AFCDorset
Roofer
Not born out in practice. Birthrate in the affluent west has been declining for decades.Surely if you have a more comfortable life you'd want more kids?
Thought those in poverty had more kids due to higher levels of infant mortality.
Good illustration. In the affluent and educated west, a couple of kids is seen as a decent balance, plenty of variation of course, but that is not quite replacement level, hence the gently declining population.They're partly synonymous. Increased wealth goes hand in hand with reduced infant mortality. Hans Rosling's book 'Factfullness' has quite a good illustration of the four levels of poverty wealth (look down the bottom for proportion of world population at each level).
As wealth increases, infant mortality - and rate of childbirth - falls away rapidly.View attachment 484
Taking this and working within these numbers meant that we could have stabilised our population in the 50 - 60 million range quite naturally and adjusted indigenous birthrate and selective immigration to meet requirements as things change.
Government policy of 'continuous growth' made sure that was never going to happen, sadly in my view.