would be in the 70s.

Personally, I wish that some of the approaches being taken in some countries in the last 3 decades had started 6 decades ago, as I think we might not have dug quite as deep a hole as it sometimes feels we have. That said, women around the world figured out long ago that fewer mouths to feed equals a better quality of life, and anywhere they've been empowered to reduce their birthrate, they've done so dramatically. Average of 11 children dropped to 7, then those children grew up to aim for fewer yet.

The old adage, "just because you *can* do something, doesn't mean you *should*. Just because we can more or less feed the number of humans currently alive, doesn't mean we aren't destroying topsoil and poisoning streams to do it. The more we get permaculture values out there in all the many flavors, the sooner we start building topsoil and cleaning waterways as in Tereza's example.

Thinking in terms of ecology, the world will be okay. Maybe not the same, but it is always changing anyway. The world adapts. I agree with Jay- the world is resilient. People are resilient. Life finds a way. I'm glad to be part of it.

The planet has rebounded from mass extinctions in the past, but I believe it does have tipping points that may be largely incompatible with human life. It is believed that at one point in human evolution, we were reduced to a very small population (thoughts are large asteroid creating a cold/dark period, but also possibly a super volcano, but I'm not sure my sources are accurate). Personally, I'd like things not to get that dire.

I want this thread to focus on solutions: How can we get through the pain?  How can we as individuals be more resilient? How can we as communities, be more resilient? How can we create *meaningful* work, that at least provides people with enough cash to keep a roof over their head, while actually making things that people *really* need? How can we do *all* of that in an environmentally sound way?

To me, many things world wide seem to be heading in scary directions. I'd really like to see some good ideas that would help me see less scary, or not scary, or even better, joyful ways we can head towards. Examples, however small, that show better ways to solve some of these problems.

Tereza Okava wrote:

I think the kids will be okay.

Thank you Tereza.  I truly hope you are right.  

If they are, or are not a problem may be a question of context. Context is King.

We have 6 kids and hope to end up with 8-10. If we were in a city raising them under the banner of consumerism, or anywhere and raising them under the banner of welfare benefits, I can see why we'd want to discuss why it may be prudent to not have kids.

Since we live rurally and are learning to provide as many of our needs as possible, I consider our large family to be a benefit to our culture and nation. We homeschool, home birth, pay taxes on my income for those under the banner of welfare. We invest in our land and hope to pass it along, ready to provide for our children.

I am PRO LARGE FAMILY in this or a similar context. I am NOT pro large family under the banner of consumerism or welfare or any parasitic scenario you could think up. The conversation may benefit from asking; which class of people's birthrates are declining and which class of people's birthrates are increasing.

It may not be as black and white as just asking if we are trending positive or negative in population reproduction/increase.

G Freden wrote:I sometimes wish I had not brought my children into this world that seems to be collapsing.  Perhaps the future will be better than I am expecting it to be.  I try to make decisions and actions in the hopes that it will.

All the more reason to try our best.

Josh—

So are you essentially saying, you approve of having children insofar as the family can feed them self-sufficiently off of their piece of land, and the land is able to support them?

Josh Hoffman wrote: Context is King... We have 6 kids and hope to end up with 8-10.

If Context is King, may I suggest, Algebra is the Queen?

You say you have land that can support a couple with 8 kids. In about 15 years, the oldest of those children will start reproducing themselves. To do that, they will require spouses. So 10 people will invite an  extra 8 onto your land if they all marry. And if those 8 couples each produce another 8 children, in about 25 years, will the land support 82 people?

Give it another 20 years, and your 64 grandchildren will be of marrying age, and be inviting another 64 spouses onto the land. Then Algebra *really* kicks in, because if each of those 64 grandchildren produce 8 children each, that's 512 great grandchildren.

Yes, I've simplified it a tiny bit - accommodating the difference in time between your eldest child's first born and your youngest child's last born, does affect the math to a level of complexity that is beyond me. But the outcome is the same. I've done this math with my own extended family, where 2 adults had 6 children and 20 grandchildren on my maternal side. The great grandchildren did not quite replace themselves, but that doesn't shrink the population back to the level of my grandparents. And as I have officially become a "senior", the 2 adults, and 5 of the 6 children have died, and 3 of the 20 grandchildren have died, but there are still at least 34 humans, some of whom have reproduced, on this planet, representing the gene offspring of my two grandparents.  

I tried hard to suggest that those living lighter on the land are part of the solution. A few families having 8 children makes up for all the people who decide to have no children. But many humans reproducing far above their replacement level is what has got us into the situation that had many people very scared in the 1960's. Personally, I prefer not to go back there. I would like us to find an economic system that doesn't require constant growth that many have compared to a cancer, to keep it alive. I would like to see a healthy human population that still leaves lots of room for all the other creatures that inhabit this planet.

It may not be as black and white as just asking if we are trending positive or negative in population reproduction/increase.

I'm sorry if my first post appeared black and white to you. I did see a wiki page that gives those numbers if you're interested, but I don't feel that's the key issue. To me a clear issue is how we can solve problems that MAY occur in countries that are going through the process of reducing their population to levels which are of a more human scale (no 2 hour car commutes to works for example - my sister had to do that for 10 years).

Jay Angler wrote:I tried hard to suggest that those living lighter on the land are part of the solution.

Yes.

M Ljin wrote:Josh—

So are you essentially saying, you approve of having children insofar as the family can feed them self-sufficiently off of their piece of land, and the land is able to support them?

Not exactly, because I believe it would take a cooperating community to be able to meet all of the community members needs. We are not able to meet all of our needs.



In both instances, I am pointing out my observation that it is consumerism causing the issues, not population growth.

Our family of 8 consumes less than an average city dwelling couple with no kids from what I have seen with folks I know, coworkers, etc.

As for the math, I really couldn't say what choices our children would make. To go into more detail on how we are teaching and training them an dhow that will affect their decisions would be pretty far out of the topic question.

Josh Hoffman wrote:it is consumerism causing the issues, not population growth.

I agree with you 100%.
I don't want to get into Cider Press issues related to the developing world (where we've mentioned above that the issues of overpopulation hit hard-- along with other issues like economic instability, disease, lack of infrastructure, etc)-- but the lifestyle in Europe and North America is always presented as the "goal" we should be aiming towards, and the standard for consumption. And in many cases, it is totally beyond comprehension. It's hard to express the difference in lifestyle between first and third world countries, and I live in an area that is probably considered very rich, relatively.
For example, when I try to explain the US concept of a hot water heater, people literally laugh. How amazingly wasteful is it to have a barrel containing gallons of hot water that are kept boiling at all times, especially if you only have two people in a house who only shower once a day? This extends to so much of what Americans would understand as convenience.
Still, it's hard to compare apples and oranges, as here often convenience is substituted for cheap labor (you don't need a dryer if over 50% of households have domestic staff or a stay-at-home member who have time to hang laundry, for example).

But I do believe that consumption is the problem. Just now, in the last few years since the economy has been getting sketchy in the US, have I seen articles and stories about how to fix things yourself, how to save energy and save money, as a more widespread phenomenon for people who may not have grown up pinching pennies. (Those of us who grew up like that have a leg up!)

Back to real solutions, as Jay mentioned.
Japan has seen some really strong efforts towards zero-waste, repairs and reuse of waste. NHK has an interesting video series highlighting some examples. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/shows/zerowaste/ (some odder than others!)
And many places have libraries for tools and equipment one might not use every day; my mother's library in PA has baking pans and garden tools, for example.
I think the answer has to be community, as Josh says.
How interesting that while people are concerned with the world becoming increasingly splintered and balkanized, the solution lies in community- for sharing resources, for raising children, for creating meaningful work.

I thought this was an interesting view to add to this thread.
'Could smaller families rewild the planet and make humans happier?'
https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/npr-news/2025-11-01/could-smaller-families-rewild-the-planet-and-make-humans-happier

Here are some quotes from the print part of Judith's link:

They say it's not clear how economies and family structures that have relied for decades on steady growth will function as communities age and begin to decline.

If Humans are really smart, they will figure out a new economic and social system to cope with declining population. Math doesn't lie - this was going to happen at some point either through natural disaster, disease, or people simply wanting a better quality of life than being jammed into high-rises allows for.

It is clear that the weather is warming and sea levels are rising. A city near me has a coast flood warning today, because a storm in the Pacific is pushing water towards our coast at the same time as we had a full moon. But this is happening world wide, so we are going to have to relocate people even if our population declines.

Even if the remaining population chooses to spread out instead of being focused by "the economy" in huge cities, if that spread follows permaculture principles, I believe the re-wilding will still occur, because permaculture allows for zones that meet the needs of both people and nature.

Kantorová points to the fact that much of the falling birthrate in the U.S. and around the world reflects a plunge in teen and child pregnancy. "Adolescent child bearing has declined everywhere, so this is something that is really a success story," she said.

There are definitely ages at which child birth is safer, and currently it is suggested that late 20's and early 30's, but I'm unsure whether this is due to women's health, or socioeconomic factors as well. I have absolutely heard that risk of complications happens for teens so if this information is accurate, this is a good thing.

This video suggests that the process of human population decreasing is happening faster and earlier than predicted.

Yes, the rate of decrease is going to affect countries, and I really hope that we can cope at the world level, the country level, the community level, and the individual level.



Again, there is a lot of focus on "the economy". I believe that at the moment, the real "winners" in our current "economy" are the extreme rich. Not sure where I saw this info, but the news is full of US strife over "SNAP Food Payments". One of the quotes claimed that full time employees of both Walmart and MacDonalds in areas of the US, were dependent on SNAP payments - these are multimillion dollar companies.  Why are they paying their employees so poorly that the employees need public assistance? No wonder people are questioning the system. The approach in Canada would be to demand an increase in minimum wage!

In the Middle Ages after the Black Plague reduced the population, the rich got poorer because they had no choice but to pay workers more because all of a sudden, workers were scarce.

Thanks for posting some excerpts from the NPR article.

I have no doubt that humans can figure out how to survive with less population growth and way less consumerism.

as to this question...

 Why are they paying their employees so poorly that the employees need public assistance?  

Walmart has done this from the beginning...paying as low a wage as they can get away with and always less than full time work so there is no chance of any company insurance or perks.
Many here in the US are working for less than a living wage and need a safety net.
I think more and more folks are waking up (as seen in yesterdays election results here) to see that the direction things have been going since the first of the year is not what they expected and only making things much worse

Jay Angler wrote:Again, there is a lot of focus on "the economy". I believe that at the moment, the real "winners" in our current "economy" are the extreme rich. Not sure where I saw this info, but the news is full of US strife over "SNAP Food Payments". One of the quotes claimed that full time employees of both Walmart and MacDonalds in areas of the US, were dependent on SNAP payments - these are multimillion dollar companies.  Why are they paying their employees so poorly that the employees need public assistance? No wonder people are questioning the system. The approach in Canada would be to demand an increase in minimum wage!

The image below is from Indeed. It reflects all of the reported pay. The average of those 7 positions is $20.04 per hour. The US minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. 6 of the 7 positions pay double the minimum wage.

I have some friends that work at the WM and other large corps like Lowes, HD, etc. They all earn around $20 an hour. I am not sure about the fringe benefits, I never asked. They are at different stages of life, some single and some with families. Some with families are single income households. They all have in common that they resist consumerism quite well so their quality of life in rural MS is pretty good on $20 per hour or at least they are satisfied. When we were in Dallas, renting in a Dallas suburb, you'd probably have to have 2 earners to make it work.

There are so many factors that come into play.

However, I do understand your point that when compared to shareholder and executive profits/pays, there is quite a disparity.

Jay, you make a great many excellent points and I basically agree with what you said.

Regarding the one-child policy, it’s not hard to understand that it was going to be an issue in about 30 years.  At least that’s easy for us to see from the outside.  And yeah, today China has a perplexing issue to solve.

I have a marginally different view on the current capitalist system.  My thoughts are that the current system (capitalism) thrives on opportunity.  Certainly, opportunity is easily found in expansion but I don’t think that expansion alone is necessary for opportunity.  And you basically stated that in your summary of Permaculture.  As an example, opportunity might manifest not as production of a thing, but by providing a service.  After all, any economy is the sum total of goods and services.

And a note about services—the United States economy used to be a manufacturing economy—a goods economy.  But several decades ago it transitioned into a services economy.  And it is interesting to note that the jobs that provide the highest incomes are service jobs—Doctors, Lawyers, engineers, accountants, technicians, etc.  The services sector of the economy has been the growth area of the U.S. economy.

I am getting a little rambling and I don’t want to make this post all about economics.  Also, as you note, it is far too easy to envision prosperity as growth, consumption, shiny things, etc. but not time off, sunrises and sunsets, walks outside and the like.


My personal goal/dream, etc that I had since a young age was never about excessive wealth, shiny things, the newest whatever.  It was about owning some parcel of land that I could legally control so that I could protect it, care for it, be its steward and prevent it from being “developed.” We need a better Permie term for land development.  Maybe land abuse?  Ecological neglect?  Ecological abandonment?  Whatever the term, my land would be free and protected from this harm so long as I lived.  I would build a house on a small part of the land, have a garden.  Of course have a tractor for care and maintenance.  I would raise my family there and the land would take care of us just we cared for it.

I hope this post makes sense or at least you can get the basic gist.  While typing this post, I have been passing a kidney stone and I may or may not have been under the influence of some pretty strong painkillers.



Eric

I am NOT PRO LARGE FAMILIES, I think that sort of thinking is not healthy for the world as a whole.
From the beginning,  civilisations have perished because of the following factors combining;
1 Over population for the available resources
2 Timber depletion because it is  used for building and heat.
3 Water is depleted by overuse or climate altering, because of population growth or depletion of trees, grasses etc
4 Soil becomes depleted by lack of improvement, erosion by  wind and water adds to the damage, damage  and food shortages occur.
4 Famine or war hits.
5 community degrades or is forced to move, to start the cycle again.

Its been repeated all over the world.
300- 1000 years seems the limits generally.
Currently science is helping with food, but land is being degraded everywhere by human activity.
Its built on, poisoned, eroded away or lost its capacity to grow anything.
I doubt science and technology can prevent it in the long run.