You’re citing averages and assuming fertility rates randomly distribute. That’s a big assumption and by most accounts wrong.

I already answered this exact same question from you in another thread. Let me see if i can find it.

That's part of the answer but there is more to it.

@abbaddabba

Demographic decline is a catastrophe for several reasons, and especially so in countries with a big government role:

1) Less working age adults per pensioner -> you either need to cut pensions massively, or increase payroll taxes massively, or increase pensione age massively; in theory it can be dealt with in the japanese/korean way, where people already retire ON AVERAGE at 70

2) More public debt per person. This is often forgotten, but public debt is more relevant if your population decreases. In theory this can be dealt with, as long as it lasts, 0 interest on debt (which basically "sterilizes" debt as long as those conditions prevail), again, like japanese are dealing right now (this is not an option for italy though).

3) Depopulation of rural areas. This is already a severe issue in japan (and italy), and not even they are able to fix it. Why is this relevant? we could say that some countries have always had depopulated rural areas and that's fine (see australia, usa etc). Well no it's not because of 4

4) Nosedive of real estate prices in depopulated area. This destroys massive private wealth and has a wealth effect on consumptions. Plus, it doesn't even at least fix the problem for new house buyers, because in the areas where all the jobs and services are , real estate doesn't go down in price. 1st part japan can't fix, 2nd part japan managed to fix with excellent housing regulations (ie = less regulations). But this means building a lot of houses in a depopulating country, all stacked in some specific areas, which seems to me a massive collective waste in aggregate.

5) This is perhaps the most important (if you are japan you somehow fixed most of 1-4, for now): investment decreases A LOT. Why? because investment is a bet on future aggregate demand, and with population decreasing aggregate demand can't increase much. Also because older people have higher saving rates (contrary to modigliani life cycle hp). This japan is trying to fix, with massive continuous gvmnt budget deficits even outside of recession, and for some miracle that togheter with 0 nominal interest rate for the 10y bond saves the day, for now. But investment is still somewhat stagnating.

And 5) is why real, take-home wages don't shoot up even with relative scarcity of labor. Because the absence of massive private investment reduces productivity growth (which is THE drivers of real wages), and a growing portion of real wages needs to be sequestered from labour to pay for increasing pension share and old people healthcare (see 1) and 2), that's italy, japan and other countries right now).

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People in italy are saying that if we were fine as a country of 50M people in 1960 (now we are around 60M people), then going back to 50M can't be a problem.

Fact is, it would be a terrible problem, because going from 50 to 60 and then back to 50 isn't the same as being on 50 and staying there, mostly for 2). Also the 50M people we would be in 10-15 years without immigration would be much more older than in 1960.

Increases in worker productivity can solve 1 one as well. Below are some made numbers up just for the sake of the example.

If it takes 6 workers to support 1 pensioner in the year 2000. 3 workers can support 1 pensioner in the year 2020 if they are twice as productive. Automation and artificial intelligence can make that happen.

No.

I haven't made any citations. I stated a couple of facts. Fact 1: World fertility rates are trending toward sub replacement levels. Fact 2: if this trend never abates humanity will eventually cease to exist. Fact 1: You can look up quite easily so I didn't bother to cite it. Fact 2 is self evident. If it become a permanent state of affairs that more people die than are born eventually a population goes to 0.

Well not in the relative sense of the workers still paying for the old.

If, example, productivity shots up 3-4% per year, in theory you would want real take home pays for the workers going up 3-4% per year.

In practice in a decreasing population scenario that won't happen because you are going to sequester part or all the extra production from the producers to care for others.

Which is already what is going on, with people blaming capitalism to the rising disconnect between take home pay and productivity, while the answer is "worse demographics in the presence of medicare and pensions".

If I read you correctly your saying if the benefit of productivity gains ends up going to the pensioners instead of the workers, that is essentially a payroll tax on the worker.. I agree.

Yes and people can move.

So if you have a society with people getting older quickly because of decreasing population, if the productivity gains aren't specific of that society but more broad worldwide, those workers can move in some numbers to countries where they have to pay for less old people through taxes (and lower public debt).

This becomes self-fulfulling.

Btw this is what is happening right now in southern italy and greece.

That’s Mr Obvious stuff, I get it. My point is that we can’t use the current trend as a predictor, until we better understand what comprises and drives that trend. For example, suppose every state in the U.S. has a fertility rate of 1, with the exception of Utah which has a fertility rate of 3, resulting is a negative U.S. fertility rate. If “nothing changes” in regard to the underlying components that comprise the overall U.S. fertility rate, it should be obvious why the U.S. population will never reach zero. Of course, if “nothing changes” in regard to the overall fertility rate, the population will decrease to zero. But in that instance we’re assuming that something (in the example) will in fact change, namely, the underlying drivers that comprise the current fertility rate.

Are you sure the answer isn't "rich people have too much money"?

There isn't a lot of doubt as to what is driving the trend of lower fertility rates virtually all over the world. Its access to birth control. That should be self evident to anyone.

"That's part of the answer but there is more to it."

At the individual level, not having a child means not having to incur the expense of raising a child. So comparing opportunity costs, despite the consequences at the societal level, an individual might be better off financially not having a child.

if this has been answered, somebody please cliffs or link me, but

how is UBI accomplished without triggering self-defeating inflation?

There is no inherent inflation in an UBI, not more than the same government spending through other means.

There are countries where gvmnt spend 10% (or more) points of gdp more than the usa, with lower inflation.

You can think of UBI as full-employment in terribly low-paying jobs, if you want, for inflation purposes. Full-employment is inflationary because of wage pressures. But UBI isn't inflationary because there is no inherent pressure on UBI itself to increase, no more than the normal pressure on welfare to increase that you already see in every country from the left.

You could, maybe, have a 1 off spike in inflation after the introduction of ubi, if aggregate demands goes over supply, that is, if the economy is seriously supply-constrained. But even in that case it's a one off, and can be offset through normal procedures (tax increases or rate increases).

After UBI is in place it doesn't generate any inherent inflationary dynamic if it is properly construed.

UBI shouldn't cause inflation unless money is created to fund it.

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If you become a reg at most indie coffee shops, they’ll often let you know what beans are fresh and will sell you a pound or two.

That may be the case "all over the world," but I doubt birth control is much of a driver in the U.S. In the U.S. and probably other Western countries as well, I think the main drivers are economic related and simply not wanting to have as many children as previous generations.

Bob, i search through google image and hotlinked from that. If you notice I reported high Hispanic fertility AS A POSITIVE, because that's what I think it was (and is). People with good income (compared to Bangladesh, moldavia and so on) still making babies.

I am sorry the image came from a disgusting site, I'll check in the future. But Google image is distancing from source more and more, with the amp thing and so on, often when you find an image you never see the original location.

yes but once you decide, because of economic reasons, education and so on, not to have children, it's only because of birth control that you manage to do so.

So the reason of why attitude regarding childbearing have changed isn't birth control. The reason why those change in attitude manifest itself in people actually making far less babies is birth control.

Which , I repeat, I think is a blessing for humanity. Because it gives freedom to people, and to women in particular.

I agree if we’re talking about the maximum number of children a woman could have say 6-7 down to a desired number of say 2-3. But over the last 100 years the drop has been from roughly 3 to 2. I don’t really see any more difficulty in having only 2 children as opposed to having only 3 that birth control would counter. Of course those are averages, so subsets of women who for one reason or another didn’t know about or have access to birth control could make up the effect I suppose.


I guess the good news with that is women seem to want to have more children than they are, at least enough to sustain the population or provide for moderate growth. So maybe the solution is figuring out why they’re not doing so and addressing those issues.

Yeah, if the UBI is sufficient that's great, but the original hypothetical was about the UBI being insufficient.

Silphium was a plant used in antiquity for family planning. Its extinct today because it was in so much demand that it wasn't conserved. Most women are just not interested in being pregnant all the time. That is true today and it been true throughout antiquity. It has nothing to do with economics. Fertility rates are cratering because technology has separated pregnancy and sex.

Yes birth control is much more relevant to bring fertility from 5 to 3 than from 3 to under 2, i agree.

Last 30 years you had from 5 to 2 in bangladesh, from 5 to 2.5 in india etc etc. That's imo is mainly birth control (and women education and so on).

And that's more relevant from humanity than the USA going from 3 to 2. Remember the topic was worldwide human fertility (with simulated erroneously thinking that low fertility -> humanity exctinction).

In rich world birth control i think contributed for 0.2/0.3 in fertility, something around that. Couples with 1 kid avoiding the 2nd, while 30-40-50y ago they might have kept it even if not financially secure at 100%, stuff like that. And less random 1-night stand getting to pregnancy (but that's more linked to widespread condom use than birth control imo).

So the AIDS-scare with the condom culture becoming normal and mainstream contributed as well.

Now there is also some portion of fertility linked to the economics of rearing a child , but it seems the resources needed to justify more births are really too high. In the sense that countries with solid family welfare show fertilty rate very close to those without solid family welfarein europe. That's why i think your bold could be "there is basically nothing we can do for now".