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Dana A. Glei's avatar

Good for you, Jenn, for addressing it head on! (My spouse has a good explanation for what I do. I use it almost every time I introduce myself as a demographer. As he says, "Demographers study people being born, people moving, and people dying.") I usually go on to explain that I focus on the people dying part. That is my research is focused mostly on health, aging, and mortality

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Jenn Dowd, PhD's avatar

Thanks Dana, that's a great concise definition, will hold in to that one! #Demographyproblems

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Feminist Science's avatar

OMG, in high school all we heard about was how 'overpopulated' the world was and how birth rate needed to slow down. Then our corporate overlords began to panic and fear-mongered the falling birthrate. But the population is still growing!!

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Jenn Dowd, PhD's avatar

I know, right?!

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Laurie Blackwell's avatar

Fascinating. 🧐

Thank you for, among other things, resetting the current fear factor on “financially enticing adults to have more babies”.

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Jenn Dowd, PhD's avatar

It's funny that people don't question whether relatively small amounts of money will change people's mind one way or another on such a fundamental thing.

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Carlos Mendes de Leon's avatar

I virtually attended a webinar by Dean Spears, economist at the University of Texas Austin, who talked about the impending "collapse of the human species", projecting the sharp decrease in the size of the human population if the low fertility rates currently seen in a number of HIC expand across the entire globe. See his book on the topic "After the Spike" Simon & Schuster. Worth taking a look at, and more of a doom scenario then this post suggests... A different projection, a different viewpoint, is that still okay?

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Jenn Dowd, PhD's avatar

Thanks Carlos- Yes, I am aware of that book and its general gist-- I think it's fair to say their take is not shared by most demographers. But I am all for earnest and thoughtful discussion, so would look forward to engaging on the details at some point in the future.

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R. Chad Swanson's avatar

“ let’s focus on health and well-being of all. “ thanks

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