Why are populations around the world getting smaller?
And in many countries, there are less and less people every year.
That is today's topic.
Hello and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
I'm Oliver and you're in the podcast where we explore the world in simple, clear English to help you learn and enjoy the language.
So we're going to talk about a global issue today that you might have heard about before, but maybe in not too much detail.
And that is declining populations.
So what does it mean?
Why are there fewer people being born in many countries?
And what does it mean for the future?
We'll be using some examples and looking at specific countries such as South Korea today, because it's one of the countries in the world that are facing these problems at a very high level into the future.
But this issue, this problem is happening all over the world.
In Japan, Italy, China, many parts of Europe and even the US.
So come and join me on this interesting topic and we're going to learn some new words, new phrases and, as always, practice our English listening skills.
So first, before we start, as I always do, I'm going to explain some difficult words and phrases.
And I want you to listen for some of these useful words and phrases as we go through the episode.
So I will try to use them.
So do try to listen for them.
Okay, the first one that I have noted down is birth rate.
Birth rate is the number of babies born for every 1000 people each year.
So it's basically the rate of births.
So how many births there are for a number of the population.
For example, the birth rate in this country has dropped, it's decreased to a record low.
The next phrase I want you to listen for is aging population.
Aging population.
And this is when the average age of people in a country of the population, it's getting older.
So the average age of someone is increasing and increasing over time.
The third word or phrase that I want you to remember and learn is fertility rate.
And this is the average number of children that a woman has in her lifetime.
So, as we will see a little bit later, there are some countries with a fertility rate of less than one child per woman in the population throughout their life, which is crazy low.
Another word which is great that you should listen out for is urbanization.
And this is when more people live in cities instead of in the countryside.
So urbanization has changed the way people live and work.
And finally, the last new word that is quite hard is subsidy.
Subsidy.
And subsidy is money that the government gives to help people.
Some countries give childcare subsidies to support families so the government helps to pay for childcare to help people to have more children.
Okay, so those are the words.
There are going to be many more phrases and words throughout this episode, but there are a couple of key ones that I want you to listen for, and we're going to get started into our main topic in just a second, so let's go to well before.
Very quickly, before we get into our main topic, i want to remind you that if you would like more advanced topics like this one, you can support on patreon for a very small amount of money.
You can support the project Easy English and get access to all of the bonus episodes there, as well as News in Easy English, where we talk about more difficult topics and I teach you more vocabulary as well.
So a lot of bonus content and it helps this project and show.
Okay, back to our episode.
Trying still trying not to cough i've had a little bit of a chest cough over the last few weeks.
So a declining population.
A declining population means that fewer people are being born and the total number of people in a country is starting to decrease.
It's starting to go down, to decrease.
So a declining population is a population that is getting smaller over time.
And in the past, most countries had large families, so much bigger families.
People had four, five, or even in some cases, six children.
That's a lot.
But now in many places around the world, couples are choosing to have only one child, maybe two, but in most cases as little as one child, or sometimes none at all.
So why is this happening?
It's what i want to look at today, because there are so many reasons in so many different countries, as to why people are having less children.
And before we start, i'm not going to be giving like my opinion on what i think is right or wrong, because i think having children is a deeply personal choice and it isn't for everyone.
So this episode, this podcast, it's not about whether it's good or bad.
It's more looking at the reasons and the effects of what this means for the future and for many countries around the world.
So in modern societies, life is expensive and it's becoming more and more expensive.
In most countries and most cases, childcare costs money.
Whether it's paid for by taxes or your own money, it costs money and we all pay for it in some way.
And housing and accommodation, so apartments or rent or even mortgage payments.
They are expensive and increasing all around the world.
People are working long hours.
They have intense jobs.
It takes a lot of their energy and time to build a career.
And in some cultures people are choosing careers, travel or a little bit more financial freedom rather than having children or starting a family.
So I do understand absolutely why in so many countries the amount of children is becoming less and less.
And this brings us to our case study of South Korea.
So South Korea now has the lowest fertility rate in the world.
It's less than 0.8 children per woman.
So the way to think about this is and when I first saw this, I thought, whoa, that's crazy.
It's low.
But when you think about it, when we have couples or a husband and a wife or partners, there are two people.
And if they have one child, once they die in the future, there will be one child from them.
So 50%.
They've cut their population in half.
If everyone starts having one child and some no children at all, and the average is one child then the population within a few generations will cut in half, like 50 percent, unless they have immigration or people moving to that country.
So it is.
It has huge effects and in this case of south korea, the average couple is having less than one child And to keep the population at the same level, that number needs to be 21.
It needs to be slightly higher just on average than the number of people.
So this is a big problem for an economy, for the money that they're making, the amount of people working and for society as a whole.
It can be very problematic.
So why does this happen?
So in South Korea, particularly from what I have read online, there is a big work culture, so a very hard working society.
And often people can work long hours and work life balance can be very difficult.
So, as a result, it puts a lot of pressure on people and it can be quite hard to find that time to raise a child.
So to have a child and to look after them as they grow.
So that time, that work-life balance that we've talked about in other episodes becomes a lot harder.
And with urban living too, so many countries around the world, people have limited space.
So they live in apartments and the space with large populations in these urban areas.
It makes apartments and houses in those areas more expensive.
And as a result, it can become very expensive to have a family and to raise children in the city.
So those are just a few reasons.
Essentially, when a country creates an environment where it is very expensive or difficult to have a child, of course people will have less children.
Whether there is war, for example, or violence, there's uncertainty and feelings of worry about the future.
People are less likely to have more children.
And then, after a country's situation improves for example, a war ends there's usually a big boost in the number of children, a big increase, a boost in the number.
It increases at a fast rate.
So why does this matter, this declining population, this decrease in the number of people with less children?
A declining population sounds quite peaceful.
Maybe at first you might think, wow, this is going to be great.
There's going to be less people, which means less traffic, less pollution into the environment and more jobs for the less amount of people.
But it's not that simple.
Here are some of the problems that happen when a population shrinks.
And keep in mind, this is pretty new.
It hasn't really happened in history before.
So what we are experiencing with decreases in population is very new.
It's something that we are learning as we go and something that we will see the effects of as time progresses.
Okay, some of the problems that might happen and that in most cases will happen is that there won't be enough workers.
Fewer.
Younger people means fewer people working, fewer working age workers, fewer of the working age population.
And this can slow down the economy.
It will slow down economic growth and create job shortages.
So areas in the population where there are not enough people working in them.
And it's almost impossible to get people to fill those roles, because there simply are not enough people.
And this is a problem.
It's a big problem.
And many countries that have declining population try to increase and encourage immigration as well.
So people moving to their country to fill those gaps, those increasing gaps in jobs.
And with fewer young people, there will be an aging population.
This is one of our words an aging population, which means the average age of the population is higher.
We have more old people and less young people.
And old people.
Of course, they need to be looked after.
In most cases they aren't working and, as a result, they need pensions.
They need support from the government.
They also because they are older and have more health issues.
As they get older, they need health care which, in many cultures and countries, is provided by the government.
So this has to be paid for by the younger people, by the workers.
And that's how it works.
The next generation pays for the previous.
And this continues.
But we are about to have a time, for the first time in history, where there are less younger people in many countries paying for more older people.
So it becomes difficult to provide this support.
And, as a result, in many countries, including South Korea, in the future, people may have to work even when they are retired.
So people who usually would have pensions, they may not have them anymore.
It may not be affordable.
Another thing which may happen, another sort of point to consider, is that schools and cities will change.
So without young people, schools will close.
Daycares will close. and towns will get smaller.
Urban areas will probably still grow.
These cities, but villages and towns and smaller areas will probably die.
They will get smaller and become MC.
And this is already being seen in some countries around the world.
So, of course, with this change and with these problems coming, governments are starting to worry and they're trying to fix the problem.
It's interesting to me because I think even when I was a child, most of the talk was about overpopulation, having too many people.
But this has changed.
It has since changed.
We are no longer having a risk or a problem with overpopulation.
We are having a problem with decreasing population.
It's very different.
Okay, we're going to look at how this might be fixed.
How can we fix it and improve the situation?
But first, before we do that, I want to say that if you are listening and you're not following this podcast, make sure to hit follow on Spotify or Apple or YouTube, wherever you are listening, and rate the podcast five stars.
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Okay, back to our episode and back to declining populations.
Can it be fixed?
Can we fix this problem of declining populations?
Well, if we look at South Korea as an example, they have tried many things.
The government has tried a lot of things.
They've offered childcare subsidies, money to pay for childcare or to help pay housing support for young couples, so helping them with the housing cost, and even money for having a baby.
But so far, these government programs have not really worked very well.
And experts say that in most countries, there needs to be some kind of cultural change.
So, for example, with work life balance, that approach to work and life balance.
And there needs to be less pressure on parents, especially mothers and more flexible workplaces.
There are some countries that have had success with this, notably Sweden and France, and they have very generous parental leave.
So when you have a child, you can take time off work to help settle the child at home and to help them through those initial months.
They have good childcare systems as well and a lot of support for working parents.
But what about other countries?
We've talked a lot about South Korea and, for any South Korean listeners out there, I absolutely love South Korea.
I would love to visit and to travel in your country.
I think it's an amazing country with some fantastic media movies music, a wonderful, wonderful culture.
So I absolutely love South Korea.
But what about other countries?
There are many countries, even example of Japan, which has had similar issues with declining population.
Even Russia, as well and Ukraine.
A lot of Eastern European countries have had issues with population rate.
So that fertility rate we talked about earlier, which leads to the lower birth rate.
And even countries like China as well, which had a one child policy for a long time.
And this will have a big effect in the future with these declining birth rates.
And even countries like the UK and the US have declining birth rates, a little bit less so than many countries, but it still is a declining number or declining birth rates.
But these countries are still growing because of immigration, because of people moving to the US and the UK, for example.
So what does the future look like for declining populations?
To be honest, no one knows for sure.
And when I was researching this topic, looking at it online, it's quite hard to see a realistic output, a realistic outcome.
And some say that we will need to rely more on immigration, more on people moving from countries that have growing populations, to keep populations stable.
Others say that technology like robots or ai can help support an aging society, populations with less people.
But one thing is clear
The way that we live is definitely changing, in my opinion.
And how we handle this population decline, it will really shape the future.
It's going to change how our countries look.
It will change the economy.
It will change the workforce.
It will change everything.
So if we don't do something and to combat so, to work against this trend of population decline and it could have catastrophic impacts on our economies and on our countries.
So by catastrophic i mean very intense, bad impacts, terrible impacts on our economies and countries.
So what do you think?
Should governments do more to support families?
Should we try to grow our populations again?
Or should we accept that they're going to get smaller with time?
I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions in the comments.
Are you from a country that has a declining population as well?
And why do you think it is happening?
I'm really, really curious.
And remember, if you want to listen again, you can take some notes, look at those vocabulary words.
And if you would like to see the vocabulary list as well as some useful phrases from the episode.
As always, the link is in the description to the vocabulary list.
It's free of charge and there to read. and it is in the link right below.
So thank you so much for supporting me, for joining me in this episode today on this interesting topic.
I hope that it was a cool theme for you and that you learned some new words about population and about this topic of a country's population.
It's a very interesting topic to me, so I hope you got some pleasure and enjoyment from it.
Thank you for your support as always.
If you want to check out the Patreon, the link is in the description below.
And I will see you in the next episode of the Easy English Podcast.
Have a fantastic rest of your day.
Goodbye.
