Could under-population occur?

Question

If the world human population began falling rapidly, due to ecological disaster or disease, without any other physical damage to the world, at what point would our numbers be too low to sustain the world economy and civilization?

Answer 1

It depends on the nation. A nation like ours which is highly automated could survive significant population loss. But societies based on manually intensive work, would suffer extensively. At some point though the impact is too great. The survivors would have a fairly rough time too. If a third of the worlds population died there would be mass panic. Look at the Black Death in Europe.

Answer 2

world economies are based around the cultures in existance anyway, so that would never be an issue . . .

for example, you can have an economy within the last 100 people on the planet . . . it would be based, in that instant, on labour . . . a bit how it is today anyway . . . obviously . . .

same applies to civilisation . . . define civilisation (which can be any group of people with a sustained culture), and it really wont matter how many people you have . . .

the world is underpopulated based on person-to-land mass anyhow . . . its only a matter of time before they say, "feck it - lets make the deserts seriously habitable" . . . once that happens, youll have a thinning of population, but that will based on density per population anyway . . .

we as humans have an uncanny knack to make the best out of anything . . . unfortunately (in my mind) the only thing that will cut the fat from the world population is going to be an outside source . . . and as dumb as it sounds, it looks like itll be an asteroid . . .

the world population will never fall to dangerous levels, because we have the upper hand of the food chain, and we're really willing to breed . . . we'll be here either until the sun kills us or until my asteroid hits us . . .

sleep tight . . .

Answer 3

Yes it is happening now in some Eastern Europe countries. The Russian government is encouraging women to have children and talking about paying couples a bonus for having a secong child. Underpopulation can be very detrimental to a country's economy because there will eventually be less people to fill jobs and create the products that bring a country their wealth.

Answer 4

I don't think we have to worry about under population. Both biblical and scientific fact suggest that the humans population has been down to as little as 2 humans and bounced back from that.

Answer 5

yes it can occur , if it occurs due to disease the population of the world could reach 50 000 peolple then every one would probably have 50 homes . and about 100 cars each .... and that is 50 000 for the entire globe..

Answer 6

I'm guessing it will hold up til it's below a billion. Yes, those left could probably still survive, but civilization would be downsized A LOT, maybe even to the point where we can't live half as comfortably.

Answer 7

Yes, it is already happening in Europe. Italy has a negative population growth rate.

Answer 8

Trust me - isn't going to happen. 90% of the worlds population breeds like flies.

Answer 9

yes,the bird-flu will be responsible for a massive decrease.