About the demographic crisis

  • Demographic crisis is noted as a major issue for many of the economies of the developed world.
  • fertility rates far below replacement values mean that these countries have far too many old people and not enough young people to support them.
  • In the short term, this causes worker shortages and drives up prices.
  • If it keeps up indefinitely, it could eventually threaten the existence of whole nations.
  • While not affecting the USA so much, because it produced a robust cohort of Millennials,
  • many nations in western Europe are facing tough times ahead.
  • Japan, China and Russia are also in bad shape.
  • All three are at risk of losing half their populations in the next 50 to 100 years, and both have fertility rates far below the minimum needed to maintain a stable population

Causes

  • Generally the demographic crisis is caused by the following:
    • It’s become too difficult and expensive to raise children
      • This is because our economic system leads to cities and towns of isolated people, where they don’t know their neighbors
      • Cars on roads make modern communities unsafe for children, forcing constant supervision
      • children are not free to simply play outside unsupervised, because, with everyone in cars, there are few to no neighborhood adults out in public places to keep an eye on the kids.
      • Lack of spontaneous contact with neighbors means sitters are needed nearly every time a parent needs to go out.
      • The high expense of modern society forces both parents to work in order to make ends-meet, making it exhausing to both work and raise a family.
    • The isolation, shallowness, and sense of entitlement that capitalism breeds makes it more difficult to find parners and form stable pair-bonds.
      • This is especially notable in Japan, where millions of lonely men and women have given up on finding a partner and don’t even try anymore.
    • Raising a child is looked at as a career limiting move for many women, who fear the workforce will leave them behind and, saddled with children, they will be unable to compete.
    • Chronic stress, poor diet and pollution are hurting biological fertility, rendering a higher proportion of the population fertile than in pre-industrial times.

How Arcologies Can Help

‘It takes a village to raise a child’. We’ve lost our villages, and so it’s hard to raise children. Arcologies will bring them back: In an Arcology-based society, people will generally be under less stress and have more leisure time. A single partner should be able to support a family, or even if both parents work, the intentional-village subdivisions will make it far easier and less stressful to raise a child. The cities are car-free and monitored, so should be quite safe for children. Neighbors will know each other within the village, because they eat and exercise together, share primary schools and laundry rooms etc… Without cars, adults will be walking about, recreating or relaxing in public spaces and can thus keep an eye on playing children, whom they would frequently know by name. Retired people would not be segregated, so old folks would always be on hand to help with babysitting and supervision. This is also good for old people as they remain connected to the younger generations and have a way to contribute.

Intentional Villages and Car-Free cities will naturally improve the opportunities for people to meet one another, as people congregate in public places far more than they do today.

Healthcare, meals and higher education are ‘free’ to residents, so having more children in the family would not substantially increase family expenses. Parents don’t need to worry about meal planning and cooking at the end of a work-day, because nutritious means have already been prepared by professional staff.

Corporations are owned by the employees, therefore most will be more supportive of worker rights than typical companies today. Therefore, the career risk of having children should be less than we see today.

The medical system and the food production system will be focused less on making money and more on keeping people healthy. Therefore, people should be able to work longer into their old age. In the short term, this could help to offset the demographic crisis somewhat until the population stabilizes.

Thus, with most of the stresses, expenses and career sacrifices associated with having children removed, the natural impulse to have children should return, and over time, demographics should stabilize with a healthy population replacement rate.