Russian President Vladimir Putin is urging Russians to have more children. 
"Large families must become the norm," Putin said in a speech Tuesday. 
Russian birth rates are falling amid war in Ukraine and a deepening economic crisis. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin is urging women to have as many as eight children as the number of dead Russian soldiers continues to rise in his war with Ukraine, worsening the country’s population crisis.

Addressing the World Russian People’s Council in Moscow on Tuesday, Putin said the country must return to a time when large families were the norm.

“Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, had seven, eight, or even more children,” Putin said.

  • Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    The crisis is that without enough babies, there will not be enough young people to support the older people. It is why places like Canada have such high immigration as it offsets the lack of births from Canadian citizens. Now, it is a crisis from a planet health perspective. No. It is the best thing that could happen right now as we really could use less people and their associated carbon emissions, but it will still impact the economy hard especially since it is becoming a steep birth rate decline in so many countries. Feels like a free fall right now and to address is going to take as much change as it will take to fix the climate emergency. Might even have some of the same solutions.

    • RBWells@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I say this as someone who had lots of kids - you cannot build an economy on a continuous explosion of population. That is ridiculous. There are enough people - the population of the earth has more than doubled in my lifetime. I’d much rather work till I die, than tell someone else they must reproduce. Let people who want kids have them, let people who don’t want kids not have any, it’s working out and population growth has slowed and hopefully population will decrease. That’s fine, yes many of us will be old at once, that’s not the fault of the non-reproducing people. There wouldn’t be fewer old people even if everyone had kids, it has to happen before things settle back out.

      • Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Very much agree. Besides, it is looking like we really are entering an era of significant human life extension if you believe all the longevity breakthroughs.

    • Tinidril@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      The crisis is that without enough babies, there will not be enough young people to support the older people.

      So you didn’t read a word I said beyond the first sentence. Got it.

      • Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I do not understand your comment as my comment was building upon yours as you went down the billion support path and I just added the old age pension path.

      • Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Maybe. There is serious breakthroughs with longevity tech with aging and diseases perhaps being a thing of the past in the decades to come. Maybe.