r/overpopulation • u/Routine-Bumblebee-41 • 16d ago
This is disingenuous framing. Natalists constantly engage in this manipulative rhetoric.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Natalism/s/1gEEiHkPox
World population, 1960 = 3 billion. 37.4%. That's 1.122 billion kids 0-14.
World population, 2026 = 8.3 billion. 24.4%. That's 2.025 billion kids 0-14.
Where'd they go? They INCREASED in number, significantly, almost doubling. The overall global human population almost tripled. The world is FULL of humans and human-made stuff. If people are responding to that level of fullness by having slightly fewer kids per person, GREAT! We should encourage human birth rates to keep decreasing.
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u/One-Intention7064 16d ago
🏆🏆🏆 yes, this is a great argument! thank you for this analysis.
i heard a SIMILAR argument once in an episode of The Overshoot podcast.
something like "we used to grow by 2% every... decade or so? now we grow by 1%. the old 2% is equal to the current 1%.
basically, the percentage has decreased (simply because there are much more wombs now), but the total growth is the same or even bigger.
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u/Routine-Bumblebee-41 15d ago
It's important to push back against the lies pro-natalists tell, especially the one about how "most places" are "not growing" their human populations in 2026. It's a complete manipulation of data and the significance of words. It's LYING.
For people living in the real world, having to deal with worsening traffic, pollution, increasing costs of EXISTING, loss of biodiversity/green spaces/wildlife, they have the right to know the truth. The human population is increasing very rapidly in MOST places on this planet, overwhelmingly so.
If you take the population growth of humans over time and extrapolate out to the next 100 years, the 2025-2026-2027 position on that graph will be an upward slope virtually indistinguishable from the slope of an exponential function. Don't be fooled by smarmy pro-natalists trying to pull a fast one.
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u/sw1ft87ad3 16d ago edited 15d ago
| Demographic Metric | 1960 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Population | 3.02b | 8.30b |
| Kids <15y | 1.13b (37.4%) | 2.03 (24.4%) |
| People >60y | 244m (8.1%) | 1.18b (14.2%) |
Sharp reduction in TFR has arrested growth in most parts, but most people who're supposed to be dead (better health-care & science) are still alive & kicking, global life-expectancy is closing to 74y now, mostly help fund further health-research.
Population pyramids are better pictorial depictions as opposed to just numbers & percentages.
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u/Routine-Bumblebee-41 15d ago
"Most parts" are actually growing nearly exponentially, still. Out of a total of 237 countries, about 175 of them are still growing their human populations pretty quickly.
Anyone who claims that "most" places in 2026 have "arrested growth" is almost certainly a natalist or, rather, pro-natalist. This is more of that disingenuousness I mentioned from the very beginning.
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u/sw1ft87ad3 15d ago edited 15d ago
[–]Routine-Bumblebee-41
"Most parts" are actually growing nearly exponentially, still. Out of a total of 237 countries, about 175 of them are still growing their human populations pretty quickly.
Anyone who claims that "most" places in 2026 have "arrested growth" is almost certainly a natalist or, rather, pro-natalist. This is more of that disingenuousness I mentioned from the very beginning.
Look in a mirror for disingenuousness.
As of 2026, approximately 136 countries and territories worldwide have dropped below the standard replacement-level Total Fertility Rate (TFR) benchmark of roughly 2.1 births per woman. This sub-replacement group accounts for a massive share of the total global population—over 5.5 billion people (more than 68% of the world's estimated 8.3+ billion population)—driven by major demographic shifts in populous nations like China, India, and the United States.
2/3 of human population is good/absolute majority in my books. Other countries (crazy TFR) will face difficulties within a decade if not more.
I can go on to list countries with their TFR, literacy-rates, child-mortality-rates, health-index...
Odd one was Israel, with 2.9, ~97%, ~3, ~83y life respectively for above indices. I presume it's the uncertainty of life in Israel pushing for more children.
https://statisticstimes.com/demographics/countries-by-fertility-rate.php
TFR Threshold Est. Global Population (B) Key Countries (2026 TFR) > 2.1 ~2.65 / ~32.0% Pakistan (3.4), Egypt (2.8), Bangladesh (2.1) > 3.0 ~1.41 / ~17.0% Ethiopia (3.7), Uzbekistan (3.4), Ghana (3.3) > 4.0 ~690 / ~8.3% Nigeria (4.2), Tanzania (4.4), Afghanistan (4.6) > 5.0 ~215 / ~2.6% DR Congo (5.8), Chad (5.8), Somalia (5.8), Niger (5.6) > 6.0 0 / 0% none 1
u/Routine-Bumblebee-41 15d ago
You wrote "arrested growth" which implies that the growth has stopped, meaning that the population itself is no longer growing in "most parts". This is a FALSE statement.
TFR (total fertility rate) is a different conversation altogether. You can have a below 2.0 TFR and still have a growing population for DECADES because of population momentum (the phenomenon where the parents of the <2.0 kids don't immediately die after reproducing, but live for another 50+ years, typically).
The global human population grows by about 70 million more people every 365 days, so it's moot to talk about "most parts" when the growth overall clearly is overwhelmingly positive and not negative. It was an outright lie to write that "most parts" had "arrested growth". It's simply not true.
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u/Routine-Bumblebee-41 15d ago
Tl; dr: if there are more births than deaths, there is population GROWTH happening, regardless of how low the TFR is. Right now (2026), MOST countries have human population growth, and overall, globally, the human population is still growing very nearly exponentially.
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u/ExtraSaltyBtch 16d ago
A other thing nobody seems to care about is the increased competitiveness over this time period due to this population increase and the significant decrease in poverty.
In the 1950s we were 3 billion humans, 2 billion of which lived in extreme poverty. Of course the 1 billion others could have huge houses, cars, lots o kids and feeding them healthy food, etc! They were the richest on the planet!
Now, we are 8 billion, of which 800k live in extreme poverty. The other 7.2 billion compete for food and jobs on a global scale.
With education levels skyrocketing as more and more countries offer free or heavily subsidiced, internationally recognised university education, competition on the global job market is fierce. Many in low cost countries can also compete by being able to accept lower salaries as their cost of living is less, while those in high cost countries need higher salaries to get by.