Demographic Winter

Hey guys!
It is time for the very first weekly update.

Ok, so this week we learned lost of interesting things about trends in the world. One thing I found particularly interesting was a video we watched called Demographic Winter. This was a two part series, but I will mainly be commenting on part 1.
Today and in decades past, we have been led to believe that the population was growing and at a rate that could even be damaging to the planet and the people already living on it. In this video, they proved this not to be true! The key piece of evidence that I can best describe to you is this. There is a high birth rate in our world which is currently causing population to grow. BUT there is a declining fertility which refers to how many children a woman is likely to have over their lifespan (not whether or not she is able to give birth). The number has decreased to a level that is below a number that is able to support population growth. What happens eventually is that there are more deaths than births and the population declines.
This is set to happen to the world over the next few decades and in some cases will happen sooner than others.

So what does this mean? Why is this a bad thing if there are soooooo many people? Well I'm about to attempt to tell you.
First, lets start with a thing called Human Capitol. This term is the name for the skills and knowledge that each person contains. Knowledge and skills are what fuel our economy and currently we have a very large supply of this. But what happens as people die or retire and there aren't enough working age people to replace them? The capitol decreases and the economy suffers because of it.
One of the more obvious issues with having less young people coming of age in these times is that there will not be enough people to support the elderly that are retiring from the baby boom age. This will put further strain on the economy and the population thus reversing the misconception about population growth. Instead of there being too many people and damaging the economy, it is the exact opposite.

These are only two of the many issues talked about in this series and barely scratch the surface of what will happen if this issue is not righted.
I shared this information with you because family is important in more than one way. It's not only important on an individual level or a religious level but an international level. Having children today truly has become an important part of contributing to society, culture and the economy.

If you wish to view these videos please search Demographic Winter on BYU tv