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By: Ben Letalik
 a reply to Children of Men: The world in 2053?by Ben Letalik on Jul 23, 2008 - 03:42 PM read 63 times Source: http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/?p=1766#comment-154149 |
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This is a very interesting discussion.
Shaun: If governments continue giving larger incentives for having children, I could certainly see more people (especially low income couples) having children and then giving them up for adoption. However, the morality of this practice opens up an entirely new debate.
Jaclyn: As Don points out, birth rates have decreased so far below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per person that the population is shrinking too rapidly. This becomes a concern when our social welfare system is contingent on the younger, working population supporting an older, retired population. It places a large burden on the Net Generation.
The systems we have in place work best when the population remains constant or is growing. However, you are quite right in saying that overpopulation is a concern if the birth rate is considerably higher than 2.1. Before the single child policy, China was fighting a huge overpopulation problem. Much of Africa is facing a similar problem as well.
All countries should be aiming to be in stage 3.
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