The Population Decline Thread

[HisMajestyBOB]

Yeah, it's hilarious that the workforces of developed countries will reduce by about half while old farts continue to demand ever greater services. It's going to be great fun.

That should help bring up worker's wages though!
Or we'll see a return of serfdom and indentured servitude.

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, it's hilarious that the workforces of developed countries will reduce by about half while old farts continue to demand ever greater services. It's going to be great fun.

But that won't happen for another 150+ years (on current trends), so getting worked up about it seems silly to me. The potential labor force in Europe will decline from the current 58% of the population to 50% in the next 75 years. Declining to 30% will take a long time. You will never see it, nor your children or grandchildren (etc).

We have no idea what the world will be like in 100 years, or whether anyone will be working as we think of it.

You seem to be confusing total population figures with the thing that is worrisome - the collapse in the number of young people entering the workforce.  The only reason total population figures will decline slowl is because life expectancy is increasing dramatically.

Society doesn't work if the vast majority of the population are like old retired people arguing on Languish.

[The Minsky Moment]

We've never experienced such a broad sustained decline in working age population since the industrial revolution so it's hard to predict what will happen.  The countries on the leading edge of demographic decline, like Germany and Japan have not collapsed into insolvency.  But they have experienced stagnating growth, in per capita as well as absolutely.

[Valmy]

Society doesn't work if the vast majority of the population are like old retired people arguing on Languish.

That is my main short term concern. A cultural stagnation and decline as youthful vigor and creativity get rarer would suck.

[Jacob]

That is my main short term concern. A cultural stagnation and decline as youthful vigor and creativity get rarer would suck.

It'll be interesting to see how that is going to work out with the current youthful swing towards the hard right and nationalism

[Valmy]

That is my main short term concern. A cultural stagnation and decline as youthful vigor and creativity get rarer would suck.

It'll be interesting to see how that is going to work out with the current youthful swing towards the hard right and nationalism

It is a swing but still a minority.