Low Fertility

Low Fertility
Journal #9

I think the having low fertility is bad for the economy because we need to have population. Sure, having to many people is also bad, because it increase the amount of food, shelter, and health care needed, but having too small of world population would also be bad. I think that we should find a prefect population that maintains all societies, and then keep it that way by having two kids per family, which will replace the parents. In the case that some people die from diseases or premature deaths, then some families can have three kids to maintain the population. Right now we seem to have a good size population, and perhaps even too many people at some points, which could be causing us to go into recession.

If we had low fertility rates, I feel that scientists would find ways to reproduce more people. Like in Brave New World, where all the people are processed at different levels and get to work different jobs. They are all happy at the levels they work at too so the societies seem to be perfect. Alphas get the good jobs, and Deltas and Epsilons get the dirty jobs like Mike Rowe on his show Dirty Jobs.

In the article, which I did not receive somehow, but it mentions “Whether population declines, stabilizes, or grows more slowly, the change in age structure produced by lower fertility and longer life expectancy may be the most important demographic influence on sustainability..” which apparently represents the article in a nut shell, thanks to Jason blog. As of now we do not know what is going to happen, and so it will make our future more exciting, as we will have to adapt to the changes. If the fertility rates are too low then we might need to look to scientific methods to reproduce more, and if they are to high then perhaps everyone will go to war over simple things like shelter and food supplies.

Article: “Low Fertility and Sustainability” - Martha Farnsworth Riche