Is a Declining Population a Bad Thing?
Korea is one of the countries undergoing the shrinking population issue with a record low birth rate. The nation's fertility rate in 2022 was 0.78. The number should be at least 2.1 to maintain the current population. At this rate, no Koreans will reside in the Korean peninsula in 200 years.
Therefore, the Korean government has been allocating significant budgets to incentivize births for the last decade. Nonetheless, the fertility rate is continuously falling. It is now inevitable for Korea to set a new world record this year, and many people are betting on a worse projection.
Government officials and the mass media portray this as a bleak future for the nation, claiming the nation's economic engine is cooling down and no longer sustaining growth due to the decreasing population. It will be a burden on the next generation to support the old generation that outnumbers them while the market productivity is significantly shrunk.
However, is the declining population truly detrimental to human civilization? I wouldn't believe so because the world is now absolutely overpopulated, and the economic system stimulated by population growth could become outdated with the emergence of new technologies.
First, the size of the modern population is unprecedented and artificially facilitated. Since the birth of human civilization, the world population steadily increased until the 17th century. The world population was estimated to be 200 million at the beginning of the first millennia. Since then, it has grown at 0.1% for 1800 years. However, the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century triggered the population explosion, creating a 6.5% annual growth rate over the last 300 years. It is unprecedented growth with the help of advanced science and technologies. As a result, the world population has doubled since 1970.
However, we may be on the verge of a new paradigm propelled by another technological advancement. The definition and contribution of human labor will significantly change due to emerging technologies like robotics and Artificial Intelligence. An abundant workforce might not play a dominant role in the future. Different population dynamics might be called for a new era as we have achieved exponential population growth through industrialization.
Second, the industrialized civilization also bears an unwanted outcome: global warming. Population growth is highly correlated with the result because energy consumption cannot be detached from our existence in modern society. It is also difficult to fix the issue because world leaders must reaccess the core system that supports modern civilization: capitalism powered by fossil energy.
We have tried to muster our effort to replace this energy paradigm with renewable and sustainable sources. However, this effort cannot catch up with the speed of climate change. To slow down the speed of climate change, we need to make less carbon footprint per capita or reduce the total population on Earth unless there is a novel technology to eliminate carbon emissions.
The declining population can play a role in solving the issue.
Most of us are unwilling to sacrifice modern conveniences for a greater cause. People want to avoid facing complex problems, too. For example, many Koreans blame China for local air pollution but do not realize such results are due to local demand for low-priced China-produced goods. Even if factories in China were to fully comply with environmental regulations that resulted in higher costs, such costs passed down to consumers in the form of higher prices would result in government blame for their incompetence in controlling inflation. Simple-minded voters cannot fundamentally change the political system.
Thirdly, the Earth cannot handle further increases in world population. We are witnessing more conflicts because of the scarcity of natural resources. For example, the conflict over water, the most essential resource, is rising. In 2000, there were 20 conflicts over water, but it has worsened and reached over 120 incidents in 2022. A more frightening fact is that we are losing at least 100 million hectares (equivalent to the size of the entire California state) of healthy land each year due to desertification, according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Hence, we must carefully control the population - a declining population is a peaceful way to manage overpopulation.
Fortunately, sustainability is getting attention these days. However, the speed of awareness is a far cry from making the turn of the tide. We should realize that production and consumption are not virtues anymore. Since the belief that the population must keep growing is based on that mindset, we need to demystify the belief.
About the Author
JW Lee is the Korea Business Development Manager with Flynde, a global company providing translation solutions to businesses of all sizes.
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