For the fourteenth year running, Japan's population has slumped to a record low. The non-foreign population dropped by nearly 900,000 — an unprecedented fall.
Once you have a comfortable stable population of people who no longer worry about their future … then they will be more likely to have a family.
Somehow India is an exception to this. People worry about the future and still have kids. Nearly every married couple I know has at least one child or planning for one.
It’s because it’s not quite true. Reproductive rates are inversely correlated with wealth and education. If you’re poor, you need more kids to help the family (and, morbidly, even more kids in case some die due to lack of healthcare), especially once you yourself become elderly. When you’re secure, you end up not doing that.
But if you’re secure, but the world sucks, you say “why would I want to bring a child into this?”
If you want to maintain a population, you need to create the conditions for people to want to have kids, and give them the opportunity. Separately, you should also want to give your citizens a high standard of living.
Somehow India is an exception to this. People worry about the future and still have kids. Nearly every married couple I know has at least one child or planning for one.
I don’t get it.
It’s because it’s not quite true. Reproductive rates are inversely correlated with wealth and education. If you’re poor, you need more kids to help the family (and, morbidly, even more kids in case some die due to lack of healthcare), especially once you yourself become elderly. When you’re secure, you end up not doing that.
But if you’re secure, but the world sucks, you say “why would I want to bring a child into this?”
If you want to maintain a population, you need to create the conditions for people to want to have kids, and give them the opportunity. Separately, you should also want to give your citizens a high standard of living.