Secular Cycles: Population

Secular Cycles, by Peter Turchin and Sergey A. Nefedov

From Chapter One (page 19):

Most broadly the cycle can be divided into two opposite trends. In the literature these are sometimes called the positive "A Phase" and the negative "B phase," but we prefer the more descriptive terms integrative and disintegrative trends.

The population tends to increase during the integrative phase and decline or stagnate during the disintegrative one.

 

 

ABC News:

22 December 2020

US population growth smallest in at least 120 years

The U.S. population grew by the smallest rate in at least 120 years from 2019 to 2020, according to figures released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau — a trend that demographers say provides a glimpse of the coronavirus pandemic’s toll.

Population growth in the U.S. already was stagnant over the past several years due to immigration restrictions and a dip in fertility, but coronavirus-related deaths exacerbated that lethargic-growth trend, said William Frey, a senior fellow at The Brooking Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.

“I think it’s a first glimpse of where we may be heading as far as low population growth," Frey said. “It’s telling you that this is having an impact on population."

The U.S. population grew by 0.35% from July 2019 to July 2020, an increase of 1.1 million people in a nation whose estimated population in July was more than 329 million residents, according to Census Bureau estimates.

...

From The Economics of Population Growth by Jonathan Rochford:

At the most basic level, population growth increases the total size of the economy including the demand for labour. There are more people purchasing goods and services so the economy grows to meet that demand. Politicians are positively disposed to population growth as it allows them to boast about economic growth and job growth...

However, this is a very shallow line of thinking ...

 Amen, brother.

From The Role of Population in Economic Growth by E. Wesley F. Peterson:

In his important book on inequality, Thomas Piketty (2014) observes that economic growth “ . . . always includes a purely demographic component and a purely economic component, and only the latter allows for an improvement in the standard of living” (p. 72). Economic growth is measured by changes in a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which can be decomposed into its population and economic elements by writing it as population times per capita GDP.

Right. That's a version of "growth accounting".

There is no greater hypocrisy than to proclaim one's desire to improve the economy when one's solution is to boost GDP by boosting the population, which of course does nothing to improve GDP per Capita.

Meanwhile, slow population growth itself is an indicator that society is entering, or has already entered its "B" phase, the disintegrative phase of the "secular cycle", the "The End Is Near" phase.

Toynbee of course says that our civilization does not have to follow in the footsteps of the 20-odd other civilizations he identifies, none of which survived. Dunno yet what Turchin and Nefedov say on that topic.