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From: william@lorien.newcastle.ac.uk (William Coyne)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Human Population Growth/Decline
Message-ID: <1991Apr5.074139.23484@newcastle.ac.uk>
Date: 5 Apr 91 07:41:39 GMT
References: <21376@crg5.UUCP> <1991Mar20.125112.2920@desire.wright.edu> <21418@crg5.UUCP> <3146@beguine.UUCP> <1991Mar29.112327.3031@desire.wright.edu> <21472@crg5.UUCP>
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szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:

>In article <1991Mar29.112327.3031@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:

>I will certainly agree that overpopulation has been a problem, and 
>continues to be so in some pockets of the world.  However, increasingly
>underpopulation is becoming a problem -- in Japan, where there is a
>severe shortage of young workers, in Hungary, where population is rapidly
>decreasing (by over 1%/year), in Amazonian tribes that are being given birth
>control and driven off their lands at the same time, and increasingly 
>across most of the developed world, where retirement funds are coming 
>under severe pressure as a first symptom.  We should not let overpopulation 
>problems, severe as they have been and still are, keep us from seeing the 
>problems of underpopulation that are starting to occur.  We pretty much 
>know how to lick overpopulation; underpopulation is a difficult problem with 
>which we have not yet come to grips.

The problem in Japan and other rich countries is not underpopulation, it is 
there are an increasing number of old people and a decreasing proportion of 
younger people, so fewer workers to pay the taxes which are used to finance
benefits for the old and very young.

    Potentially it could be a very good thing that there are not enough young
people in the richer countries if it means their companies will transfer some 
work to the poorer countries.