Malthus revisited

As if the current economic woes aren't bad enough, overlying the current fiscal disaster in western economies is a demographic catastrophe.

All the world's major economies are experiencing falling birth rates, with many now at the point where their population is either falling (Japan) or would be falling but for immigration (most of the rest of the developed world). An extreme example would be my hometown of Singapore where thre fertility rate now stands a shade over 1. The government is cmpensating by encouraging immigration, as are many other countries.

There are many problems with this.

Most obviously where are all these immigrants going to come from? if the developed world is all looking to import "talent" (as it is known here) then the immigrants have to come from less developed countries. These immigrants are3likely to be less qualified and productive than developed world trained employees simply because they come from less developed countries with poorer education systems.

Secondly it creates a huge brain drain on those less developed countries, as their brightest and best get lured away. Asan example there is a growing expat indian population here in Singapore who are largely well-educated, experienced professionals fed u with the the corruption and squalor of home.

It also creates tensions in their new homeland. Immigrants are likely to have a different culture, different expectations, and a different way of life. This can cause resentment both ways creating future social problems.

Perhaps the politicians are looking at this the wrong way. instead of encouraging immigration to keep populations growing, maybe they should ask themselves why their population isn't growing organically.

Could it be that falling fertility rates are simply an animal-like response to reducing space and increasing confinement? Many animals won't reproduce in captivity. are humans the same? In Singapore the population now stands at a shade over 5million and we are the most densely populated country on earth. We have endless blocks of high rise flats, most of them tiny. about 80% of the population lives in these tiny flats, often with elderly parents in the same flat as a young couple. is it any wonder they don't breed?

Over half the humans who have ever lived are alive today.

Maybe the world is full?

Or maybe, again like many animals, we have experienced a population explosion that is about to go into freefall. Locusts do it. so do lemmings. There are good years (for us improvements in healthcare and farming techniques) that allowed our population to explode, but now we are reaching a point where the resources aren't growing fast enough to sustain our past growth rate, and so crunch is coming. Rising commodity prices globally certainly indicate increasing pressure on what we have.

Perhaps politicians and economists should focus less on absolute GDP and more on GDP per capita. Perhaps Bhutan with it' Gross National Happiness index is the model we should look to for the future.