New Sci Fi Setting Seeds

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Not right now. But a lot of that is rational calculation subject to changing conditions - it isn't unusual for people who actually do want more children to forgo them because they can't "afford" them - and even if it weren't eventually your population consists of the descendants of people who had whatever genes made them have them anyway. Eventually the rate of contraction slows and stops. Sure you may have a much lower global population for a while, but it isn't going to fall to zero.

People do not have children because they are expensive emotionally and financially. Just as importantly, people who do have children delay having children until they have done everything else that they want to do (and delay having a second child until their first child is old enough to go to school). It is not uncommon in the USA for people to wait till they are 30 to have their first child and 40 to have their second child.

There is no genetic condition that forces people to have children. With proper access to abortion, birth control, and contraceptives, no one in a technologically advanced society will have children if they find them inconvenient. If such a society wants to maintain its population, it needs to subsidize reproduction with financial and social rewards to women to have children. Perhaps a stipend the equivalent of $2,000 a month per child and preferential hiring would be enough to convince women in a technologically advanced society to have children.