If I new what AIM was and where to get it and how to install it, I'd let you yammer at me directly!
If things are going along well and then boom - only a few people can have babies - the economic effects would take a longer period of time to flow through. There's the initial thing of people not buying pregnancy and child-related goods and services - hospitals, beds, clothing etc. But further down the track, there'd be serious dislocation as people die and noone is replacing them in the workplace. Similar effects to a high dependency ratio but more rapid and dramatic (ie one decade instead of 3-4). This effect would come about if no other physical resources are pulled out of the economy - e.g. infrastructure, factories etc still functioning and the problem comes from a virus or microbe that only effects human reproduction (kinda like myomitosis for rabbits). If there is physical destruction, then the short-term effects of that destruction could potentially be massive economically.
More likely the social policy effects would flow through first - increase immigration, increased medical research to fix the problem and in the meantime find people to donate eggs and sperm, grow babies outside the womb etc, cloning. Encourage the 25% who are fertile to have many babies through some type of financial incentives. Depending on the political and social climate of the time, you could get any number of permutations of policy and I'm sure that there are some scenarios that would be less-than-respectful of individual rights.
no subject
Date: 23 Nov 2004 05:02 am (UTC)If things are going along well and then boom - only a few people can have babies - the economic effects would take a longer period of time to flow through. There's the initial thing of people not buying pregnancy and child-related goods and services - hospitals, beds, clothing etc. But further down the track, there'd be serious dislocation as people die and noone is replacing them in the workplace. Similar effects to a high dependency ratio but more rapid and dramatic (ie one decade instead of 3-4). This effect would come about if no other physical resources are pulled out of the economy - e.g. infrastructure, factories etc still functioning and the problem comes from a virus or microbe that only effects human reproduction (kinda like myomitosis for rabbits). If there is physical destruction, then the short-term effects of that destruction could potentially be massive economically.
More likely the social policy effects would flow through first - increase immigration, increased medical research to fix the problem and in the meantime find people to donate eggs and sperm, grow babies outside the womb etc, cloning. Encourage the 25% who are fertile to have many babies through some type of financial incentives. Depending on the political and social climate of the time, you could get any number of permutations of policy and I'm sure that there are some scenarios that would be less-than-respectful of individual rights.
Gotta go to class but will check in when I can.