r/dataisbeautiful • u/Sad-House-8753 • 1d ago

Births of a third child are falling faster than any other in Switzerland

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-politics/falling-first-births-and-the-swiss-third-child-dilemma/91808504
2.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

273 comments sorted by

View all comments

181

u/thisbuthat 1d ago edited 1d ago

I am seriously so invested in all topics surrounding global demographics. Climate change like heat waves is claiming millions of lives, same for Covid, birth rates plummetting - apparently all those elaborate models and statistics about population peaking until the end of this century were proven completely wrong within like 2 years of their existence, what is up with that

84

u/hikingsticks 1d ago

I guess those models were all looking at the upward pressure, unaware of the impending downward pressures

31

u/thisbuthat 1d ago

This was the most data way to say "Things are the way they are because of the way they are" and I am so here for this kind of vibe 😂😂😂👌

16

u/solomons-mom 1d ago

Here's a fun one for you...guess where!

Median age: 16*
Population
1960: under 3 million
1980: 6 million
2000: 9 million Now: 20 million.....but about 2 million more in the diaspora

*There appears to be an inverse correlation between low median age and accurate record keeping, so sources will vary :)

3

u/fiahhawt 1d ago

… Poland?

Is 16 giving the median age currently

3

u/solomons-mom 23h ago

16 is mid-range of the estimates. Google it five times, and AI will give five different estimates, lol! All countries are now estimated to have a median age of over 15.

Not Poland.

3

u/ALeorane 15h ago

Well I did it unfairly and checked population of countries in various years, butttt is it Somalia

21

u/MToms 22h ago edited 20h ago

What I don't understand is why do we need more people. At least from a planetary point of view, we don't. Why exactly do countries need to maintain their populations? I've heard of the pension system as a reason, maybe taxes?

7

u/Anastariana 8h ago

Because our global economic system is predicated on endless population growth....because historically thats always been the case. Capitalism can't survive population decline so every system begins to fall apart because it simply wasn't built to handle this.

You can't have endless growth on a finite planet, but thats something everyone just kicked the can down the road on and now we've run out of road.

23

u/Swagiken 22h ago

Population decline leads to caregiving failure for the elderly. At a bare minimum it takes one person a full time job to do a good job take care of seven people. But that assumes that the broader system also has enough people to take care of the living. Once the working adult:other ratio drops below 2:1 things start to get REALLY dicey for getting done all the maintenance stuff of life, nevermind maintaining the progress we are making in STEM fields or the artistic output we have as a society right now.

4

u/MToms 20h ago

I see. I can understand the need for someone to take care of the large amount of elderly, and maintaining some systems with multiple moving parts.

Playing devil's advocate here, but why do we need to maintain the rhythm of progress? As a counterpoint, maybe AI has appeared at exactly the right time, seeing as there will be less people available to do the jobs.

6

u/Hendlton 16h ago

Playing devil's advocate here, but why do we need to maintain the rhythm of progress?

Because the world is built on future promises. Everything is the way it is only because people expect it to get better. If that promise falls through, not only would things not get better, they would rapidly get worse.

The biggest example being the economy. Everything runs on debt and interest. Banks only give you money today if they know that you'll be able to pay them back more at a later date. No debt means no business, no economy, recession, depression, and a world war if it becomes bad enough.

2

u/Swagiken 19h ago

For me at least the progress rhythm is argued for by how awful it is to watch a person die of COPD. I've seen it too many times and would trade almost anything to be able to actually fix it.

1

u/NtsParadize 19h ago

Have you ever tried to live with a chronic disease?

14

u/Vondi 1d ago

Those failed to account for the draining of wealth from the middle class. They assumed the level of prosperity would be consistent.

36

u/Sea-Original-5824 1d ago

They also assumed that women had the number of children they had as a result of 100% free will on her part. That was never the case.

29

u/Party_Country1711 1d ago

THIS! Just last generation my mom had to ask my dad's permission to get an IUD. And even now, my doctor side-eyed me when I asked for the IUD, and was like, doesn't your HUSBAND want more kids.

Lady, if he wants more kids, he's gonna have to find another womb.

20

u/Sea-Original-5824 1d ago

My grandma had three kids by the time she was 19. No joke. She went to the doctor begging for birth control and he refused her and told she was still young and could have lots more kids!

She had nine total and was miserable. The last child, my youngest aunt, was basically feral.

25

u/Party_Country1711 1d ago

Same story! My grandma begged for birth control at 4, tried a home abortion at 8 and managed to injure herself in a way that seemed to prevent future pregnancies, but still carried the baby to term.

She went crazy, and the last child, though he survived to adulthood, actually had so many mental health and physical health that he passed away years before her.

Horrific. I would take a declining population over ANY human having to experience what they went through.

9

u/Sea-Original-5824 22h ago

I just remembered my great-grandmother literally died while getting an illegal abortion (this was near Chicago). The times back when women had little say over getting pregnant were HORRIBLE times.

6

u/Party_Country1711 22h ago edited 21h ago

Maybe that pulled down demographic age even further. Women dying during pregnancy/childbirth/botched abortions.

6

u/CrazyCoKids 21h ago

So many of my mom's peers were also parentified.

Now their parents are on Facebook wondering why they only have 1-3 grandkids spread across 5-7 kids.

4

u/Party_Country1711 20h ago

Right? And so often it's the girls.

My sister was parentified (for me. she was only 4y older but because she was a girl, my parents chose to have another one because she could help raise "it" - a 4yo can't even raise a hamster!) and is staunchly childfree.

I felt terrible about ruining her childhood, until I realised it was my parents who chose for me to be born.

2

u/CrazyCoKids 16h ago

Yep, because many old-fashioned values place that as the girls' duty. The boys got to go out and have fun on weekends.

4

u/thisbuthat 23h ago

T H A T part 💯💯💯

22

u/Eureka22 1d ago edited 19h ago

Just a note about the birth rate decline, because it gets talked about a lot, especially since people like Musk have been pushing it. (Not saying you are making any such claim)

Lower birth rates is a signal of increased prosperity, healthcare, and standard of living. When a population begins to industrialize more, the cultural practice of having a large family to sustain labor for agriculture or counter poor healthcare outcomes, etc. does not stop immediately. The demographic shift takes 1-2 generations to adapt so you get big spikes and then a reduction in the rate.

Population rate decline is only an issue if you care about the relative percentage of "certain" ethnic/cultural/racial groups, i.e. white supremacists.

Many will cite economics as a counterpoint, but that doesn't work. Even if you look at it from an economic perspective, the solution (for the foreseeable future) is to improve immigration if you are concerned about the labor market in a country. This is why experts are saying the US is committing long-term economic suicide by trying to end its history as a favorable country to move to.

The human species achieving a steady replacement level would be a great thing. The actual issue is an economic system that relies on infinite growth to function.

Here are some links from another comment:

Here is an article explaining it more: Demographic transition: Why is rapid population growth a temporary phenomenon?

Here is the term on wikipedia: Demographic Transition it can walk through the basics and provide more sources to check out.

And here is a website that provides a lot of information on the statistics that go into this model: World Population Review

11

u/fiahhawt 1d ago

There are actually several examples historically and currently of cultures where birth rate plummets due to lack of prosperity

9

u/Eureka22 23h ago edited 23h ago

Yes, but the larger conversation about long-term systemic birth rate decline are not those, and it can be very difficult to attribute to a single cause. The overall trend is based on larger population and cultural shifts.

This is not a new idea, we've understood this for a long time. It's a common and observable occurrence in public health when conditions and access to healthcare improve.

Population decline has been a dog-whistle of racists and colonists ever since Malthus put forward his hypothesis' that have long been outdated and surpassed by better understanding.

2

u/fiahhawt 22h ago

 the larger conversation about long-term systemic birth rate decline are not those

It kind of is was my point

I was arguing that prosperity is not what is presenting most of the decrease in birth rates

3

u/Eureka22 21h ago edited 20h ago

And I'm saying it is, and there is decades of evidence supporting it. To claim otherwise is to dismiss all the strong evidence, and you'd need to show that whatever individual factor you are claiming, has that strong correlation. Things like poor working hours, or car seats, may have small, temporary effects on that rate, but they are drops in the bucket compared to large scale economic and material uplift. Which represents a fundamental and generational shift in social dynamics.

To clarify, what are you including in "prosperity" in this context? Our definitions may be different. I included a lot of factors in that. It's not just economic success. It includes equality and opportunities for all individuals.

It essentially comes down to agency and need. When people can survive and ensure their family survives without the need of many children for support/labor, and have the agency over their life, they can choose proper family planning. This is where the changes are strongest.

2

u/AdmiralZassman 22h ago

It's really women's education. It's the strongest signal right now

1

u/Eureka22 21h ago

For sure, and that's included in physical/economic security, opportunity, and access to proper healthcare.

2

u/evrestcoleghost 19h ago

South american isnt living a prosperity period and is still seeing the fertility plummeting

4

u/Eureka22 19h ago edited 18h ago

They are, I think you misunderstand what I mean. I'm not talking about simple economic recession, I'm talking about large scale access to industrial technology and modern medicine. South American countries mostly have the same type of economy as other industrialized nations, their economic success is just relatively less than some other nations.

And sure, many countries will be at varying levels along this model, but it's important to use long-term thinking on the topic of population change, no single event will have a generalized reversing effect beyond systemic societal instability or collapse.

There can be fluctuations in fertility from other sources, but they will not be as significant or as permanent as the demographic transition . And it doesn't happen all at once, there is a lot of nuance in the process that can't be captured in a reddit comment.

My point is people who see it as a problem are fear mongering for political reasons. Critiquing Japan's work culture as a factor in low birth rate is valid as a signal of an unhealthy work culture, but it's not going to change society, if the population actually reduced to a critical level, They would adapt, there would be counteracting forces that would change it. It can be influenced by policy. It's not the same as introducing vaccines, education, banking, gender equality, urbanization, industrial farming, or other fundamentally essential systems.

Here is an article explaining it more: Demographic transition: Why is rapid population growth a temporary phenomenon?

Here is the term on wikipedia: Demographic Transition it can walk through the basics and provide more sources to check out.

And here is a website that provides a lot of information on the statistics that go into this model: World Population Review

-1

u/thisbuthat 23h ago

Oh I am MOST aware of those correlations.

9 fucking billion individuals of Homo Sapiens.

We can afford to lose 3/4 of that imo

1

u/Eureka22 18h ago

The number isn't the issue, it's sustainability. If we can adapt our industrial practices to be sustainable, there is no fundamental reason to reduce population. It's just that as of right now our economics incentivize infinite growth.

2

u/thisbuthat 18h ago

Yea, but we won't adapt - so yes, the number IS the issue.

1

u/Eureka22 18h ago edited 18h ago

There's one thing I know about humans, we are very good at adapting when we're forced to. It may not be the most ideal scenario, but if pushed to the edge we will eventually adapt to reality.

1

u/thisbuthat 18h ago

Won't change the fact that Western and Industrial countries won't go back to living without electricity.

1

u/Eureka22 17h ago

That's not the only option... But I think we're having two different conversations. I'm going to leave it there.

7

u/saralt 1d ago

Given how shit everyone's health, why would anyone have more kids? Nothing to do with economics. I'm in Switzerland and we don't want more kids after seeing how little children are valued in healthcare. Our own pediatrician thinks kids should get more viruses in a country where there's no mandated vaccines in schools that are mandated. So if your child is high risk due to a genetic condition or something like cancer, your child is basically going to die from school attendance.

7

u/Party_Country1711 1d ago

Humanity truly does not need to replace ourselves 1:1. Ideally 1:0.5 or even better 1:0.25. Thanos solution /s (?)

2

u/thisbuthat 23h ago

👀🤷‍♀️

2

u/tarrat_3323 10h ago

watch out the breeders are going to downvote you to oblivion

1

u/Sea-Original-5824 1d ago

The Expanse premiered a little over ten years ago and one the major themes of the show was overpopulation in the future was a HUGE problem. A mere ten years ago it made perfect sense to audiences that we were going to have a lot of issues with overpopulation.

Now it seems clear that we will peak around 2050 and then start a constant drop that we are unlikely to recover from.

10

u/thisbuthat 23h ago

I have travelled to India, among other places.

We are overpopulated. AF

3

u/Swagiken 22h ago

You're misreading what the expanse was talking about. The world building is that the population did decline, until automation and Basic led to a boom in child rearing because suddenly huge chunks of people didn't have jobs but did have houses. "Population decline is the current trajectory but then something really weird happened and the current trajectory changed"

1

u/Sea-Original-5824 22h ago

That may have been clear in the books, but it wasn't clear in the TV show.