Essay On Childlessness

Many scientist and specifically sociologists are concerned with the population on planet Earth. Many couples today are choosing not to have children. This choice does not just effect the couples personally, however it effects the whole country's demographic. The increase in childlessness among couples generates economic and social problems. Many countries are facing this problem. Hara in a journal article mentions that Japan and Germany are a couple of the countries that are going through childlessness (Hara, 2008).Today, more than 80 countries depend on immigration to prevent the populations from declining, due to the death rate being higher than birth rate. (Becker-Posner, 2013) How will declining birth rates affect demographics in many countries around the world? How will it affect the Global economy? How will it affect societies in different countries; will it raise social and racial tensions? Will it affect relations
My original hypothesis is that low fertility in a country will cause social problems. Economies will shrink. Cities may also shrink in size. Nations will become poorer. Taxes for the fewer working people could be so high as to cause major discontent and further help to expand an underground economy. Resentment against pensioners could grow or pensions could be decreased or even eliminated forcing older people to continue working until their health no longer allowed them to continue. Already, many older people have chosen to stay in the work force due to having insufficient pension funds.

Literature review
Many sociologists have published books and journals discussing the phenomenon. Some articles show reasons why this is occurring in specific countries. In Toshihiko Hara's article :"Increasing Chi...

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... active workforce. In this scenario, the number of aged people needing care from the younger generation would be relatively high. The situation implies that the aged people would have to work past their retirement ages and take care of themselves. There are consequences associated with overworking at old age such as developing illnesses and eventual premature loss of life. The premature loss of life lowers the life expectancy of a country. In this regard, voluntary childlessness reduces the number of people in the community. The long term effect of the situation is that it lowers life expectancy in adults.

Moreover, childlessness and the falling birthrate causes seniors to outnumber the young people. This will lead to the increase of immigration, which is needed to fill the job positions which cannot be filled with locals because they are either too old or died.