Excellent article. Perhaps I'm being naive, but I don't see anyone mention the (to me) obvious impact of evolutionary selection. At some point, if the "no kids" mentality persists, all you'll have left are the "oh hell yes kids, damn the cost" people (men and most importantly, women). Then the population delta should become positive again. Might take a century or two. Of course the other factors you mention will probably have an impact before the crude instrument of natural selection takes over.
The question was basically what the top of that curve would be, and when things might equilibriate towards 2 kids average. I also think it sort of "has" to happen, but whether that's at 1B global pop or 5B global pop has enormous impact.
I feel like when you take into account how much individuals pay in taxes over their lifetime, it could be much more generous and still pay for itself. Less "tax the singletons" and more "reverse social security".
So let's say +$4k a month until age 10, +$2k a month until age 20, -$2k a month age 30 to age 60.
Really enjoyed this piece - but I think you're underestimating culture's impact on fertility rates.
Cross-country comparisons have limited value since you rarely have a proper control group - within-country comparisons are more useful because they at least control for policy differences.
France is a perfect example of this. France's relatively high TFR vs. EU peers masks significant cultural differences within its population (and I don't think its ascribable to policy success).
Muslim immigrants appear to have roughly 2x the fertility rate of native French citizens. According to Pew Research (2017), Muslims comprised 8% of France's population in 2017, but that's now estimated at 13%. A 2019 study found that immigrant mothers in France had a TFR of 2.7 versus 1.7 for native-born mothers. I wouldn't be surprised if this gap has actually widened.
While I'm absolutely in favor of throwing money at this problem (and we're not doing nearly enough as Caplan would agree), we may need to grapple with the fact that fertility decisions are rooted in beliefs and values that can't easily be shifted.
Good piece and important topic. I do think that a brief discussion of AI is worthwhile. My personal perspective is that we should have a distribution of timelines around transformative AI. And as a result, I think it's very risky to assume that TAI will solve the TFR problem, for a few reasons. First, TAI could be further away than we think. Second, as you point out, TAI could be spiky and humans could matter for longer than many assume. Third, and most importantly IMO, more pressure to race to TAI (in this case, to solve the TFR problem, which in turn is tied to national indebtedness) seems risky -- we don't want more incentive to be reckless with AI capabilities IMO.
There are some implicit assumptions about TAI in this entire discussion, which would be several essays on its own, but specifically (as you also point out) it might just "solve" our economic doldrums issue though I wanted to look at the counterfactual.
A world with only 1B humans with incredible lifestyles might well be okay as an endpoint though depending on one's philosophical inclinations. I don't think so, but I can't yet articulate why either beyond appealing to it being much more fragile than a trillion humans spread throughout the galaxy.
Current political trends, especially in the west, indicate little chance that many governments would undertake ambitious, long-term social engineering projects across international borders, so I'm highly dubious that the approaches listed here will gain any traction.
Additionally, this essay doesn't include any consideration of environmental factors like poor nutrition and the impact of endocrine disruptors from plastics. The latter looks increasingly like a factor, especially since it would partly explain the falling birth rates across nations with widely disparate cultures and economies. I suspect that's why the existing cultural and economic efforts aren't moving the needle as much as people hope, and it augurs poorly for increased efforts along those lines. And if environmental endocrine disruptors do turn out to be a major factor, there will be only so much people can do about it since many of the chemicals are already out in the wild.
As with climate change (depressingly), we're probably better off a this point putting our energy into mitigation and accommodation rather than trying to stop the disaster from happening.
However, you seem to be focusing on physical (re)population as the best solution. Shouldn't we be actively trying to find better long-term solutions, ones that directly address our economic constraints by redefining our incentive structures and dependent-care structures in a way that isn't based on consumption-based growth?
Those seem like two separate points, the first one is good even though it had some negative externalities and I don't think the second one is necessarily true beyond the worry of it impacting their work. We've narrowed the gap there substantially and it doesn't seem to be the big problem anymore
Excellent article. Perhaps I'm being naive, but I don't see anyone mention the (to me) obvious impact of evolutionary selection. At some point, if the "no kids" mentality persists, all you'll have left are the "oh hell yes kids, damn the cost" people (men and most importantly, women). Then the population delta should become positive again. Might take a century or two. Of course the other factors you mention will probably have an impact before the crude instrument of natural selection takes over.
The question was basically what the top of that curve would be, and when things might equilibriate towards 2 kids average. I also think it sort of "has" to happen, but whether that's at 1B global pop or 5B global pop has enormous impact.
I feel like when you take into account how much individuals pay in taxes over their lifetime, it could be much more generous and still pay for itself. Less "tax the singletons" and more "reverse social security".
So let's say +$4k a month until age 10, +$2k a month until age 20, -$2k a month age 30 to age 60.
Really enjoyed this piece - but I think you're underestimating culture's impact on fertility rates.
Cross-country comparisons have limited value since you rarely have a proper control group - within-country comparisons are more useful because they at least control for policy differences.
France is a perfect example of this. France's relatively high TFR vs. EU peers masks significant cultural differences within its population (and I don't think its ascribable to policy success).
Muslim immigrants appear to have roughly 2x the fertility rate of native French citizens. According to Pew Research (2017), Muslims comprised 8% of France's population in 2017, but that's now estimated at 13%. A 2019 study found that immigrant mothers in France had a TFR of 2.7 versus 1.7 for native-born mothers. I wouldn't be surprised if this gap has actually widened.
While I'm absolutely in favor of throwing money at this problem (and we're not doing nearly enough as Caplan would agree), we may need to grapple with the fact that fertility decisions are rooted in beliefs and values that can't easily be shifted.
Good piece and important topic. I do think that a brief discussion of AI is worthwhile. My personal perspective is that we should have a distribution of timelines around transformative AI. And as a result, I think it's very risky to assume that TAI will solve the TFR problem, for a few reasons. First, TAI could be further away than we think. Second, as you point out, TAI could be spiky and humans could matter for longer than many assume. Third, and most importantly IMO, more pressure to race to TAI (in this case, to solve the TFR problem, which in turn is tied to national indebtedness) seems risky -- we don't want more incentive to be reckless with AI capabilities IMO.
There are some implicit assumptions about TAI in this entire discussion, which would be several essays on its own, but specifically (as you also point out) it might just "solve" our economic doldrums issue though I wanted to look at the counterfactual.
A world with only 1B humans with incredible lifestyles might well be okay as an endpoint though depending on one's philosophical inclinations. I don't think so, but I can't yet articulate why either beyond appealing to it being much more fragile than a trillion humans spread throughout the galaxy.
of course people matter. but the number of people, I think, will matter less and less
Current political trends, especially in the west, indicate little chance that many governments would undertake ambitious, long-term social engineering projects across international borders, so I'm highly dubious that the approaches listed here will gain any traction.
Additionally, this essay doesn't include any consideration of environmental factors like poor nutrition and the impact of endocrine disruptors from plastics. The latter looks increasingly like a factor, especially since it would partly explain the falling birth rates across nations with widely disparate cultures and economies. I suspect that's why the existing cultural and economic efforts aren't moving the needle as much as people hope, and it augurs poorly for increased efforts along those lines. And if environmental endocrine disruptors do turn out to be a major factor, there will be only so much people can do about it since many of the chemicals are already out in the wild.
As with climate change (depressingly), we're probably better off a this point putting our energy into mitigation and accommodation rather than trying to stop the disaster from happening.
Complex issue. It seems reasonable to also examine the upside of population decline.
A malthusian view with hair on fire is too simplistic. No trends continue along the same trajectory.
I love kids too but a lot of people don’t want them 24/7. I get it.
Also the tech/robotic future disrupts many of our assumptions about labor. That’s worth another segment. Great topic worth more thought. 👍
I disagree there is that upside is meaningful enough to matter. But if it asymptotes we would learn to live with it that is true.
The premise is debatable. In an AI world it’s not likely to be true that people are the “ lifeblood” of anything. That’s production line thinking.
I think people matter, and will continue to matter.
However, you seem to be focusing on physical (re)population as the best solution. Shouldn't we be actively trying to find better long-term solutions, ones that directly address our economic constraints by redefining our incentive structures and dependent-care structures in a way that isn't based on consumption-based growth?
Those seem like two separate points, the first one is good even though it had some negative externalities and I don't think the second one is necessarily true beyond the worry of it impacting their work. We've narrowed the gap there substantially and it doesn't seem to be the big problem anymore