Talk:Population decline

Economic Impact

In one paragraph, it says "The effects of a declining population are bad for an economy" but in the next it says "The average standard of living...will tend to rise as the amount of land and resources per person will be higher. The period immediately after the Black Death, for instance, was one of great prosperity, as many had inheritances from many different family members." So which is it? Or is it controversial, hence the two viewpoints? In any case, it is very confusing as it is written.ErikHaugen 19:30, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Confusing is exactly correct. By definition, a lower population will be bad for the economy. Fewer people means fewer people making things, so the value of the economy as a whole has to fall. But for the actual people concerned it might mean a much better standard of living individually. The article talks about the black death. terrible for those with property since labour became hard to get. Brilliant for the labourours since wages and working conditions shot up. The effect was a real improvement for most people. Sandpiper 07:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In general the period of decline itself is almost always deleterious, but once the decline has ended the new smaller population is often better off. - SimonP 13:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

it might be interesting to include late 16th century Mexico, where spanish overlords grabbed most of the land formerly inhabited by disease victims, which was to the detriment of the remaining native population.

A distinction between wealth of the country and wealth of the people must be made. For example, the US has a higher GDP growth than Japan, but since the US's population growth is much higher than Japan's (which is negative), the GDP per capita growth is higher in Japan. So the US is getting richer faster than Japan, but Japanese are getting richer faster than Americans. In a mining economy, such as Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Qatar,... since the amount of resources in the ground is fixed (or declining it is mined), the bigger the population, the poorer it becomes. A larger workforce can lead to higher volumes of mining, but that would make the mining reserves last less, thus impoverishing the future generations.

For a long time, in agricultural societies the motto was a mouth to feed is two hands to work, but with the increase of mechanisation, a very small number of farmers can feed a large population, so the limitation is more of land than manpower.

Maybe something can be said about real-estate too? With a declining population, land and houses become cheaper so people can afford bigger/better homes?

Last point: there's a high rate of unemployment in many countries, so a declining population will reduce unemployment, and I don't see how that can have a bad impact.AtikuX (talk) 06:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Growth potential for the total real GDP may be reduced with fewer workers, but that does not mean even that will enter into absolute decline, since other factors (e.g. natural resources, growth in productivity per worker and per hour due to technological progress) affect economic growth just as much if not more. Look at Russia and oil, for example. Their economy grew very rapidly for nearly a decade and their population is dropping faster each year. And oddly, their inflation has been in the double digits recently, which is even tougher to explain (theoretically should be deflation). Also, the rate of decline may be important--a faster decline should in principle be worse for the economy than a gradual one for obvious reasons, even if the net change is identical. And what if a country has a large excess population (and/or density) to begin with? Surely there would be some economic relief from moderate emigration or having fewer kids, no? In other words, the correlation between population growth and economic growth is more tenuous that conventional wisdom says, and I don't blame anyone for being confused about it.Ajax151 (talk) 17:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article is full of speculation and irrelevant correlation. For example, the "economic growth" experienced in the mid 2000's was a result of an economic bubble which has since collapsed (making several points made in this section irrelevant). Declining population has a myriad of negative effects, which arguably more severe than the benefits. This section is slanted and should be removed until everything can be cited by actual data. NPG is hardly an unbiased source for information either (as its stated goal is to encourage Negative Population Growth). Perhaps this sections "facts" can be backed up by data from national research organizations instead of ideologically aligned entities. Mrsdelaney (talk) 02:17, 12 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But interestingly, Japan and Germany were the first countries to exit the recession as well. And the epicenter of both the bubble and recession was the United States. Makes you wonder.Ajax151 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:06, 12 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]

This article is incredibly poorly written and is all over the place. It repeats points and gives a barrage of facts without any apparent cohesion. It also loses focus of the effects of population decline by introducing many irrelevant statistics. It also seems fairly biased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.52.103.97 (talk) 16:46, 20 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the above comments. This section (Economic consequences) makes many valid points, but I would also say that it needs more structure, more references, and a more neutral perspective on the economic impact of population decline. Much of this section was written 10 years ago, and some of it is outdated. Plus, we now have Japan as an example of a country that is experiencing population decline and more recent research that can both shine some light on this subject. So, I plan to re-write this section to deal with these issues.

I propose the introductory sentence for this section to be: “The single best measure of economic success is growth in GDP per person, not total GDP(1). GDP/person is a rough proxy for average living standards, for individual prosperity(2). Whether population decline has a positive or negative impact on a country’s citizens generally depends on the rate of growth of per capita GDP relative to the rate of decline in the population.”

1. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2008/03/13/grossly-distorted-picture 2. https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth

Joe Bfsplk (talk) 16:27, 22 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is one of the most important parts of this article. At this point the impact of pop decline is spread over three sections: • Underpopulation • Positive effects of a population decline • Economic consequences I propose to combine these into one section. The draft is at the link below. I have tried to retain everything in these three sections that is supported by citation; I’ve simply reorganized it all. The goal is to produce a neutral discussion of the positives and negatives of population decline. The edit history shows what I did, starting at Mar 26. Let me know what you think. (link removed) Joe Bfsplk (talk) 02:02, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The new section has been read by about 20 people and having seen no negative comments I plan to start editing the existing section as per the draft that you all have read. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 21:02, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed merger

Support merger. These two articles are trying to treat the same subject. The Underpopulation article tends to bear a POV. Merging can help reconcile the very legitimate point made by erikhaugen above. Joan-of-arc 17:48, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

support merge Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 16:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
support merger Bill Whittaker (talk) 16:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of doomsday scenarios

Could use votes to save this article, thanks MapleTree 22:33, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User comment in article

The following user comment and content was removed from the article:

"==Material moved from overpopulation== someone had placed the following text in the overpopulation article. it was misleading in that article to emphasize the relatively small population declines compared to the large growth in other lesser developed countries. the material may be useful here:

During 2005-2050, the net number of international migrants to more developed regions is projected to be 98 million. Because deaths are projected to exceed births in the more developed regions by 73 million during 2005-2050, population growth in those regions will largely be due to international migration.
In 2000-2005, net migration in 28 countries either prevented population decline or doubled at least the contribution of natural increase (births minus deaths) to population growth. These countries include Austria, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom. Cdcdoc 06:44, 8 October 2006 (UTC)"[reply]

Khatru2 02:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Socialism is not Communism

From this specific paragraph, -- The population of former Soviet Republics, with the exception of Muslim majority nations and oil rich Azerbaijan, is falling due to health factors and low replacement. Much of Eastern Europe has lost population due to migration to Western Europe. In Eastern Europe and Russia, natality fell abruptly after the end of Socialism. -- I removed the Socialism at the end and replaced it with Communism. According to modern political science, Socialism is a system of economy. Many still confuse it with communism which is a combinaiton of a system of rule, oligarchy, and a system of economy, socialism. Casimiri 07:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Underpopulation

The mention of underpopulation states that it is not a term that is in opposition to overpopulation; this is incorrect. Underpopulation can be defined as a country which does not have a sufficient population to exploit (use) all the resources within a country to their full extent. There are arguments that countries with populations that are not skilled enough are underpopulated. The UK, for instance, it can be argued, MAY be underpopulated. Canada is certainly underpopulated. I would be interested to know if anyone could possibly argue anything different. bliz 18:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you need to exploit all the resources? I read an article from the UN (I think) saying something that Russia needs tens of millions of immigrants to exploit Siberia, but it didn't even mention the possibility that these region can very well be left alone. Mineral and fossil resources are non-renewable so if a region has a high enough population to exploit them "to their full extent", then in a few years, there won't be anything left so the region will become overpopulated.

Underpopulation (to me at least) indicates that there is a vital need for a higher population, just like as overpopulation means that there's too much people for a good use of resources. For example, if you need say four people to exploit a field (ploughing, seeding, watering, harvesting...), then if you have only three people then it would be underpopulation as they wouldn't be able to feed themselves. You could have 40 people to exploit the field to its full potential, but as long as food collected > food needed, your population is at a sustainable level.

Some small villages are in a way underpopulated, as the population is not high enough to have doctors, teachers,... but that's more of a population distribution thing.AtikuX (talk) 06:40, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The example of the field is really talking about economic efficiency, not what is the correct population level for a country. Countries may say they are underpopulated when they don't have the labor available to man their industry. Under this definition, the US has been underpopulated for most of its existence. No country would want to exploit all of its resources right now, so it is not clear to me when the underpopulation period ends and the over population period begins.

Nations may say they are underpopulated when they don't have the manpower to create an army large enough to defend themselves or beat their neighbors, but this is a question of relative population, not absolute population. Iran right now is claiming that it is underpopulated because it does not have an army big enough to threaten the west, yet they are over exploiting water and several other key resources as they are calling for more people. Thus, the idea of under population seems to be one of point of view rather than one of science. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all. 74.77.123.229 (talk) 04:16, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

map

the map is wrong, because germany suffers population decline and SA not.!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnny-bollock-rotten (talk • contribs) 12:37, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Needs coverage of efforts to bring about population decline

Article is a bit unbalanced at the moment, needs coverage of efforts to bring about population decline (NPG, population environment connection, etc.) Zodon (talk) 20:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. You can start by citing the benefits associated with a decrease in the population and mention methods to achieve it. Like better family planning, easier access to contraceptives. 2601:940:C000:46A0:798A:4DAE:8A2E:B54 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:24, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, and how is it possible to discuss the effects of population decline without including the environment? Environmentally, the best/easiest thing we can do is to reduce the number of humans (talking family planning here, nothing nefarious) to reduce the carbon footprint - we would decrease use of natural resources, decrease waste, pollution, have more open space for plants and animals, reduce world hunger, etc. 130.253.126.17 (talk) 22:59, 8 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Needs coverage of causes of population decline

The culture of contraception, more than anything else, is what decreases fertilities. Contraceptive sex actively displaces reproductive sex because it hinders the development of taste for family life. People get the idea that sex need not have any result, so that puts sex in a vacuum and makes family life limited or non-existent. These facts need to be in article. I'm currently looking for hard info that relates contraception to decreased fertilities. I may add something later on. If not, anyone else may. 74.195.16.39 (talk) 17:53, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

South Africa

So, what is the truth about South Africa? Is the population increasing or decreasing? It is increasing thanks to immigration from neighbor nations like Mozambique and Zimbawe....or is it decreasing as a consequence of AIDS?--83.35.180.179 (talk) 03:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cause of decline in Russia

Currently the table entry for the cause of decline in Russia is "more deaths than births". Seems a bit vague...Ordinary Person (talk) 04:51, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Russia should be removed from the list as its population has returned to growth. LokiiT (talk) 18:48, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article confuses replacement rate fertility with zero population growth

The replacement rate is the rate necessary for parents to replace themselves in the population. It is not fertility greater than mortality. Thus, you can have replacement rate level fertility and have population growth if you have an unstable age distribution with few old and many young. This is the case for most countries that are in the middle of the demographic transition at the moment and have just achieved low fertility. You can also have population decline at replacement rate fertility if you have an unstable age distribution as a baby boom reaches the age of mortality. This is the case in the US right now. Most of the mentions of replacement rate in the article are really referring to fertility below the rate of mortality, or fertility less that what is required for zero population growth. It is not clear if these are also below the replacement rate of fertility. These are major misuses of demographic terminology. Someone should fix this. Avram Primack (talk) 04:30, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can we include something about theRoman empire?

The decline of the Roman empire is often said to have been partly a result of low-fertility on the part of the patrician classes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.166.169.236 (talk) 19:57, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Add to table, per www.un.org/esa/population/unpop ... % decline 2010 / estimated 2050 population

Table:1 Population Decline in Percent by Country (from various sources)
Country	Year	Population	% natural decrease[1]	Main reason for decrease	% decline by 2050[2]
Bulgaria	2009	7,704,687	0.79	declining births and life expectancy	34.93
Estonia	2009	1,299,371	0.632	declining births	33.25
Latvia	2009	2,231,503	0.614	declining births and life expectancy	30.38
Japan	2009	127,078,679	0.191^[1]	declining births	26.13
Ukraine	2009	45,700,395	0.632	declining births and life expectancy	26.07
Russia	2009	141,927,297	0.177	declining life expectancy	21.67
Lithuania	2009	3,555,179	0.279	declining births and life expectancy	21.37
Slovenia	2009	2,005,692	0.113		20.28
Belarus	2009	9,648,533	0.378	declining births and life expectancy	19.5
Poland	2009	38,482,919	0.047	declining births	16.58

'Suggering this paragraph before Long term population decline' Understanding the Decline Europe’s population has declined drastically and rapidly over the last fifty years. There are various reason why, starting with the multiple financial situations of families or single mothers now face. Low income influences low fertility rate because raising children is expensive. As a result there is a decreasing in the size of families large to smaller ones in Europe. Another major influence on low fertility rates is change in some European economies, leaving families uncertain in their future financial situations and the decision one the correct time to have children. This regulates the size of families and in some cases couples decide to not have children all together. These changes in equilibrium does not go unnoticed, the fluctuation in the European population has cause its damage, and will continue to if changes does not take place immediately. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebony SHUwrite (talk • contribs) 17:28, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "CIA World Factbook -- Japan". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved October 6, 2009.

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This entire article suggests low birth rates are absolutely bad and needs to be balanced

I propose the following inclusion:

White nationalists use evidence of a declining birth rate in support of their extremist views and calls to violence.^[1] Lower fertility rates are generally associated with dramatic increases in population health and longevity.^[2] Increasing populations are not necessary to maintain economic growth and social vitality because of advances in automation and workers living healthy lives much longer into old age. Declining populations require fewer scarce resources and pollute less.^[3] Fewer dependents mean that families, regions, and societies can achieve more productive uses of available resources and increase their quality of life.^[4] While there were in the past advantages to high fertility rates, that "demographic dividend" has now largely disappeared.^[5]

References

^ Betuel, Emma (January 13, 2019). "CDC Data on Declining US Fertility Rate Is Being Used by White Nationalists". Inverse.
^ ESHRE Capri Workshop Group (1 October 2005). "Noncontraceptive health benefits of combined oral contraception". Human Reproduction Update. 11 (5): 513–525. doi:10.1093/humupd/dmi019. ISSN 1355-4786.
^ Davis, Nicola (26 December 2018). "Falling total fertility rate should be welcomed, population expert says". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
^ Lee, R; Mason, A (10 October 2014). "Is low fertility really a problem? Population aging, dependency, and consumption". Science (New York, N.Y.). 346 (6206): 229–34. doi:10.1126/science.1250542. PMID 25301626. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
^ Smeeding, TM (10 October 2014). "Economics. Adjusting to the fertility bust". Science (New York, N.Y.). 346 (6206): 163–4. doi:10.1126/science.1260504. PMID 25301602. Retrieved 16 March 2019.

Are there any objections to including those statements in the introduction? EllenCT (talk) 16:44, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I object on two grounds. First I object to EllenCT Proposing a change on on an article talk page and then making that change an hour later before anyone responded and labeling the change "per talk".

Secondly, I object to EllenCT inserting WP:OR into multiple articles. See Talk:White genocide conspiracy theory, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#White genocide conspiracy theory is unbalanced and Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#Are these edits to White genocide conspiracy theory original research? and User talk:Jimbo Wales#Double standard, where many experienced editors have told you that you are wrong and nobody has supported your proposed changes.

Despite abundant evidence to the contrary (it turns out that neo-nazis are not shy about expressing their views. Who knew?) You keep insisting that the white genocide conspiracy theory is that low birthrates are bad. This basic error is firmly based on original research and not on what any reliable source says about the WGCT. The actual WGCT believes that low white birthrates combined with high non-white birthrates are bad, and the belief that this is a a deliberate conspiracy. The Neo-nazis and racists who hold this theory would be quite happy if the birthrate of whites went down while the birthrate of non-whites went down farther and faster. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:54, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Guy Macon: which of the specific statements do you claim are original research? This article has nothing to do with the conspiracy theory. EllenCT (talk) 02:06, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Although I believe high fertility causes many problems, the change made by EllenCT (18 March 2019) has made the Introduction biased towards low fertility. The pros & cons of high/low fertility rates should be discussed (in a balanced way) at a later point in the article, not in the introduction, in my opinion.Ivanalison (talk • contribs) 10:55, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have never made any changes to the introduction of this article. The paragraph in question was in the "Interpretation of statistical data" section and I intend to return it there because the claim of OR is clearly false. EllenCT (talk) 15:40, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Over a dozen experienced editors have told you that the claim of OR is true. Drop the stick, please. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:57, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No. They have not. This is a different article about a different subject. EllenCT (talk) 21:17, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Riiiight. Your WP:OR edits about white supremacy and birth rates on the white supremacy pages are completely different from your WP:OR edits about white supremacy and birth rates on the birthrate pages because reasons. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:29, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You keep deleting the statements saying they are original research, but you are unable to find any which are not supported by reliable sources, so I am replacing them. EllenCT (talk) 17:59, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I can't take this any longer. I am unsubscribing from this and all related pages. I wish the rest of you the best of luck in dealing with this dumpster fire.

Splitting proposal

On the advice of Makael Haggstrom, I propose that the section Economic consequences be split into a separate page called Economic consequences of population decline. The content of the current page is too large, and, as the comments above make clear, is in need of a re-write. A draft of the new article is here: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Draft:Economic_consequences_of_population_decline. If this is acceptable to everyone I will summarize the existing section (Economic consequences) and complete the split. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 15:26, 6 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The new article has been read by about 25 people and having seen no negative comments (or in fact none at all), I have moved the draft of the new article to main space and have added a "Main article" link to it in the Economic consequences section. Next step is to summarize the existing Economic consequences section. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 16:25, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Changing trends

This section is a little un-focused. The first sentence is about child-bearing; the second sentence is about reasons for the population decline of the former Soviet Union, (which is no longer true); and the remainder, starting with "... governments can influence ..." should be moved to the section "National efforts to reduce population decline". I propose to replace this section with a new section that covers the single topic of changing trends in population growth. You can find the draft at (link deleted) (talk) 18:53, 15 November 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joe Bfsplk (talk • contribs)

The new section has been read by about 30 people and having seen no negative comments, I plan to move the draft of the new section to main space and replace the existing section. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 20:26, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Long term trends

For this section I propose changing the title to "Long term future trends" and adding charts and numbers to show what the UN and others are saying about the future. You can find the draft here: (link deleted) Joe Bfsplk (talk) 20:45, 13 January 2020 (UTC) Joe Bfsplk[reply]

Following the advice of Mikael Haggstrom I will move most of the draft into the main article "Projections of population growth". For this article I will add one table of growth rates from the UN.Joe Bfsplk (talk) 19:16, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

National efforts to reverse declining populations

This section makes some valid points but the discussion should be expanded to describe other policy options that are now being examined in the literature. So, I propose to split out an article, to become this section's main article, called "National efforts to confront declining populations". You will find the draft here: (link deleted) If this draft is acceptable to everyone I will summarize the existing section (National efforts ...) and complete the split. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 21:56, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The draft has been available for about two weeks and read by a few people, so having seen no negative comments, I plan to move it to main space and replace the existing section with a summary of it. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 21:55, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Should be changed to Efforts to reverse declining populations. ToddGrande (talk) 01:46, 15 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

On Aug 21 Slashme chose to re-direct the main article “Natl efforts to confront pop decline” to a section of “Sub replacement fertility” https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility#Attempts_to_increase_the_fertility_rate that discusses efforts in Romania to increase that country’s TFR. This is inappropriate for two reasons: 1) according to Wikipedia standards, https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Redirect#Redirects_that_replace_previous_articles a major change like this should first be discussed on the Talk page, and 2) a national effort to increase TFR, a.k.a. Natalism, is just one of the options discussed in the original article. Suggesting that increasing TFR is the only way for nations to confront pop decline is simplistic at best.

In the main article “Natl efforts to confront pop decline” there is a discussion of Natalism. If Slashme wants to improve this discussion of Natalism, fine. Maybe he could add a link to the section on Romania’s campaign to increase TFR.

In any case I would simply ask him to reverse the re-direct and start a discussion here on how he would like to improve this article.Joe Bfsplk (talk) 17:29, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To resolve this situation, I propose the following: 1. I will move “Natalism” to the top of the list of “Policies to increase the size of the workforce” 2. I will add a link to https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility#Attempts_to_increase_the_fertility_rate, to serve as an example of Natalism 3. I will expand the section to add some of the content in the old main article. The Population Decline article is averaging about 600 views per day, but this old main article was averaging only around two, so very few are bothering to click through to it. So, I will delete the “Main article” link. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 20:45, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A draft of the proposed changes is here:(link deleted) Let me know what you think. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 16:20, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to those who have reviewed this proposal. Having seen no negative comments, I will revise this section as shown. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 15:31, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interpretation of statistical data

I propose to merge the ideas in this section into the main body of this article. Both paragraphs in this section have something to offer, but previous editors have taken issue with both. My intention is to include the ideas here in such a way as to be acceptable to all. The draft of the changes I propose is here: (link deleted) The history of edits that produced the draft starts April 22, 2020. Let us know what you think. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 23:07, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The edits proposed have been read by about 20 people and having seen no negative comments I plan to start editing the existing section as per the draft that you all have read. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 21:23, 11 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

COVID-19

Soumya-8974 inserted a hat note (May 10) suggesting that this article include information about Population decline caused by COVID-19 pandemic. At this point this virus has claimed about 370,000 lives world-wide on a global population of about 7.8 billion. So far, then, this virus has caused a short-term population shock of about -0.005%. The “Causes” section lists disease as one cause of short-term shocks with an example of the Black Death. The Black Death claimed 75-200 million lives on a global population of maybe 500 million [[3]] at that time.

We could add COVID-19 to the list, but I think that the article already has three good examples. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joe Bfsplk (talk • contribs) 16:50, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably well past time to add it, given that despite the fact that its effects are relatively small (5 million reported, 12 million estimated), it also caused a severe shock to the world's fertility rate, and then apparently is also causing a small rebound. There's no need to say anything definitive about its long-term effects, but its short-term ones are apparent. It's becoming quite noticeable that every population page's references only go up to February 2020. SilverbackNet ^talk 04:33, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The COVID – 19 pandemic is mentioned further down in this section, and I have added your comment on fertility. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 17:12, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Lead

I would suggest an update of the lead.

According to the Wikipedia manual of style, “The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents.” The current version is mostly a statement of possible positive and negative impacts of population decline; but leaves out the long-term projections of population change and national efforts to confront the projected population decline, both of which are covered at length in the article. Plus, about half of the current lead is a list of pluses from population decline; the lead must be a summary.

The style manual also instructs that “…significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article.” The term “Shrink and Prosper” does not appear in this article. Furthermore, the term is the title of chapter 13 of the book “Countdown” by Alan Weisman. I did not find the term in the body of that chapter, nor have I found any other reference or use of the term. It might be a nice expression of the possible positive effect of a declining population, but I don’t think it meets the Wikipedia criteria for an acceptable reference.

A draft of a revised lead is here. (link deleted). Let us know what you think. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 14:48, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The draft has been available for about two weeks and read by about a dozen people, so having seen no negative comments, I will revise the lead as shown. Joe Bfsplk (talk) 18:51, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

High abortion rate

I've removed the two countries listed with a high abortion rate because there's no quantification of a high abortion rate, no mention of abortion anywhere in the article and no consistency - Romania and Ukraine were considered high whereas Georgia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Spain and Estonia have higher or comparable rates both per woman and per live birth according to Eurostat. Ocram (talk) 17:57, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

5.5 billion?!?

"contraception and abortion in the 20th and 21st centuries reduced the world's population by around 5.5 billion" the source for this is in Polish, help? Matthewmorrone1 (talk) 23:25, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Possible vandalism

An anonymous user deleted over 1,000 bytes worth of info yesterday (15/10/23) only providing the description “ Thank goodness for god”. I believe this is vandalism, if anyone could contact support to get this reverted id be great. Cheers. Ace Lad22 (talk) 17:58, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Paragraph with evident political bias

Under Causes>Famine: the Irish Famine is merely mentioned and linked. The Great Chinese Famine is also linked. But then the Great Leap Forward is additionally mentioned as the famine's cause (that famine's own entry lists numerous other causes) as well as a vague death toll. It has the smell of a writer jumping on the chance slip in a "communism bad" slant.

The bullet point is about famines as a cause of population decline, not administrative policy via famine as a cause of population decline. So adding the political factors in the Irish Famine doesn't fix the problem here. IMHO, the point being made in this section is clearest if the famines listed aren't so deeply entwined with contentious political events. And if death tolls must be included, do so for all famines mentioned and list only famines with academically uncontroversial death numbers. There are plenty. 24.85.113.134 (talk) 18:18, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "CIA World Factbook -- Japan". CIA World Factbook. Retrieved October 6, 2009.

[BetuelE-2] Betuel, Emma (January 13, 2019). "CDC Data on Declining US Fertility Rate Is Being Used by White Nationalists". Inverse.

[ESHRE-3] ESHRE Capri Workshop Group (1 October 2005). "Noncontraceptive health benefits of combined oral contraception". Human Reproduction Update. 11 (5): 513–525. doi:10.1093/humupd/dmi019. ISSN 1355-4786.

[DavisN-4] Davis, Nicola (26 December 2018). "Falling total fertility rate should be welcomed, population expert says". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 March 2019.

[LeeR-5] Lee, R; Mason, A (10 October 2014). "Is low fertility really a problem? Population aging, dependency, and consumption". Science (New York, N.Y.). 346 (6206): 229–34. doi:10.1126/science.1250542. PMID 25301626. Retrieved 16 March 2019.

[6] Smeeding, TM (10 October 2014). "Economics. Adjusting to the fertility bust". Science (New York, N.Y.). 346 (6206): 163–4. doi:10.1126/science.1260504. PMID 25301602. Retrieved 16 March 2019.

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