Finland’s Welfare State Has a Massive Baby Problem

[Klingers]

This is just the first 5 minutes of Idiocracy playing out. Happy, educated and well-off people have less children and have them later. You're seeing the same in a lot of first world developed nations that haven't opened the floodgates to immigration.

[PosPosPos]

There are ~7 Billion humans on Earth with the Earth lacking the resources to lavishly sustain every one of us.

If anything we should encourage this level of stabilization of birthrates and deathrates and decline. It's ultimately within the interest of our species, especially with the advent of automation that will make most low-skill jobs obsolete.

I would say that the developed nations of North America, Europe and East Asia turn their attention to uplifting the socio-economic status of the developing parts of the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa to lead them into this same direction.

Keyword: Lavishly

The Earth, however, does not lack the resources to comfortably sustain every one of us.

[Klingers]

This is just the first 5 minutes of Idiocracy playing out. Happy, educated and well-off people have less children and have them later. You're seeing the same in a lot of first world developed nations that haven't opened the floodgates to immigration.

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Keyword: Lavishly

The Earth, however, does not lack the resources to comfortably sustain every one of us.

The blunt, harsh and rather brutal truth is that as soon as we have robots to run the nursing homes we need to start sterilising some people and get the world's population down to about 2 billion. Yes, I'd probably favour the genetically, creatively and academically blessed.

Yeah, yeah... I know. Reproductive rights blah blah. Soft eugenics bad etc. Sure, let's just keep breeding this planet into oblivion, strip mine everything and use up all the fresh water. Shiny happy goodness!

[PosPosPos]

The blunt, harsh and rather brutal truth is that as soon as we have robots to run the nursing homes we need to start sterilising some people and get the world's population down to about 2 billion. Yes, I'd probably favour the genetically, creatively and academically blessed.

Yeah, yeah... I know. Reproductive rights blah blah. Soft eugenics bad etc. Sure, let's just keep breeding this planet into oblivion, strip mine everything and use up all the fresh water. Shiny happy goodness!

Not my point, so I will appreciate if you refrained from strawmen. I am just pointing out the Earth has plenty enough resources to comfortably sustain 7 billion people.

[I Push Buttons]

Or you could bring those people to the West where they can enjoy the social and economic progress of Western nations.

But then the OTHER group of crybabies said "waaaaah immergernts!!!".

The only people who complain about legal immigration are liberals from tech fields out in California who cry about losing their job to an H1B from India.

And the only people who don't complain about illegal immigration are fringe leftists who think we should have open borders.

The GOP complains about illegal immigration, but so does the DNC... The only difference is the GOP makes the issue a staple of their platform and a rallying cry for their base while the DNC just quietly deports people. NEITHER party tolerates illegal immigration... Conversely politicians from both parties have supported DACA... It is only Trump and his retarded administration that have opposed it.

The right LOVES legal immigration because H1Bs let businesses import the best people from other countries and pay them less.

[Klingers]

Not my point, so I will appreciate if you refrained from strawmen. I am just pointing out the Earth has plenty enough resources to comfortably sustain 7 billion people.

I was more latching on to your post for a general bitching session. Fair point though. I also agree that there is enough land, food water etc to support 7 billion IF we solve distribution issues.

There is a finite cap though. I don't know it it's 7, 10 or 12 billion but there is a cap.

[Mormolyce]

The age of retirement at around 65 was a tradition set in the late 19th century/early 20th century

And while infant mortality does account for a significant part of the historical increase in life expectancy it does not account for the entirety of it. Most importantly it does not account for war. When the retirement age was set at 65, war was still an ever present reality for the developed world. Crime was also significantly higher back then with many more people dying from homicides.

None of those things really had any significant effect on life expectancy though.

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The only people who complain about legal immigration are liberals from tech fields out in California who cry about losing their job to an H1B from India.

I know you like hiding behind this "oh no it's just illegal immigrants" bullshit but honestly your side can't keep that line straight for more than 15 minutes. You're not fooling anyone with that crap.

[I Push Buttons]

I know you like hiding behind this "oh no it's just illegal immigrants" bullshit but honestly your side can't keep that line straight for more than 15 minutes. You're not fooling anyone with that crap.

"My side"...

Oh look, another fringe leftist calling me a right winger.

[Lahis]

Just set the retirement age at 80, that will fix it.

I doubt I'll ever get to retire.

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...e-baby-problem

Well...at this point you really do need immigration to keep the welfare state going. Not much else you can do. Can't force Fins to have babies. Hopefully they do the right thing.

We need educated and skilled workers. People like that are a minority within the current immigrants.

[Mormolyce]

"My side"...

Oh look, another fringe leftist calling me a right winger.

Oh look, another fringe right winger calling me a leftist.

[I Push Buttons]

Oh look, another fringe right winger calling me a leftist.

Only one can look at your post history/started threads and see dozens of posts and threads every single day defending fringe leftists positions...

Can you provide even one example of me encouraging fringe right anything? Ever in my entire post history? Ridiculing fringe leftists doesn't make me a right winger, kiddo... I am firmly an establishment/corporatist Democrat. Or as Theodarzna would describe me, an evil incarnate technocrat.

[Mormolyce]

The near continous state of war in Europe up till the end of WWII had no significant effect on life expectancy?

Surprising, isn't it? The percentage of the population dying in war compared to Europe overall was actually pretty small. Soldiers are a smaller proportion of the population than you'd think, and in a lot of cases even if you were defeated the majority of your soldiers wouldn't actually be killed. An army might flee the field with casualties in the range of 5-10% in some cases.

About the only human scale event that had a noticeable impact on population growth rates is the black plague.

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Only one can look at your post history/started threads and see dozens of posts and threads every single day defending fringe leftists positions...

Can you provide even one example of me encouraging fringe right anything? Ever in my entire post history? Ridiculing fringe leftists doesn't make me a right winger, kiddo... I am firmly an establishment/corporatist Democrat. Or as Theodarzna would describe me, an evil incarnate technocrat.

I actually have no idea who you are, I reply to posts without looking at the username

How about this, I'll apologise for implying you belonged to the right if you apologise for calling me a "leftist"? Even?

Your actual contention that I was responding to is still laughable, of course.

[Deleted]

Well...at this point you really do need immigration to keep the welfare state going.

For immigration to help at keeping things going you'd need quality immigrants who work and pay more money in taxes than what they consume in various welfare benefits and other expenses. But guess what kind of immigrants we are getting...?

[Deleted]

Actually look at the OP's post. Finland has a problem keeping the welfare state running. The obvious solution is immigration. It's worked well in Canada, U.S. etc

It works so well in Denmark aswell. We spend 33billion each year on welfare for non-western immigrants - In a country of 5.5million. Thats how you keep the welfare state going.

[Nerdgasm]

I would love to immigrate to Finland to work there. But it's seems it's nearly impossible to validate my degree there.

I will start the learn French and get better at english instead. Canada's process is more streamlined when you have people to vouch for you.

[Lahis]

I don't understand why immigration is what will keep the welfare state going. What is needed is more contributions. Taxation could have the same effect.

Taxation has a breaking point too.

Our government has been shocked to find out that raising taxes and speeding fines hasn't translated directly into more income to the state when people have started to avoid the taxed things and started to drive more slowly.

[Deleted]

Having a baby end of November so thats 1 more, every little helps right? I dont mind offering my "services" to the ladies of Finland, but I doubt my girlfriend would be too happy with that! Lol

[Delana]

Actually look at the OP's post. Finland has a problem keeping the welfare state running. The obvious solution is immigration. It's worked well in Canada, U.S. etc

So you're saying you have a greater loyalty to the concept of a welfare state, whether it is a viable option or not, than you do to the people of the country? (Mass immigration is the abdication of a people's control of their country/lives.) That's...interesting...

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

This is just the first 5 minutes of Idiocracy playing out. Happy, educated and well-off people have less children and have them later. You're seeing the same in a lot of first world developed nations that haven't opened the floodgates to immigration.

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The blunt, harsh and rather brutal truth is that as soon as we have robots to run the nursing homes we need to start sterilising some people and get the world's population down to about 2 billion. Yes, I'd probably favour the genetically, creatively and academically blessed.

Yeah, yeah... I know. Reproductive rights blah blah. Soft eugenics bad etc. Sure, let's just keep breeding this planet into oblivion, strip mine everything and use up all the fresh water. Shiny happy goodness!

It's actually not we have the productive means to support more the problems comes from people certain people hoarding a disproportionate amount which is fixable.

[Pannonian]

Though i normally support immigration, using immigration to fix our social systems is a bad idea that will backfire:

While right now we could actually stabilize our systems with them, the problem lies down the road. Contrary to the internet stereotypes, immigrant women aren't brood mares and their fertility rates drop significantly after immigration. After 2 generations, there is not a big difference anymore between a descendant of an immigrant and a native woman. So the only thing we achieve is: The problem comes back in 40 years, but even harsher, because now we also have all these old immigrants who we have to take care of.

In my opinion there are only 2 scenarios to fix this:

1. Get rid of subsidies and pay people only what is available. This of course is political suicide for every party proposing it, and i can understand it that people like my parents who retire next year after having paid for 45 years would be really angry.

2. Subsidize until the baby boomers are all dead, then the system should be much more self-sustainable again.

Of course this goes together with people retiring later, though lets be fair - not everyone in every job can work til 80, and with encroaching automatisation we have to fundamentally rethink our approach to work anyway. Also, not only brining up the retiring age, but also enforcing it, which has been a huge problem here in Austria because people still used old loop holes to still retire earlier than they should.

To the guy who wants to blame woman: HAHAHAHAHA

But more seriously: This may be one factor, but not the only one and not the most significant. If you really want to get people to have more children you need to get rid of 2 way more prevalent "evils": social security and contraception. Now if I have no retirement fund, i need children to take care of me, this is one of the oldest human principles. Same goes for: yeah humans have a lot of sex for fun, and in a time before contraception sometimes this resulted in children. This is something that cannot be stressed enough. As more and more "third world countries" are rising fast in their development, fertility rates plummet. FAST. really really fast, and each new country going this way is even faster (as they can learn from others and use their ideas). As soon as contraception spreads, fertility drops like a stone.

So if you really want to have more children: ban any form of contraception.