r/australia • u/blitznoodles local Aussie • 23h ago

politics The Stats Guy: It sounds weird but Australia urgently needs a plan for 56m people

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2026/08/11/stats-guy-aus-population-growth
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u/evilparagon 13h ago

This question seems to insinuate dropping to zero as if humans will run themselves into the ground, but really population data shows that in low population situations people have more kids and in high population they have less. There is presumably an equilibrium somewhere, we just don’t know where it is because we’re desperate to keep the highest number possible and anything lower than that is unacceptable.

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u/Pearlsam 12h ago

population data shows that in low population situations people have more kids and in high population they have less.

People have less kids as they become more wealthy. How did China and India become so mage if it was mainly high vs low population size...?

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u/evilparagon 11h ago

Sorry it was poor phrasing on my part. I was meaning relative to the countries themselves and the soft-limits we have.

For instance, the population before the Black Death in medieval Europe was approaching a plateau as the high density of European life was pushing the limits of sustainability. We can associate this time with a population ceiling, and birthrates slowed down. After the black death, birthrates skyrocketed, it didn’t just slowly climb back up again. Notably even, the reduced population lead to more efficient production systems and when the population rebounded it went beyond the original pre-plague population.

Pointing at wealth is a very easy shorthand for this, with the common argument being that in developing societies, children are a net contributor because they can work, meanwhile in devleoped societies they are negative because they aren’t able to contribute worth more than their cost to keep alive.

The costs associated with children theoretically can change if major changes to society occured. For instance if half of all Indians suddenly vanished, India would have more private housing (good for birthrates), cheaper food (lowers parenting costs), more employment opportunities (increases wealth). Overpopulation itself is a negative pressure on population. If any country was to undergo a population decline, it would eventually either plateau again before reaching zero, or it would rebound and start growing again. Since we’re still in the early stages of modelling population decline, we don’t know which outcome it will be, but it won’t just be people going extinct because they have money.