COVID won’t change the working world, but fertility rates might

Here is a good, long, often-drastic article from The New York Times about global demographic shifts, fertility rates, replacement rates, and the like. Let me pull-quote the essence of said article for you:

The strain of longer lives and low fertility, leading to fewer workers and more retirees, threatens to upend how societies are organized — around the notion that a surplus of young people will drive economies and help pay for the old. It may also require a reconceptualization of family and nation. Imagine entire regions where everyone is 70 or older. Imagine governments laying out huge bonuses for immigrants and mothers with lots of children. Imagine a gig economy filled with grandparents and Super Bowl ads promoting procreation.

Most people read that and it feels hella drastic, because issues of demographics at the individual level are akin to unemployment rate discussions. If you have a job, you’re “1” not “zero,” and you tend to not care. If you don’t have a job, you care. Unless you’re an economist or some type of analyst, what the hell does unemployment rate matter to you? You earn income or you don’t. Next question.

It’s the same with these demographic discussions. You know how many kids you have and how big your family is, and you know how many seem reasonable, even though…