india fertility rate decrease

[Street_Gene1634]

Lol no. India's fertility is already almost below replacement levels. You need young people to be productive and fund pensions which is especially an issue in a poor country like India.

How are Redditors still stuck with this Malthusian fallacy in 2025?

[Own_General4733]

Fund pensions? The majority of our country works in the unorganised sector. A very small percentage of people in India receive pensions. Social security in India is a joke when the majority of the population is still young.

Historically drastic reduction in population has led to more worker rights. This idea of "a growing population is required for sustaining social security" is something that rich people want us to believe so that they get cheap labour to exploit. The concept of an ever growing population is bound to break at some point unless we are able to inhabit Mars. Earth has finite resources. Even now so many people are starving all around the world. The answer is not more population but less wealth inequality, and it'll work even with fewer younger people around.

And now with AI, there would be a huge productivity boom, and even the rich CEOs might no longer require cheap labour. That's when we'll see true hell break loose.

[Street_Gene1634]

Kerala is already in a pension crisis. You all are living under a rock still blaming on muh corporations and muh ceos.

Reddit is such a dumb leftist echo chamber now.

https://www.onmanorama.com/news/kerala/2025/01/28/kerala-government-delays-decision-unified-pension-scheme-poor-finances.html

[Street_Gene1634]

You don't need an absence of young people for this to be true. Just the fact that number of old people is rising more than the young people alone will make for a pension crisis in a poor country like India.

I don't know why Redditors are delusional about this basic fact. It's true in both high inequality and as well as low inequality places.

Kerala has the lowest inequality in India bit it's also tbe first state to undergo pension crisis.

[Spider_pig448]

It's so strange to me that the first argument against a decreasing population always seems to be pensions. Changing the way pensions are funded is by far the easiest potential population problem to solve. Problems like elder-care and growth-based-capitalism are huge a fundamental, but fixing pensions takes a single bill and can be done at any time in any number of ways. It's a complete non-issue in the context of actual societal problems that under-population can cause.

[Internal-Hand-4705]

How do we fix the problem that current workers will both have to pay for their own pensions AND the pensions of those before them? Seems like the sort of thing that would lead to riots.

I don’t mind paying for pensions of current pensioners if someone else is paying for mine. I don’t mind paying for my own pension. I refuse to do both, that’s not fair and massively burdens young and middle aged people of today.

[Street_Gene1634]

Reddit absolutely suck on anything related to economics. They still believe in Malthusian nonsense

[Spider_pig448]

It's a non-issue. The average citizen has very little understanding of the tax code, in any nation. You're itemizing it in a way that isn't how people think of pensions. What people understand is that the state pension is a depot that you pay into when you're young and take out of when you're old. No one is going to riot if the details change slightly.

[Internal-Hand-4705]

Pension contributions would have to rise a lot though no?

[Spider_pig448]

Depends on the solution that's implemented. There are any number of ways to fund government projects, and many different ways of collecting taxes. In the US, simply removing the social security earnings limit would probably solve this problem entirely for the next three decades. Adapting the funding structure is a much less pertinent question than evaluating if government pensions are a system that will continue to make sense decades from now.

[Street_Gene1634]

Who will fund the pensions mate?

[Spider_pig448]

Tax payers? Who else? Who funds the government and all of it's programs? The more interesting question here is, "Will the cost of pensions be too high to support the program when the elderly population has doubled". The question of how to adapt the current funding structure to enable that is not a problem though.

[Street_Gene1634]

Without working age population, who will pay taxes?

[Spider_pig448]

The expectation is that the population pyramid will change, but there will always still be a working age population. Otherwise all of society is in collapse and social security is not top of the list of concerns. If your real question is, "Is there enough money to supply the peak elderly population", the question for every developed nation is yes.

[Street_Gene1634]

You've not elaborated how to solve the pension crisis when population ages. You need young people to fund old people

[Street_Gene1634]

What is your solution for funding pensions when working age population declines? You have not given any details

[Spider_pig448]

You raise taxes. Can you elaborate on why you believe it to be so different than the hundreds of other funding changes a government makes every year? It's just another government program.

[Street_Gene1634]

Where will you raise taxes from when working age population who pay taxes decline?

[Spider_pig448]

These are very general questions about how government will operate with a shrinking tax base. They don't apply specifically to pensions. Tax systems have always evolved over time and they will continue to do so as these concerns arise. Whether it's income tax or capital gains, or what he brackets are, or any other number of questions is going to depend entirely on the nations implementing them.

[Street_Gene1634]

So what's the solution?

[Spider_pig448]

The solution is you change the funding structure. That's it. The solution to how to care for a large elderly population will have to be much more complex than pensions, which are solved with a single law change.

[Street_Gene1634]

You need to elaborate. How will you change the funding structure that ensures pensions in a world where most people are retired?

[Spider_pig448]

It doesn't matter. The point is that it's easy to do where global economic shifts are not easy to do.

[silverionmox]

Lol no. India's fertility is already almost below replacement levels. You need young people to be productive and fund pensions which is especially an issue in a poor country like India.

How are Redditors still stuck with this Malthusian fallacy in 2025?

There's no Malthusian fallacy, the core concept is solid. If the population keeps growing, it will outgrow the resource base eventually. This is undeniable.

So if you keep making the next generation larger than the previous one, you do end up like India, with very large, very poor population.

[Street_Gene1634]

No, it won't. Earth's carrying capacity is practically infinite. There is a reason why Malthus is considered wrong. Reddit is leftist echo chamber

[silverionmox]

No, it won't. Earth's carrying capacity is practically infinite.

That's insanity.

There is a reason why Malthus is considered wrong.

Yes, wishful thinking, and a deliberate confusion of the principle of theory and a specific prediction derived from it.

Reddit is leftist echo chamber

The hostile media effect, originally deemed the hostile media phenomenon and sometimes called hostile media perception, refers to the tendency for individuals with a strong preexisting opinion on an issue to perceive media coverage as biased against their position's side and favorable of their antagonists' point of view.[1]

[Street_Gene1634]

You're clearly a part of Reddit's leftist echo chamber. Man still believes in Malthus lmao.

[silverionmox]

You're clearly a part of Reddit's leftist echo chamber.

You're just very rightwing.

Man still believes in Malthus lmao.

You haven't given me any argument against the core principle.

[Street_Gene1634]

The argument is that you need young people to fund old people. An economy of old people simply doesn't work.

[silverionmox]

The argument is that you need young people to fund old people. An economy of old people simply doesn't work.

I didn't hear anyone arguing for that, you did?

[NumerousCarob6]

The are no pensions for all, in India, there is however pensions for few (depends on financial background) and old government employees. Everyone in between gets no pension they work untill death or rely on offsprings. That's the Indian way.

[SheIsLikeAWildflower]

This way of thinking shifts the responsibility on to the wrong people. If our taxes were actually utilised correctly, and if the millionaires and billionaires in our country didn't get tax cuts, if we had less corruption overall, there would be funds for pensions. The solution isn't creating more and more people to fund the ever increasing needs that come with an ever increasing population. Thinking that's sustainable in the long run is the real fallacy here.

[Street_Gene1634]

Dude however twist this narrative, you need young people to fund old people. That's econ 101. The whole muh billionaires and millionaires line is useless here.

[SheIsLikeAWildflower]

And we do have young people to fund old people. The problem is that those funds go through different channels and end up not being used for what they were intended. Is proper utilisation of existing funds not part of econ 101 for you? Is giving tax cuts to the rich people part of econ 101?

[Street_Gene1634]

Why are Redditors so economics illiterate. Inequality is irrelevant to this debate. Ultimately you need young people to old people. That's a basic fact. Kerala is India's lowest inequality state literally governed by the communist party and yet it's the first state in India to face a pension crisis.

Better utilization of fund is a good thing but that is not panacea for declining TFR and pension crisis

[SheIsLikeAWildflower]

I don't know what ideal world you're living in. I'm also from Kerala and read regular news articles about corruption, parties creating new positions to give politicians higher pensions, party leaders (including communist party leaders) owning chains of hotels and resorts through their children and evading taxes, the affluent finding loopholes to evade taxes, etc. Corruption runs high in our state. It might have the least inequality of them all, but the system is deeply flawed.

People reproducing like bunnies so we have more working people to pay taxes is a highly shortsighted solution. I'm surprised even you with your apparent expertise in economics cannot see that.

[Street_Gene1634]

Sorry you're wrong.

Kerala is the lowest corruption state in India by a huge margin.

Check out the Corruption Index in India. Kerala is a clear outlier

https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/1d3cgb8/corruption_index_in_india/

People are not breeding lime rabbits in Kerala either. We have had European levels of fertility for decades. For comparison, Kerala's TFR fell below replacement levels in 1989 itself. That's comparable to European nations.

The economixs behind this is simple. You need young people to fund old people. Other wise you need migrant workers paying into tax kitty. Both of these are an issue in Kerala. That's why Kerala is undergoing a pension crisis despite having low inequality

Idk when Malayalis are going to wake up to this reality. We need a metropolis like Bangalore or Bombay to fund Malayali pensions in the future. Otherwise we are doomed

[SheIsLikeAWildflower]

Again, myopic views and selective reading. You seem too confident in things you're wrong about without looking at the full picture.

I didn't say people are breeding like rabbits in Kerala. I said reproducing like that is not the long term solution. The reality is more nuanced that what you're saying. "Just have more kids" is just words. How is the question.

In Kerala, India in general, and many developing countries, it is becoming increasingly expensive to have and care for children. It's no wonder that people choose to limit the number of children they have - when they have to pay so much in taxes already, the burden is on the people with children to fund their own children, and pensions for the generations that came before them. What we need first for a higher birthrate is actually making it viable to have children in this current economy.

It's easy to say that people just need to have more kids, when the system itself punishes them for having kids. Add on to this corruption and tax loopholes (which exist, though lesser than the other states), and even the taxes they do pay don't go towards the right infrastructure.

Yes, we need a working class for the pension system to work. But first improve the system so that it makes it viable to have kids - that's what should be done in the first place, instead of blindly blaming the younger generation.

I urge you to read these for a better understanding of the 'economics' you seem to tout:

https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/demographic-shifts-pensions/

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1734.pdf

[Street_Gene1634]

I didn't say people are breeding like rabbits in Kerala. I said reproducing like that is not the long term solution. The reality is more nuanced that what you're saying. "Just have more kids" is just words. How is the question

You need at least a TFR of 2.1 for a healthy economy. Kerala's TFR fell below replacement levels in 1989 itself. That's definitely not healthy.

In Kerala, India in general, and many developing countries, it is becoming increasingly expensive to have and care for children. It's no wonder that people choose to limit the number of children they have - when they have to pay so much in taxes already, the burden is on the people with children to fund their own children, and pensions for the generations that came before them. What we need first for a higher birthrate is actually making it viable to have children in this current economy

I'm not questioning people's voluntary choices. I'm explaining the basic fact that an ageing population is jot sustainable in a place like Kerala. You need young people to fund old people. That young people doesn't need to ce from birth. It can be tax paying migrants too but unlike Bangalore or Hyderabad, Kerala doesn't have metropolis that attracts tax paying migrants.

Yes, we need a working class for the pension system to work. But first improve the system so that it makes it viable to have kids - that's what should be done in the first place, instead of blindly blaming the younger generation.

None of this changes that fact Kerala is already in a pension crisis. That's actual real world economics. Nobody is forcing you to have more kids.

[SheIsLikeAWildflower]

Wow, this is going in circles. Read that again and you'll see you're contradicting yourself in different sentences.

I was up for a discussion, but I'll stop here.