Enough People to Sustain a Civilization

For John, BLUF:  To sustain a population a nation needs 2.1 births for every woman,  Not every woman will have children, so the number for those who do it above 2.1  If it doesn't happen then population of workers implodes and the Government will not be able to susktain the elderly.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

A new ‘devil’ of a problem for Planet Earth: vanishing humans

From The New York Post, by Law Professor Glenn H. Reynolds, 26 August 2022 5:56pm.

Here is the lede plus two:

When I was a kid, everyone was worried about the “population explosion.”  Paul Ehrlich’s book, “The Population Bomb,” was a runaway bestseller.

This led to a lot of dystopian science fiction, like Harry Harrison’s novel, “Make Room, Make Room,” which became the famous movie “Soylent Green.”  It also led to a lot of policy changes, from China’s disastrous one-child policy to many policies in industrialized nations aimed at people having fewer children later in life.

The culture also changed.  My mother reports that when she was married, even married couples weren’t considered fully adult until they had children.  Raising kids was seen as one of the most important things people did.  Now, it’s seen as a distraction from the pleasures and opportunities of adult life, things like promotion at work or dating.

Population falling is a world wide phenmenon.  Even in Africa, with relatively high population growth, it is tapering off.  In China, Japan and South Korea, with previous high growth, Governments now find reproductine age cohorts uninterested in reproduction.

On the other hand, it appears the COVID-19 Pandemic has led to a slight boomlet in births:

Remote work spawns mini baby boom, economists say

.

This is thanks to UPI and Reporter Sheri Walsh, back on 20 October 2022.

An uptick in the number of women working from home since the start of the pandemic has contributed to a mini baby boom, according to a new study that claims the increase in births reversed two years of declining fertility in the United States.

A working paper, published by three economists, found that 46,000 more children were born in the United States after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning with a small increase in births in 2020 and a larger "baby bump" last year.

For those of a certain age the magic number is 2.1 births per woman,  That is an average and it conmes down to most families have two children and every tenth having an extra, but other women making up for those who won't ever have children.  Otherwise it all eventually goes down the drain, to be replaced by more vigerious nations, although not neecessarily as Democratic.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff