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posted by mrpg on Friday November 16 2018, @02:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the not-so-many-men-are-having-children-either dept.

'Remarkable' decline in fertility rates

There has been a remarkable global decline in the number of children women are having, say researchers.

Their report found fertility rate falls meant nearly half of countries were now facing a "baby bust" - meaning there are insufficient children to maintain their population size.

The researchers said the findings were a "huge surprise".

And there would be profound consequences for societies with "more grandparents than grandchildren".


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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday November 16 2018, @06:02PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 16 2018, @06:02PM (#762766) Journal

    It all depends. To me, since the problem is world wide, it sounds as if the problem is caused by estrogen-mimic chemicals in the water. You could ask various amphibians about that. There are lots of other possibilities, such is limited incomes and lots of shiny to spend them on, which would result in an evolutionary pressure to desire kids more. (See "A Mote in Gods Eye".) But that doesn't fit the description, as many places have had lots of shiny for a long time. So I suspect multi-chemical poisoning at sub-detectable levels. I'd be really interested if someone else came up with a different plausible scenario.

    OTOH, this isn't all bad. The robots are coming, so the number of jobs is going to be dropping faster than the number of new workers. And Japan is already going strong in making robots to care for the elderly. They've got a ways to go, but they've got a strong reason. (They don't want to allow foreigners to become permanent residents. I don't have to like it to recognize it as strong, and at least they're not trying to export it this time.) If they're successful, this will ensure Japan's economic dominance of a rapidly growing market.

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