It's interestng to note that in the last 30 years, American attitudes about family size have changed, with most people now thinking 2 or 3 kids is the appropriate family size, whereas prior to the '70s most people thought 3-4 was ideal.
I suppose the "zero population growth" types will be pleased with that shift. I'm not.
Although there are concerns about finding energy sources to continue the expansion of high-tech civilization, beyond that there is simply no evidence that the world is particularly overpopulated: overpopulation has not caused any famine in decades and is, in fact, one of the rarest causes of starvation. Indeed, the vast majority of famines in the last 100 years were intentionally inflicted by despotic governments. In true free market economies (as opposed to oppressive dictatorships or heavily socialized and overregulated economies), increased population correlates with increased wealth and standards of living.
In short, as much sense as Malthus makes, no one's been more consistently proven wrong by the last 100 years of human history.
Yet so many young people believe we're overpopulated. This is a shame. In a free society like ours, more kids are a good thing, a blessing not just to their families but to the nation and to mankind as a whole. We need more kids, not less, for in the long run they enrich us as a nation and a species--and not just spiritually, but materially.
Interestingly enough, more kids are also, in the long run, the most environmentally friendly policy. Free, democratic, open market societies with heavy populations generally have the best record of all when it comes to clean air, clean water, and wildllife conservation.
Assuming we can continue to find new energy sources, the amount of land we use to feed the world poulation should continue to shrink--and by the way, it has been shrinking for decades, not increasing. The amount of land we can set aside for wildlife conservation, and the resources we can put to cleanup of pollution should also increase over time. But we need more people to help make that happen.
We really need to get people to stop believing this nonsense that overpopulation is a looming threat. In a free society, more people are a good thing.
The only thing that worries me about the future is that we'll be able to find enough energy sources to sustain ourselves. But I'm rather optimstic about that too.
The only thing that bothers me about a potential increase in family size is that it'll perpetuate Socialism.
They're the ones who really have to worry about a decline in family size. You cannot support the elderly if your workforce is not forever measurably increasing in size.
This, in my mind, presents an interesting conundrum to the quasi-socialist eco-conscious liberal. Do you support Socialism, or an eco-friendly birth rate?
Dean,
In a non-agrarian society, standards of living go up as birthrates go down. Simply put, on a farm kids are an asset. In the Bay Area 2004, big houses (to fit the 6-7 kids needed to run a farm), college, food, cost lots of money. Since the money isn’t being earned by the kids; they are a liability...
So its economics, not environment that kills the big family. Make mine 1-2...
Andrew:
It is certainly the case that children are a net drain on an individual family until they can become productive workers. But once they do, they enrich everybody.
Just look around the U.S.: Where are incomes and standards of living higher, Los Angeles or rural Wisconsin? New York City or small-town Idaho? Boston, or Monroe, Michigan?
Sometimes you see inversions of this rule, but they are usually short-term bumps--say, an area suddenly overpopulates due to something like the dot-com bubble, then the bubble bursts. Or you suddenly have an influx of people who are entirely dependent upon the welfare system to survive. That's obviously a net loss. But otherwise, all more people gives you is more goods, more services, more productivity, more opportunity.
Let me put it to you another way: My employer takes money out of my paycheck every two weeks and puts it in my 401(k) account. That is money out of my pocket. I cannot spend that money, and indeed, it winds up lowering my standard of living, because that's money I could be spending right now. SO why do it? Because in the long run I benefit from that investment--and so does society, for that matter.
Healthy children are an investment. They are, as such, an asset, not a liability
There's also evolution (of cultures) to be considered. Evolution favors childbirth.
As the father of five, I'm doing my part!
My problem with overpopulation is this: The traffic is getting pretty bad out there. Fewer people = less time spent in traffic. I'm sure there will be a solution at some point, but until cars can fly, I could do without the crowds.
Have more kids, Dave. Then you get to ride in the carpool lane.
Given human nature, we'll find those new energy sources - and build those flying cars - right when they're needed most. Crunch time means we get inspired, usually.
Long-term, I believe several things will help with traffic issues. First and foremost, we need reform and liberalization of suburban zoning laws, which is already happening in some places. We also need greater use of mass transit systems.
Most of all, though, the growing trend toward self-employment and telecommuting will help most of all. There are those who claim telecommuting is a failure but in fact there are more people doing it every year, and that's likely only to accelerate over teh coming decades as fewer and fewer people hold the kind of jobs that require large numbers of people in the same location.
Population growth is only a positive thing for so long. Anyone who's done population modeling for organisms can tell you that. Suppose you're a bacteria living inside a person. You keep reproducing and everything is looking good, until you reproduce so much that you kill the person that you were feeding off of. The person dies, interior temperature goes down, and you die, along with 5.6 X 10^29 of your closest relatives.
You can stick your head in the sand all you want. The Earth can only support so many people. While I agree that we aren't even close to that point, the view that more children is better for society is a nieve one at best.
"In a non-agrarian society, standards of living go up as birthrates go down. Simply put, on a farm kids are an asset. In the Bay Area 2004, big houses (to fit the 6-7 kids needed to run a farm), college, food, cost lots of money. Since the money isn’t being earned by the kids; they are a liability..."
Well, there's no law that says you have to pay your grown childrens' expenses. They get the profits from the education, and it's reasonable to expect them to make the investment.
"There are those who claim telecommuting is a failure but in fact there are more people doing it every year"
A lot of them in India.
"Given human nature, we'll find those new energy sources - and build those flying cars - right when they're needed most. Crunch time means we get inspired, usually."
We have the technical know-how to build them today. What we'd have to get inspired to do is remove the political roadblocks that keep them off the market.
Sometimes I genuinely chuckle at the ZPG crowd.
But then again, I am the 8th of ten children. My Dad, supported his mother and his six siblings from the time he was 16 years old when his father died until he was 25 when he married. And,
we weren't farmers. The oldest paid room and board at home when they got their first jobs at
$10.00 per week. Of the ten 45 years of college education completed. My Dad had an eighth grade education and worked at Dodge Main for 30 years.
All's well that end's well.
I actually attended a high school "assembly" back in the early 70's in Cincinnati, Ohio where the featured speaker was a proponent of Zero Population Growth. NO opposing viewpoints were presented that day. As I've grown older, I now see it was blatant propaganda and indoctrination. And effective.
And they say there's no agenda in public edumatcation...
Considering my status as completely unattached and no children, some might think I would have little to say on this matter.
Actually, that is true. I do not care how many children any couple has. That is completely between the two of them. That is their right.
We were talking about the average number of children going up. That is fine with me, if that is what people want. I despise government telling people what it thinks is really in their best interests.
The larger families can make up for me! :^)
Well, I just added one adorable baby boy to the world to bring my total up to two which is where we have to stop.
Also, we could stick everyone alive today in a space of land smaller than Alaska and give them a large house, and enough space to feed themselves, and all in that space less than Alaska.
And that would leave the rest of the planet for the otters.
And I expect that by the end of the century we will have fusion and/or Solar Power Sattlelites and we will probably be towing asteroids into Earth (or for safety -lunar) orbit, and having much of the mineral production be off planet.
This is mostly waiting on political barriers (we need private property rights in space), and on developing cheap and reliable heavy lift capability (go X Prizers!!).
So yes, there is a limit to growth, but I would not be surprised if it is a 100 billion. And we are actually going into negative growth so I would not worry about overpopulation at all.
Tadeusz
The ideal family size is whatever the couple wants it to be. If they want a dozen kids, good for them. If they don't want any kids at all, good for them. It's nobody else's business, not mine, not yours, and most definitely not the government's.
Dean,
Please don’t misunderstand me: I was speaking of parental liability, not social. As was correctly pointed out (at least by implication) had the boomers more children than they did, Social security wouldn’t be in the mess it will be in...
"It's nobody else's business, not mine, not yours,and most definitely not the government's."
That bears some need for analysis. Most definitely not the government. Agreed. But the point isn't the gov't; the above average (US) intelligent students move on to college and university to be taught by the "prestigious
doctorates" to not have children. That seems a recipe for societal disaster. Look at France: declining birthrate, an increasing senior citizen population, and the need to import largely cultural arab or muslim nation
workers to keep the tax revenue base up to support its social programs. France's cultural wars have only just begun. The UK has similar
aging seniors and the need for increased tax base. The US faces similar problems but not until 2030-2060. So
"It's nobody else's business", WRONG.
Society does have a vested interest in its children.
As Khalil Gibran writes in The Prophet:
"Speak to us of Children."
And he said: Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you...
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow."
Nor do we have the right to steal their souls and deny them their tomorrows.
And John Donne says:
"Seek not to send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."
While Dean worries about energy resources, I'll be worrying about dumbing down society as our best and brightest pass on a next generation.
Dean,
Have you yet caught this slate artical? It seems to confirm my point, without answering your point Re: more children per society...
I don’t think there is a contradiction there, merely paradox. Less children per parent good (while still having 2-3), more children per society also good. How we reach that goal seems obvious: More immigration...
Catch 22:
"But the point isn't the gov't; the above average (US) intelligent students move on to college and university to be taught by the 'prestigious
doctorates' to not have children. That seems a recipe for societal disaster."
Oh, joy. It's Stick It to the Credentialed time again. Catch 22, nearly all the "prestigious doctorates" I had as professors had children. Several of them brought them to the office when it was their day to mind them. I've no doubt that there are wacko 70's holdovers sprinkled through the universities who still think starting a family is capitulating to hegemonic capitalist norms, or something. But while the tenure system makes having children early difficult for those who actually choose academic careers, the idea that professors are systematically discouraging their students from having children is ridiculous. The academy is brim full of genuine catastrophic problems; no need to fabricate more. Furthermore, I grew up around people whose education level ranged from shop courses in high school on down--many of them were only dimly aware of what a doctorate is. Still, few families had more than three children, though families with only one were also rare.
As far as Dean's overall point goes, I agree: it would be nice if larger families seemed like an attractive option to more people before they were old enough to make the idea seem impracticable. But do that many people really think, Well, I've already added two to the world's population crush--time to break out the Semicid? It strikes me as more likely that people don't think they can give more than two or three children the things they want to provide for them. Where I grew up, it was a bigger house and room to play; at higher income levels, it's extracurriculars and a college fund. The merits of each option are arguable, certainly, but I don't think telling people that the world has a whole lot of land area would help much.
"Oh, joy. It's Stick It to the Credentialed time again....nearly all the "prestigious doctorates"
Sean, I'll stick with my statement. I didn't use the words nearly all (prestigious doctorates) so I apologize if you were led to believe that to be true. There are a few professors of whom I am critical. But that wasn't the main thrust of my statement above. Thank you for your comments.
No problem, Catch 22. It sure sounded like a blanket statement to me, but heaven knows, I get qualifier deficiency syndrome sometimes, too. Part of the problem with this issue for me is that it strikes very close to home: I live in Japan (have I actually gone three comments without mentioning that?), where this issue is going to reach WE'RE DOOMED proportions before I see retirement age. And the probability of Japan's solving it by relaxing restrictions on immigration is about as high as the population replacement rate.
I have 3 children, and the ZPG zealots act as though I have committed a great crime. (My husband and I would have liked more, but I had medical problems after the third).
My daughter is currently trying to get her husband to consider having a few more children (they have 2, one from his previous relationship). He seems to think that would be too many.
What is "too many"? Every family should decide for themselves, as long as they can afford them and care for them reasonably. One aspect is nelgect, but that can be a problem no matter what the size of the family. Address the problem - neglect, not the size of the family.