Stephen J Shaw: The surprising truth about world fertility rates | The InnerView 

It's funny how wealthy people see it coming but are doing nothing to make living more affordable. Most don't want a family in an unaffordable and unsustainable environment.

Higher living cost, lower salary. How can you support a family and children? Staying single childless sounds logical.

How can people have kids first and then start a career???? How are people going to pay for all their living expenses, childcare expenses, education expenses, if they aren’t working? Does he think money falls out of the sky?

Money = Rights, Take our rights, we can't control that but you won't enslave our children.

They are saying that women who want kids should prioritize family but why should we do this when it’s not beneficial to us? Why should women sign up for a life of hardship and financial struggle for the greater good of the world in a world that’s not prioritizing making child bearing more desirable to us?

Housing, child care and health care should be way cheaper in my opinion.

The incentive I need is to be able to buy a house and survive on 1.5 incomes. I'm sad to not be able to have a kid but the reality is just not feasible the way things are.

Everyone talks about climate change, so it might be good when there are less humans. From my perspective I don't feel lonely but free.

If people are cash and time-poor (because they have to work A LOT to meet their basic human needs), they won't have kids. No one wants to have kids just to see them suffer or not have time to see them at all. Unfortunately under our current economic system, we squeezed the working and middle class to the point where they can barely look after themselves, and have no spare resources to look after someone else. We can't fix birth rates if we don't fix capitalism and wealth hoarding first.

I grew up broke, I don’t want my child to have the same life that I had. The living costs are huge, if you don’t make at least 150k please DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN

why do zoo animals hardly reproduce?

I do not want to have a child.

Having to compete for housing with childless, double income couples is causing housing costs to skyrocket, further disincentivizing couples that would’ve had children with a single income. Or, if your single and a millennial or gen z, your going to have to room with 3 roommates to afford a crappy place. Of course your not going to afford to marry and have kids in that situation.

Less people means more room for other species, which are increasingly at risk from our societies. The Natural World needs more room with less of us and more space for them!

Any couples from India (Tamilnadu) Agree Don't want Baby? Married 2017 till no baby ,past 3 years No proper Job, Financial problems, Relationship issues, feeling why I married? Marriage happiness and dreams all mostly end within 1 or 2 years once got married. Then will face both of Husband and wife questions why got married. Better stay Single, incase married better live without kids

Let the economic systems collapse. A new system can be created. Better than letting the ecosystem collapse where there is no do-over.

Nobody needs more people, the world was fine with 200 million in year “0”, it will be fine again. It’s the transition that is painful, but basically it’s a problem of billionaires who don’t want markets to shrink. Cry me a river.

Austrian here, we have 4 children, (1 is severly mentally handicapped), and we talk a lot about all this. As I Learned that Most of my childhood friends have no kids i was shocked. I am 42 my kids are 23, 20, 15 and 12. I hope at least one will have kids.😢 We had no money with the small kids, all our friends had shiny things and holidays, and we were at home caring for sick kids. Howcan a new car or a new phone or a job be more important than family. 😢 Its bad

If I can’t afford a house and Expect for it to raise in value so I can make financial gains from said house how would I expect my made up children to afford the current trend?

Women dont want to be tied down with children. They want to live their lives.

Yes woman should stop working and put themselves at the mercy of a husband who could at any time leave her to care for the child herself. Yeah, hard pass. No kids is better than having kids+abusive/absent husband+economic and emotional and physical and psychological struggles. Men on the other hand can literally just pump and disappear and no one cares. So unfair.

Not enough attention has been paid to the role of airlines in birth decline. Allowing them to travel on planes among other passengers, rather than in spaces reserved for them, has done a great deal of damage to the reputation of children..

having kids is selfish

There's no incentive to have the kids unless the government's going to pay a lot of money for each one. I'm all about supply and demand.

Did this guy really just say we should deprioritize education. Oh my god, the idiocracy.

But never make accountable billionaires who are raping this planet and people and they did all this in the end.

Mothers are penniless. Another person controls the means by which she satisfies her own needs and that of her children When a woman does most of the child care, or takes time off work when her children need adult attention, she is investing in the earning power of that child's father at the expense of her own. She must have a well established career of her own to be secure, because the father of her children is free to abandon her at any time and halve her living standard, on no grounds at all. Then the years of investment that she has made in supporting her husband's career, will go to benefit another woman, probably younger and with a career.

So what. it's about quality over quantity. 1950s population level was so dire?

Its not just the career part, its the cost of living! But the 2 are interconnected because due to the higher cost of living ppl feel the need to prioritize career so that they can make enough money to live. How can one even think about having kids if on 2 incomes sometimes ppl still struggle to stay afloat? Rent and housing costs have increased exponentially. In Toronto, a 1 bedroom apartment is now $2000 or over, depending on where you live. That's half or more than half of someone's income in a lot of cases. If you have kids you need more space. Not to mention cost of food...cost of everything has gone up. So yeah, i dont see this get better any time soon. Make it affordable to live comfortably on 1 income..maybe then things will improve.

The rise in infertility is to do with the modern lifestyle we are living. Processed foods, less exercise, sedentary lifestyles, instant foods, over working which leads to more stress. Chemicals in the food, air and water that gets into our system and messes our hormones. Also both men and women are too busy pursuing their career rather than coming together and raising a family in a traditional environment where the father manages the income and the mother manages the home.

I'm struggling with the notion that women don't know it's harder to conceive as they get older. I'm British, mid-50s, childfree (by choice) and I believe my generation of women knew this; at least I don't believe it was just me and my circle of friends.

If rich people hate it, it's a great thing.

Childrearing still predominantly falls on women and unduly burdens them in so many facets. People should not be surprised that there is an increase in Child-Free people. Let the world reset. The model of having more children than an aged population is not sustainable in the current world with people living increasingly longer.

no jobs, no economical stability big important factors for not having children and no kindergartens, not enough, .. or too expensive!! no cooperation of men in domestic work!! very important... no cooperation of men in the house.

If he was a female speaker or identifies as non-binary they probably wouldn't have canceled. I'm not joking, I'm seeing this more often.

Maybe people finally realize that life is a curse, not a gift.

The truth is, it’s unaffordable to have children, it’s impossible to find a good woman, and it’s too risky for a man to have a family.

Workers will not be needed to teach and care for children because of the lower birthrate so they will be employed looking after the elderly. Funds not needed for children will be redirected to the elderly. Childcare is extremely expensive and who wants to bring children into a world that is failing to deal with climate change?

Too few babies or are the elderly not dying off fast enough?

No, there are too many people on the planet. Every single ecosystem on earth is struggling. From forests (rainforests in particular that harbour so much eco-diversity) to insects - homosapiens have caused rapidly deminishing numbers and diversity.

Taboo subject : The correlation between intelligence and fertility.

My generation was unusual. We were extremely large and now we’re going maybe back to normal. Cause in the past, most infants died many of their mothers did so too, so kept the birth rate down. now, babies and mothers can survive when you don’t need as many children. And the governments are really, really worried about people not having children and they need to give financial help to the baby Bears of the world.

Why would women want to choose the"difficult" route that is to work for their own living instead of relying on a husband and building a family? Hmmm I wonder why... But hey no over ever listens because it's just women's problems so why should women care?

The psychopaths in The One Percent hate it when their serfs stop pumping out new serfs.

I think there is a boycott against marriage and dating long term at the moment. This and none of the reasons for it were stated in the video. Divorce courts, excessive child support, alimony and debtors prison are the main reasons why men have stepped away. Men are a resource that have a vote in the matter. They vote it isn't worth changing a castle into a semi-private residence when they cohabitate.

Those is good. We might be able to survive climate change.

Hans Rosling was talking about this topic including the present forecast away back in the 70s and 80 s.Oops commented too soon 🤷🏽‍♂️😂

Look at a population evolution graph, it has shot up in the last two centuries with an incredible speed, what we see now is the correction that follows such an growth . The incredible growth of population has been a very good thing for the capitalist system but very bad for the workforce now there is going to balance out a bit, I see no reason to be worried about.

There's nothing new or surprising in this interview. Suddenly having kids is not the solution and "underpopulation" is not the real problem. It's resource allocation and organized long-term thinking from world governments corrupted by lobbbyists and short-term thinking. 20 years ago everyone was taught to panic about overpopulation. The problem is not fertility rates, it's western countries and politicians not preparing DECADES AGO for what was not just already foreseen, but was ACTIVELY DESIRED. Children are a liability in a post-agrarian / post-industrial economy. None of this is a sudden surprise. The earnings of lower and middle-class sectors of the population have fallen off a cliff compared to the cost of living since the 1970's. This has been designed by western politicians and big business. Another problem is the traditional social security and pension systems are NOT DESIGNED for the new demographics of the 20th century. Working for retirement and being supported by children is apart of a bygone era. The solution is not to suddenly start sprouting children, it's to redesign wealth distribution and invest in fundamental rights for the people who ARE here.

When emotive words such as 'frightening' are used, then there absolutely is a bias, if not an agenda. It is one thing to report that countries are below replacement level, it is another to make a judgement call on that. Quite apart from which, unless you think that we can grow forever, then sub-replacement and a birth gap is a mathematical requirement at some point anyway. The question is how it is to be managed.

It's an illusion of choice. Growing government with extra taxes, going off the gold standard in 1971 all has led to the shrinking of family's. The children watched their mothers juggle the work and home life seeing their struggle. They observed and learned that it's not only hard it's impossible to give a 100% to both. Government is the problem not the solution, taxes and worthless dollar keeps us enslaved chasing an illusion of worth. Young people are seeing having children as providing another slave to the government corporation, unless they find or are able to break out of the monetary matrix children will be a burden instead of a blessing.

Had a vasectomy at 26. Now 43.Still the best decision of my life. There's no end to children who are already here who need our help. Plenty of parenting opportunities and a chance to make family. I made this decision because I felt the future was bleak and there is nothing that special about my DNA. There are lots of single mums out there. I voted with my DNA (and you only get one vote that matters... call it a "referendum on the system"). I will not breed for the capitalist machine.

All human beings want 1- good health 2- good relationships 3- good finances Most people struggle with one , two or all of the above . Throw in other factors such as the 4th industrial revolution/ AI displacing workers , inflation , uncertainty, greed and corruption and lack of community and it makes life difficult . More importantly, Many people would like a spiritual path , guidance and a connection to the Creator , but don’t have it. It’s Our consciousness that will make or break this planet 🌍

Immigration is a band-aid solution for the issue, not to mention immigrants are always treated poorly

What I see many people don't understand (and we can see it in the comments) is that fertile age for women is not equal to the time when they have menstruation in their life. Data shows that while the probability of having conception is high starting from ~15 (start of the cycles, number is approximate) it starts declining a little bit after ~25 years. And while this probability is still high on average at the age of 30, but starting from age 35 the decline of a probability of conceiving can be rather described as a sharp fall. It is average and normal. So while the menopause comes after 45 for most of the women, there are almost no chances to have kids after 40 (without IVF and preferably frozen eggs). And of cause there are some lucky individuals to whom this general statistics doesn't apply, but the number of them is very very small. So if an average woman discovers that she has problems conceiving at the age 36 the problems can be attributed to a normative decline in fertility and not to any specific health problems (due to diet, air pollution or anything else as suggested in some comments). The generation of our grand moms had the same pattern in fertility, but they were not interested in having child at 36 (it's a random example) cause they already had 3 kids by the time they were 30. And unfortunately IVF is no magic wand. It certainly increases the chances of having kids if there are problems with natural conceiving, but the effectiveness again tightly correlates with the woman's age. On the other hand men have an illusion that they can catch up after 40 because they don't have the problem of menopause at all. But hard truth is that while theoretical possibility is there, only very few successful man will be able to find someone in a fertile age as a potential mother of their child. Vast majority of those childless men after 40 will remain childless. But everyone tends to forget about men.

It is clear that pensions and retirement payments have to be cut down.

I cannot understand how Elon Musk could worry about the population collapse when his company is building robots to replace human beings. He should be happy about it.

We can say that young people should have children to replace the elderly and dying!!!! But have they really thought about how they are going to feed the whole world if some of those countries can't produce much or any food in the future

This is humanities way of saying enough!

No need of children we should give birth one child only today's world is expensive and next 30 years we can't afford a rent school college medicals so one child policy is best or make 2 children if enough of best life

The coral reefs are dying, chemicals everywhere. Too many humans

The Self-Discipline of Veganism I am a hardcore Antinatalist Animal Rights Vegan (AARV). And I tell people to have the DISCIPLINE to GO VEGAN! If you don't have the self-discipline and make the TRIVIALLY INSIGNIFICANT hardship of going vegan, to prevent animals being raised tortured & murdered in factory farms, then YOU HAVE ZERO RIGHT to be lecturing ANYONE ELSE to do or not do anything, whether getting a job or learning a second language or lose weight. Nobody will take you seriously and nobody should take you seriously if YOU ARE NOT A VEGAN - specifically, an AARV! Antinatalist Animal Rights is SPECIFICALLY the rights of animals NOT TO BE FORCIBLY MASS REPRODUCED for our or anyone else's consumption. Veganism is not some trivially unimportant cause like culture or nationalism or anti-vaccination crap.

Choose : Intelligence? Or Fertility? You can't have both.

And if we return back to a level of population that was equal to 1900 I don’t thinkit’s that like that bad.

Women are more concerned about careers, money, and security than having children and a family. Then it's too late because they are too old to be having children. The demographics now is that everywhere you go seniors and elderly people.

I’m reading the comments on here with growing alarm. I never knew people are worried about this stuff. There are many things to be concerned about people. Human population decrease isn’t one of them. Lagos, yes Lagos is about to become the first 100 million city! Just imagine the sheer horror of that?

Cambridge is like Harvard. I would never take a dump on these places of “learning”. They are about propaganda.

Funny how HOLLYWOOD planted the seeds of fear ,Soylent Green ,back in the 70s.

Children of men was a future documentary

Too many historical factors. WW2 and it’s aftereffects (PTSD etc)was a big one.

People are overrated

Good talk on the subject. Along with population replacement and matting migration and governments panicking about social support systems and funding. Some countries have similar problems and others unique problems from the society. Small armies of single men and women in countries. A lot of left behind and bias imprinted. STD rates contribute a little to infertility rates and birth complications. But the big thing is a lot of females are sold on things like saving eggs which has a low viability rate. I'm not sure most of them know about prime birthing age or even if they want kids. A few kicker compounding things with a range of statistics pointing to things.

Predicted more than 50 years ago by John Calhoun's experiments with mices "universe 25"

Tax breaks to help people have more children is stupid. As someone who wants children taxes are so high i wouldn't afford it. If they gave more support well i would need to pay more taxes and be able to afford it less... Goverment takes over half my money and inflation, cost of living ist just insane.. Then again good luck finding an honest loyalty woman in the age of tinder. There is a reason women defend high bodycounts. They dont want families any more :(

That's very rare

We Need Afrika and India To Follow The Lead

It is a very serious issue like climate change. Advance countries like Japan and Italy failed miserably to reverse the shrinking population trend so what about the state of poor developing nations like India. Migration is nothing but a termperary solution. Laborateries are to be set up to produce children in the near future accepting sperm and eggs from healthy intelligent people. Hope China is able to initiate the big step without a delay

Choose : Civilization? Or Fertility? You can't have both.

Dear Mr Shaw Study the fertility rates in Central Africa. Birth Glut.

Depopulation measures had made this disaster

Population needs to collapse.

I know so many people with kids - it doesn’t feel like there is a problem at all. The schools are full - doesn’t seem like this is having an impact all all yet in the UK.

In aftican society to not have a child can be very isolating for any woman. Even a highly educated African woman knows that if she doesn't have any children the husband will marry another wife or father children outside. To be unmarried in African society for a woman is a big headache, even married women avoid friendship with you in case you snatch their husband. So no sane African woman can afford to refuse to have children, you are treated as an outcast and the most vicious attacks come from fellow women. So this declining birth rate cannot apply to Africa, it can never happen,i am an African I know what I am saying. I saw what happened to my auntie, it was so sad...

Seems facts are difficult for some to swallow. Don't want to listen until to late for them ?

I dig Mr Shaw but I don't share his optimism. Because I really don't think that at this place in time people will learn to communicate, respect, engage and love other people from other countries. Its all about greed. I calculated the 0% Birth Rate Year for the World. I'm not done here's what I got so far. For each country I took the last seven years population drop average and divided it by the last known number. Look to all countries to start hiding this information as it will point to their military weakness and affect UN hand outs. South Korea 2033 United States of America 2037 Japan 2043 Mexico 2069 Guatemala 2042 Canada 2051 Belize 2048 El Salvador 2083 Honduras 2062 Nicaragua 2101 Costa Rica 2045 Panama 2081 Colombia 2081 Ecuador (bwb) 2064 Venezuela 2097 Brazil 2056 Peru 2097 Bolivia 2046 Chile 2074 Argentina 2047 Paraguay 2106 Uraguay 2039 Europe England 2046 Ireland 2040 Portugal 2066 Spain 2061 France 2081 Italy 2061 Belgium 2051 Netherlands 2097 Switzerland 2068 Germany 2096 Denmark 2075 Austria 2092

Have you seen Wisconsin women between 18 and 38? Souuuuweeeeeeeeeee! Cars lean when they get in. Restaurant chairs collapse. They must use elevators one at a time. Their shoes last about a day and a half.

Wars😢❤

I don't understand, what's the point to bring children in when they will die and the world one day will eradicate, everything is gone. And in afterlife, most people would just end up in hell?? so being miserable in this life to the next one. Why bring the pain, just enjoy the short life as we are already born. The world will forever be unfair

7:08 Very interesting! Is it really the feminist groups that are trying to silence the people who are sounding the alarm bells of the growing worldwide dilemma of lowering fertility rates including childbirth rates? Or, is it some other unseen interest group or party altogether?

First view and first comment too 😊😊

There is a women’s story why did they have a man spokesman?😊 why is it? Is there a no women spokes woman?

Agritech and vaggines!

Some women find out they unfertile

I disagree...Have these expert's been following the migrant situation. Over population Please don't pee on my leg and say it's raining...

some humans have been shamed out of having children during healthy childbearing years and forced to "wait" until they are "mature" which doesnt coinside with natures clock. nature says 15 - 30 is th height of fertility for women. Yes 15 years old women should start then. cry me a river. millions, millions pon millions were born to 16 year olds. stop judging and start supporting famiies.

Who will be pushing our wheel chairs when all of us are in wheel chairs? Who will be our care givers when all of us are in retirement home complexes? Who will fix the public utilities and their power cables, water lines, sewage lines? Who will fix that and fix this? Who? Not to forget is who will be the police to maintain law and order? Who will be the soldiers guarding the borders and fighting invaders? Who will be the doctors and nurses to care for us in our old age? Who will be the emergency 1st responders? Who?!

🎉

Data can be interpreted in many ways what about Africa they have 7 kids going to add another 2 billion by 2050

The problem is selfishness. To have children you need to be able to share your life with your partner, then with your children, working hard for them. Too much selfishness makes this all difficult if not impossible. The individualistic societies have gone too far with the: "me, me, me," culture and, if they don't change, will pay the biggest price: disappear. By the way: I have 3 children and I'm european.

I dont think that there is any shortage of people having babies as you can see the world population is growing very fast. I think the problem is in the sort of people that are having babies and the consequences of there exsistance. And that inturn is stopping some people from wanting to have children. There are a lot of complex issues involved in this and unfortunately most of them cannot be altered.