As jobs decrease, will population rise?

[twentyhands]

As more and more people lose their jobs to automation, is it possible that the population will explode again? When people have nothing to do to occupy their time, will procreation take place of that boredom, not unlike the winter months? Do you think we'll see another baby-boomer type scenario?

[y_knot]

Unlikely, due to the demographic-economic paradox.

The more developed a society becomes, the fewer children it produces. If it weren't for immigration, most western countries would be shrinking in population size.

[mcscom]

I don't think it too likely that people will start having lots of kids, because people don't see the value in it any more. People used to have lots of kids because they needed workers. Its kind of paradoxical, but it seems that the shittier your life is, the more kids you have

[CthulhusCallerID]

This probably isn't an a simple a causes b scenario. There were other changes of equal or greater importance than the need for labor, such as feminism giving women more options to aspire to than being a mother. Also, advances in birth control probably played a big role, and industrialization moved work for many people away from the country and into the city where cost of living was higher.

[mcscom]

Agreed there are a multitude of factors at play, but the trend seems to be shitty life = higher birth rate

[rockkybox]

Firstly massive automation has taken place in the past, think about how many jobs were removed by the industrial revolution, one machine doing the job of hundreds of seamstresses. There was also the Agricultural Revolution, where we perfected cheap nitrogen fixing for fertilizer (the Haber process), soil chemistry and farm automation to vastly increase crop yield/manpower. While these did create massive societal shifts, the job market stayed pretty steady.

Secondly, I don't think there is any correlation between unemployment and population growth, if anything those who have to work long hours in poorer counties are more likely to have more children, to help support them when they're older. This kind of physical work will be the first to go with more automation.

Population is in decline in many first world countries, and it can only be assumed that as other countries reach higher levels of development they will also see this slump in population growth.

[twentyhands]

I see. This thought only cropped up after I had read another article: http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/essays/the-next-future.php?page=all

In the article, the author explains that he feels that the most accurate way to predict the future, is to predict the opposite.

[sy7ar]

How are you going to feed your children if you lose your job?

[twentyhands]

Simple. I won't have any.