Remember the 60’s, doomsday bestseller by Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb? It foretold mankind outstripping the world’s resources by 2000 to sustain the constantly growing population. While there are specific items like oil that we will run out of eventually– faster as countries like China become a consumer economy – he turned out to be wrong for a variety of reasons.
But the other side of the coin is what if population falls. Rapidly. While there are aspects of the why that may not apply elsewhere, Russia is becoming an inadvertant experiment in what happens when there is a population implosion rather than explosion.
In the two days since Lisa Petrachkova was born, Russia’s population has dropped by an estimated 2,000 people.
By the time she is one, more than 200,000 Russians will have died of unnatural causes; almost seven times the estimated civilian deaths in Iraq since the war began.
By her 50th birthday, Russia’s population could have halved, based on current trends. By Russian standards, she is lucky to have made it even this far: last year, there were 1.6 million registered abortions in Russia and 1.5 million births.
Japan is experiencing a population decline too, although not as drastic. Rather than allow more foreign workers to come and pick up the slack, which is usually what occurs in these situations, the Japanese have decided to live with a lower standard of living. And they call the US xenophobic!
Fishy — as much as I get a chuckle from your errant non sequitur, now and then — the Japanese economy is still the 2nd strongest in the world. Their banking industry looks to be surviving overdue reform. and most of the factors describing living standards [like http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/japan/socsec/maruo/maruo_3.html%5D and, say, consumption of luxury commodities, describe the opposite.
They’ll probably get to be #3, soon; but, not through decline. Rather, by being passed by China.
I don’t get it…
Unemployment is one of the biggest concerns our economies face. One of the causes of unemployment is technology. Being a software developer I’ve witnessed at first hand customers showing their happinness about having my systems replace people and that is the part I really hate about my job.
Nevertheless, there are too many people on the planet. Our natural resources are being drained. The excessive oil consumption is one of the consequences of an overpopulated world and nature is already starting to get angry with us.
This means that less population should be faced as good news, not bad news. Of course, having bad medical care and such a low life excpectancy as Russia is facing is not good at all. People should live long, very long. However, a huge reduction in birth rate is not bad news or a crisis. It means less people conflicting for natural resources.
Seeing it as a threat because there will be not enough people to drive economies is huge mistake. The very same technology that I love, but whose consequences in the employment field I hate, fits very well in this scenario. If we do bet much more in technology, the reduction in population means that technology will translate not in unemployment but in the empowerement of the few people remaining to drive our economies successfully. In a less populated world, even the very same fact that technology replaces people will be good, not bad.
Fewer people competing for same and limited natural resources empowered by technology (software, machines, etc.) should be able to live longer and be happier. Conflicts should reduce.
So, I don’t get it… Everybody is always complaining due to unemployment problems, but when population goes down, meaning higher employment rates, everybody gets scared.
These two comments are linked. Japan has had declining population, and they are the ones creating robots to adapt. The problem with the declining population is the distribution by age groups. Where are the young to take care of the elderly. It’s not just Russia, but all of Europe except for Muslim Albania. In Europe, their culture isn’t producing enough people, and they could get replaced by a Muslim culture that grows.