Jarenlang werd ons verteld dat de aarde overvol raakt. Dat er simpelweg te veel mensen zijn, met hongersnood, oorlogen en uitgeputte grondstoffen als gevolg. Maar inmiddels zijn we bezorgder over het tegenovergestelde: wat als er straks juist te weinig mensen zijn?
Wereldwijd krijgen vrouwen steeds minder kinderen. In veel landen ligt het geboortecijfer inmiddels onder het niveau dat nodig is om de bevolking op peil te houden. Ook in Europa is die trend al jaren zichtbaar. Italië, Griekenland en Duitsland kampen ermee, maar ook landen als Japan, Zuid-Korea en China zien hun bevolking krimpen.
En dat roept een ongemakkelijke vraag op: wie houdt straks de samenleving draaiende?
Waar de Amerikaanse bioloog Paul Ehrlich in 1968 nog waarschuwde voor een ‘bevolkingsbom’, blijkt de werkelijkheid heel anders uit te pakken. Het gemiddelde aantal kinderen per vrouw is wereldwijd sinds 1950 meer dan gehalveerd.
Dat klinkt misschien niet direct als een probleem. Mensen leven immers langer dan ooit dankzij medische vooruitgang, betere gezondheidszorg en vaccinaties. Maar juist daardoor ontstaat een nieuwe uitdaging: vergrijzing.
Steeds meer mensen bereiken een hoge leeftijd, terwijl er minder jonge mensen bijkomen. Dat betekent dat een relatief kleine groep werkenden straks moet zorgen voor een steeds grotere groep ouderen.
Waarom krijgen mensen minder kinderen?
De discussie over lage geboortecijfers wordt vaak gevoerd alsof mensen simpelweg geen kinderen meer wíllen. Maar onderzoek laat een ander beeld zien.
Veel mensen willen wel degelijk een gezin stichten, maar ervaren grote obstakels. Denk aan torenhoge huizenprijzen, onzekere arbeidscontracten, dure kinderopvang, ongelijkheid tussen mannen en vrouwen en zorgen over klimaatverandering.
Volgens een onderzoek van de Verenigde Naties zegt ongeveer een op de vijf mensen wereldwijd dat angst voor de toekomst invloed heeft op het aantal kinderen dat zij krijgen.
Dat maakt de situatie volgens experts schrijnender dan vaak wordt gedacht. Het probleem is niet dat mensen massaal afzien van ouderschap uit gemakzucht, maar dat velen het gevoel hebben dat de omstandigheden er simpelweg niet naar zijn.
Wat hebben jonge gezinnen nodig?
Een eenmalige babybonus of financiële tegemoetkoming blijkt nauwelijks effect te hebben op het uiteindelijke aantal kinderen dat mensen krijgen. Structurele oplossingen lijken belangrijker.
Betaalbare woningen, inkomenszekerheid, toegankelijke kinderopvang, meer gelijkheid op de werkvloer en geloofwaardig klimaatbeleid worden steeds vaker genoemd als voorwaarden waaronder mensen zich veilig genoeg voelen om aan kinderen te beginnen.
Misschien is dat wel de kern van het probleem: een gebrek aan vertrouwen in de toekomst.
Dus als we echt willen begrijpen waarom de geboortecijfers dalen, moeten we misschien stoppen met mensen vertellen dat ze meer kinderen moeten krijgen en beginnen met vragen wat ze nodig hebben om die keuze überhaupt te kunnen maken.
Bron: Phys.org
peaceful-jp-scenery posted a photo:
Nakasendo, Michinoeki Wadajuku station
中山道・道の駅 和田宿ステーション
I saw a rare roof made of stones. I don't know what kind of effect does it have.
和田宿の特産物直売所になります。美味しいお蕎麦を頂きました。お餅やおやきもありますよ。
Nagawa-machi, Nagano pref, Japan
peaceful-jp-scenery has added a photo to the pool:
Nakasendo, Michinoeki Wadajuku station
中山道・道の駅 和田宿ステーション
I saw a rare roof made of stones. I don't know what kind of effect does it have.
和田宿の特産物直売所になります。美味しいお蕎麦を頂きました。お餅やおやきもありますよ。
Nagawa-machi, Nagano pref, Japan
He moved from Nigeria to middle England and was swept up into the rave scene – then battled through incarceration and near-death illness. After making 500 tracks while living on porridge and lettuce, he explains how he kept going
Ibrahim Alfa Jr had been feeling unwell for a while – he’d been coughing up blood – but he says he only realised how ill he was when the facial recognition on his phone stopped working, because it could no longer recognise his face. When he went to visit his sister in 2022, she was so shocked by his appearance, she took him straight to A&E. He was suffering from anaphylaxis, a severe and potentially fatal allergic reaction: moreover, he had a pulmonary embolism that was causing his lung to fill up with blood. “I thought: oh my God, that’s literally what killed Andy Weatherall,” he says today. Like Weatherall once was, Alfa Jr is a veteran star of British rave culture. “So, like, wow.”
The embolism treated, he was sent home, but still wasn’t feeling right. The weekend after, a second pulmonary embolism was found on his other lung. The weekend after that, he had a heart attack. Then he had a second heart attack. Returning home, he discovered he’d become “allergic to everything. Even water was swelling my face,” he says. “You just don’t know what you can eat, so I just lived on porridge and lettuce leaves for three months, and didn’t see anybody. I just locked myself in a room, and a friend would bring me porridge and lettuce leaves. I only went out to go to the doctors. Any type of social life, of seeing other humans just disappeared. It was that visceral.”
Continue reading...This study of author Andri Snær Magnason is somewhat indulgent, with endless musings where piercing climate crisis commentary should be
Is Iceland dying? Is the world dying? These would appear to be the very relevant questions behind this well-intentioned but ultimately exasperating and obtuse documentary from National Geographic, which is burdened with tasteful NatGeo stateliness and visually pleasing production values.
It is directed by film-maker Sara Dosa, whose earlier documentary Fire of Love was about doomed vulcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft, who in 1991 perished in the eruption they were studying. Now Dosa has made a study of award-winning Icelandic climate author Andri Snær Magnason, whose book on climate change Of Time And Water was published in 2019 and who wrote a piercingly sad “obituary” of the Ok glacier, the first Icelandic glacier completely to disappear. It very clearly won’t be the last.
Continue reading...
Voetbalvereniging CWO in Vlaardingen is het vandalisme op zijn sportcomplex zat. Na maanden van overlast en vernielingen is op het terrein extra cameratoezicht geplaatst. De club hoopt daarmee een einde te maken aan de schade, die volgens vrijwilligers vrijwel wekelijks wordt aangericht.
The UK government is about to unleash an AI-powered CV writer on jobseekers in the hope that the technology taking jobs can also help people to find them. Prime minister Keir Starmer used London Tech Week to announce a three-month trial of an "AI Work Assistant" that officials say will put "a job centre in your pocket," offering around-the-clock help with CV writing, applications, job searches, and career advice. The service is already live online, though the government would like users to keep a few things in mind before handing the keyboard to a large language model: check whether the employer allows AI-assisted applications, make sure the generated content is accurate, and perhaps most challenging of all, rewrite it so it still sounds like you. The government, in effect, is encouraging job seekers to use AI while reminding them not to make it obvious. The service appears to be the latest step in Whitehall's growing enthusiasm for AI-powered public services. Earlier this year, the government confirmed it was working with Anthropic on a chatbot for job seekers, and more recently it launched "GOV.UK Chat," a generative AI assistant bolted into the GOV.UK app that it is boldly pitching as the "most comprehensive government-built chat tool in the world." Whitehall's latest experiment arrives as young workers face the toughest jobs market in years. Official figures show youth unemployment has climbed to 16.2 percent, the highest level in more than a decade, while business groups have repeatedly warned that rising employment costs are making firms more cautious about hiring. "No one doubts the huge potential of tech to change lives," Starmer is expected to say. "But we have to decide who that change is for. This government's choice is clear: the tech revolution must work for everyone, not just a privileged few. We're backing British businesses to lead the way, driving growth and investment that turns into more jobs and stronger communities." He added that ministers were using technology to "bring opportunity to every corner of the country" by helping people into work, boosting skills, and tackling inequality. Alongside the AI assistant, ministers announced AI and technology training for up to 400,000 pupils in disadvantaged schools and a new AI bootcamp program for young people at risk of falling out of education, employment, or training. The announcement comes as ministers are simultaneously grappling with growing concern about AI's impact on the labor market. A recent survey found that almost one in five Britons believe widespread AI-driven layoffs could trigger civil unrest, while more than half expect the technology to reduce the number of available jobs. Those concerns are unlikely to disappear any time soon. The same technology companies building AI systems to automate workplace tasks are increasingly pitching those tools as replacements for at least some human work, particularly the administrative and entry-level roles that traditionally provide a route into employment. Whether employers are eager to receive applications drafted by the same technology they are increasingly deploying to screen candidates remains to be seen. The labor market may yet become an arms race between applicants using AI and recruiters using AI to filter out applicants using AI. Somewhere in the middle, a human being is presumably still expected to get hired. ®
The UK government is about to unleash an AI-powered CV writer on jobseekers in the hope that the technology taking jobs can also help people to find them. Prime minister Keir Starmer used London Tech Week to announce a three-month trial of an "AI Work Assistant" that officials say will put "a job centre in your pocket," offering around-the-clock help with CV writing, applications, job searches, and career advice. The service is already live online, though the government would like users to keep a few things in mind before handing the keyboard to a large language model: check whether the employer allows AI-assisted applications, make sure the generated content is accurate, and perhaps most challenging of all, rewrite it so it still sounds like you. The government, in effect, is encouraging job seekers to use AI while reminding them not to make it obvious. The service appears to be the latest step in Whitehall's growing enthusiasm for AI-powered public services. Earlier this year, the government confirmed it was working with Anthropic on a chatbot for job seekers, and more recently it launched "GOV.UK Chat," a generative AI assistant bolted into the GOV.UK app that it is boldly pitching as the "most comprehensive government-built chat tool in the world." Whitehall's latest experiment arrives as young workers face the toughest jobs market in years. Official figures show youth unemployment has climbed to 16.2 percent, the highest level in more than a decade, while business groups have repeatedly warned that rising employment costs are making firms more cautious about hiring. "No one doubts the huge potential of tech to change lives," Starmer is expected to say. "But we have to decide who that change is for. This government's choice is clear: the tech revolution must work for everyone, not just a privileged few. We're backing British businesses to lead the way, driving growth and investment that turns into more jobs and stronger communities." He added that ministers were using technology to "bring opportunity to every corner of the country" by helping people into work, boosting skills, and tackling inequality. Alongside the AI assistant, ministers announced AI and technology training for up to 400,000 pupils in disadvantaged schools and a new AI bootcamp program for young people at risk of falling out of education, employment, or training. The announcement comes as ministers are simultaneously grappling with growing concern about AI's impact on the labor market. A recent survey found that almost one in five Britons believe widespread AI-driven layoffs could trigger civil unrest, while more than half expect the technology to reduce the number of available jobs. Those concerns are unlikely to disappear any time soon. The same technology companies building AI systems to automate workplace tasks are increasingly pitching those tools as replacements for at least some human work, particularly the administrative and entry-level roles that traditionally provide a route into employment. Whether employers are eager to receive applications drafted by the same technology they are increasingly deploying to screen candidates remains to be seen. The labor market may yet become an arms race between applicants using AI and recruiters using AI to filter out applicants using AI. Somewhere in the middle, a human being is presumably still expected to get hired. ®