[yvely]

This is a common sentiment, but I have yet to hear any reasonable proposal for solutions. It certainly is talked about a lot in my experience.

It is so easy to complain about overpopulation. But how would you solve it?

1 child policy? Didn't work out great in China. Some can have children, others can't? Doesn't exactly seem right. Culling? Yeah, no-one wants genocide.

It's a very complex problem and people are very fast to complain about it, without thinking much about what actually to do.

[astrange]

It's a completely fake problem invented in the 70s by the book "The Population Bomb", and if it was true the things in that book would already have happened.

However, the West's strategy of writing moral panic books like this and then not actually reading them did allow us to defeat China (who read the book, actually did it and now has a demographic crisis) so that's something.

[nine_k]

It worked so well in China that they have a birth rate well below replacement level 20 or so years after the one-child policy was repealed.

[vidarh]

The cause and effect is not so clear. China's wealth has also risen substantially, and with it comes fertility decline. E.g. India reached below replacement fertility a couple of years ago without it.

I think it's likely the one child policy contributed a bit, but a substantial part of the decline is clearly also due to economic development.

[giantg2]

The solution is talked about and is reasonable - creating western-like living environments in the remaining high fertility rate areas. Higher standard of living and more individual freedom leads to fertility rates near or even below replacement rate.