We Are Getting Old, People

A growing number of adults in the developed countries are choosing not to have children even if they could. Adults are opting to live the more care-free, less expensive life without burden of babies. Global birth rates have dropped almost by half from 1950′s to now (UNdata).

Old man in Ihasalu, a coastal village in Northern Estonia. As a completely inconsequential factoid we can tell that unlike in New Zealand, the sheep-to-human ratio of Estonia is still 1 to 18. Photo by Kris Haamer. (CC BY 2.0)

However, the global population growth is still booming. Even if the birth rate is going downhill, so is the death rate. Generally speaking, more people are getting older.

Still some countries like Japan have already declined to negative population growth. In 2005 Japan’s population began to decrease, and in the same year people aged 65 or older accounted for 21 percent of the total population. That’s a lot of elderly folk in a country with a population of 126 million. Most of the Europe is also aging rapidly as well as China and Russia.

The economic crisis seems to accelerate the trend in Europe. In those countries that have suffered most economically birth rates have dropped since 2008 (eurostat).

In New Zealand 18 percent of adult men have elected to get vasectomies according the article in the Details. As an interesting factoid the article mentions that the sheep-to-human ratio in the country currently stands at 10 to 1, but seems sure to increase, because of the vasectomies.

Human population growth rate in percent, with negative zero percentage, including the variables of births, deaths, immigration, and emigration, as listed on CIA factbook (2006 estimate). (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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