Do we have an overpopulation or an underpopulation problem?

Overpopulation has been on everyones mind because we are about to reach 8 billion people on earth. While the graph shows the population will continue to grow for the next forty years peaking around 2050, it doesn’t show the other half of it. It's hidden because it reveals a steady downward plunge, meaning fewer and fewer people on the planet each decade, which could cause some panic.

This will start happening because people just don’t want to have children anymore. This causes the fertility rate all around the world to drop. It is stated that we are to reach 9.2 billion people on earth and then drop each year because there is a greater percentage of people dying than people being born. Countries like japan, ukraine, and germany are already experiancing a strong population decline and will likely be the first countries to start failing due to underpopulation. Many countries in Africa have rappidly dropping fertility rates as well.

An effect this has is the growing age of our population. 1972 was peak youth. The average age, since then, has been going up. This is because all of the young people from the baby boomer generation are getting older and aren’t having nearly as many children as they’re parents did. Older people are also living longer due to the advancements in technology and medicine. This could also be an issue for the older generation seeing as they kinda depend on the newer ones.

 

What could be other effects of underpopulation?

What are ways humantiy can stop this process?

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  • I think right at the moment our population is just fine. However if what you say is true, that we our population is going to go down in the futrue is cause for concern. China population is falling yes. However, they still have a population 4X larger than the US.

  • The birth rate per couple is actually 1.8 children. So that means that we aren't even replacing ourselves. China, with the biggest population in the world, is going to be halving its population because of the one-child policy that has been in effect since 1980. They did stop this policy in 2016.

  • I don't believe that underpopulation will be much of a problem in the future at all. I think that we are getting to be a little overpopulated, in some cases, overpopulation is a bad thing. Personally, I think that it's better than being underpopulated. 

  • I think overpopulation is a big deal right now, but underpopulation would be better for the earth for more than one reason. there would be fewer businesses but more food; not as many people would starve, and some homelessness might go down due to prices going down because of the smaller population.

  • I think overpopulation is a problem but I think underpopulation is ok. If we get to underpopulated some businesses would go out of business because they wouldn't be able to get employees. On the other hand over population could make a lot of people starve because we can only produce so much food for everyone.

  • I don't think that underpopulation would affect our world very much, but maybe it could lower production. I think that we are overpopulated as it is. I think that there should be less people on this planet. I don't know what the fixes could be for underpopulation.

    • I agree because lower production takes up less natural resources and would overall be better for the planet. There should be less people on the planet because we are consuming more than the planet can produce.

  • I think we are getting overpopulated but it wouldnt be a bad thing if our population started going down. Obviously don't want everyone to die but there are people that are homeless and stuff so I think if there were less people it could help.

  • Personally, I don't think we have either I feel like we are a good size country. I feel like if we were overpopulated we would only be able to have so many kids like china but if we were underpopulation I honestly couldn't see a con like we would have more food and less trash maybe our world would be better.

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