[4clicknet]

This article reminds us that you can't just look at historic growth rates and extrapolate economic prospects. Environmental sustainability, the effectiveness of political institutions, and demographics start to matter more and more once you get to a certain level of prosperity.

Also interesting is the effect of demographics on technological development. For example, one of the factors driving robotics technology in Japan is probably the size of their aging population and the need to take care of them. Another case of 'necessity is the mother of invention'?

[forkandwait]

Kingsley Davis spoke of a "multiphasic response" that each society does to keep its population balanced (it doesn't always work, but it does happen). Right now, Japan and Europe don't feel they are so close to crisis that they are willing to really do what is necessary to increase fertility -- lots of government support for mothers, lots of propaganda, negative sanctions against those people who don't have families. "Traditional" (high mortality high fertility -- "pre-transition" -- societies have always had these pushes in place). Right now there is a little bit of govt support and a little bit of propaganada. But they will when they feel like they are in a crisis (esp Japan -- you watch...), and it may or may not be too late.

Low fertility is a dynamic that nobody has had widespread experience with, so we don't really know what to expect. We also still have plenty of people on the planet, so a population decrease of 50% might actually be a good thing at the bigger scale.

I am surprised at Rand, if it is as simplistic a report as the comments say (sorry, not reading -- I live and breathe this stuff). Demographers should start doing scenario work, besides trend extrapolation, especially at a place that is crawling with military types like Rand.

[_Y_]

Wait there was a xkcd comic about that: http://xkcd.com/605/

Speaking of 'necessity as the mother of invention' were there any research on how to increase birth rate? I remember something about Russia increasing it's birth rate, but I don't remember how.