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Should we be worried about population decline?
How worried should we be about falling birth rates around the world? For years, experts have been sounding the alarm about overpopulation and the strain on global resources, so why is population decline necessarily a bad thing? On GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, demographic expert Jennifer Sciubba, President & CEO of the Population Reference Bureau, warns governments are “decades behind” in preparing for a future that’s certain to come: one where the global population starts decreasing and societies, on average, are much older.
Sciubba says that government policies are too focused on trying to get people to have more babies instead of adjusting their social and economic systems for an aging, smaller population. “If we're thinking geopolitically, who's likely to come out on top,” Sciubba predicts, “It'll be the countries who realize the fastest that they're not going to reverse these population trends and they instead build to deal with it.”
Watch full episode: Why the world is facing a population crisis
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
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The global population is aging. Is the world prepared?
Listen: The world is on the brink of one of the most fundamental demographic shifts in modern human history: populations are getting older, and birth rates are plummeting. By 2050, one in six people on Earth will be over 65, which will have a huge impact on the future of work, healthcare, and social security. On the GZERO World Podcast, Ian Bremmer sits down with Jennifer Sciubba, President & CEO of the Population Reference Bureau, to discuss declining fertility, the aging crisis, and why government efforts all over the world to get people to have more babies don’t seem to be working. Is a slow-moving crisis inevitable? What does all this mean for the future of immigration, women's rights, and global power? Most importantly, is it even possible to turn back the demographic clock, or is it time to start adapting to support the populations we already have?
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
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Scott Galloway on population decline and the secret sauce of US success
The United States is already feeling the effects of population decline, and in an interview with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World, tech expert and NYU Professor Scott Galloway warns that we're verging on "population negative."
With many people choosing not to have kids due to financial constraints, Galloway suggests that AI may be a solution. He points to countries like Japan and Italy that are already experiencing negative population growth and are feeling the negative effects.
To counter this trend, Galloway proposes creating a context of economic security that provides more opportunities for young people to have families.
But he doesn't stop there, arguing that immigration is a key part of the solution that has driven the US economy in the past, while other countries that refuse to open their borders to immigrants, like Japan, have suffered.
Catch Bremmer's full interview with Galloway in this week's episode of "GZERO World with Ian Bremmer," airing on public television stations nationwide. Check local listings.
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